Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/382

 o76 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Letters and Times of the Tylers.

A REVIEW, BY JUDGE \VM. ARCHER COCKE, FLORIDA,

The above work by Lyon G. Tyler, son of John Tyler, President of the United States, is in two large volumes. As the title imports, it is biographic and historic, embracing the philosophic bearing of those political questions which were prominent in the constitu- tional and practical administration of State and Federal govern- ment.

The two distinguished men forming the subject of the work, father and son, were of the State of Virginia. The name is historic in England, as in America ; the American branch claiming descent from the celebrated Wat Tyler. Biographically the work begins with John Tyler, Judge of the United States District Court of Vir- ginia, the father of the President. The position occupied by the ■ colony, and subsequently State of Virginia, in the early and revolu tionary history of the country, is not only national, but forms a beautiful picture in that political philosophy which adorns our con- stitutional forms and principles of government, and should address itself to the admiration of the enlightened patriot of every country of this age, as it excited and propelled the minds and hearts of those who acted in establishing those principles of constitutional and moral freedom which now blesses the subsequent generations basking under their mild and soft, yet strong and brilliant rays.

Judge Tyler was elected Governor of Virginia in the year 1808. He was three times elected to that office, and subsequently appointed, after his resignation as governor, Judge of the United States District Court, under a commission from President Madison. This was the second appointment he had received to the Federal Bench, which he retained until his death.

The selection of letters, judiciously made by the careful writer of the work under consideration, between Judge Tyler and Presidents Madison and Jefferson, forms a very interesting personal, biographic, and political feature of the work, and illustrates the combination of those elements in the literature, as well as the philosophy of the times, and its history. Judge Tyler not only enjoyed the friendship of such men as Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, and Roane, but was very much admired by them, not only for his high order of talent, but for those exalted moral qualities which constitute the great necessary virtues which render public men truly useful in official