John Randolph Tucker (1823-1897)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Randolph Tucker was born in Winchester, Virginia on December 24, 1823, the son of Henry St. George Tucker, and grandson of St. George Tucker. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1844 and married Laura Powell in 1848. They had a single son, Henry St. George Tucker, III and several daughters. Tucker was attorney general of Virginia from 1857 to 1865.
Elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat in 1875, he served until 1887. He was chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means in the 46th Congress and chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary in the 48th and 49th Congresses. He introduced legislation broadening the power of the federal Court of Claims to hear Constitutional claims in 1886. This became known as the Tucker Act. He declined to be renominated to the House in 1886.
Tucker made an unsuccessful but legally influential argument on behalf of August Spies and the other Haymarket Riot defendants during their appeal to the Supreme Court. Elected professor of Constitutional law at Washington and Lee University in 1888, Tucker was dean of the law school from 1893 to 1897. He died in 1897 in Lexington, Virginia and is buried in Winchester. His two volume treatise, The Constitution of the United States, appeared posthumously in 1899.
[edit] Works
- Tucker, John Randolph, edited by Henry St. George Tucker (1981). The Constitution of the United States : a critical discussion of its genesis, development, and interpretation. Littleton, Colo.: F.B. Rothman, Reprint. Originally published: Chicago : Callaghan, 1899.. 0837712068.
