Further reading:
Charles T. Cullen, St. George Tucker and Law in Virginia, 1772–1804 (1987).
Davison M. Douglas, St. George Tucker (1752-1827), Encyclopedia Virginia (2008). Includes an image of a portrait of Tucker painted in 1799, a list of major works by Tucker, and a timeline.
Christopher Doyle, “Judge St. George Tucker and the Case of Tom V. Roberts: Blunting the Revolution’s Radicalism from Virginia’s District Courts,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 106, No. 4 (Autumn, 1998), pp. 419-442.
Philip Hamilton, The Making and Unmaking of a Revolutionary Family: The Tuckers of Virginia, 1752-1830 (2003).
Charles F. Hobson, “St. George Tucker, Spencer Roane, and the Virginia Court of Appeals, 1804–11,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 121, no. 1 (2013).
Hobson, “St. George Tucker: Judge, Legal Scholar, and Reformer of Virginia Law,” in Warren E. Billings and Brent Tarter, eds., “Esteemed Bookes of Lawe,” and the Legal culture of Early Virginia (2017). In this essay, Hobson “explains Tucker’s tailoring of Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England to Virginia and American settings.”
“Institute of Bill of Rights Law Symposium: St. George Tucker and his Influence on American Law,” William and Mary Law Review 47, no. 4 (February 2006).
F. Thornton Miller, Juries and Judges versus the Law: Virginia’s Provincial Legal Perspective, 1783-1828 (1994).
Ellen Holmes Pearson, Remaking Custom: Law and Identity in the Early American Republic (2011).
William S. Prince, “St. George Tucker: Bard on the Bench,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 84, no. 3 (July 1976).
Scot Powe, “St. George Tucker (1752-1827),” Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (2009).
E. Lee Shepard, “Tucker Family,” The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 10: Law and Politics, edited by James E. Ely and Bradley G. Bond, and Wilson Charles Reagan (2008).
Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (2013). Taylor draws on correspondence between St. George Tucker and Joseph C. Cabell, who married Tucker’s stepdaughter, Mary Walker Carter, in this study of slavery and resistance in early national Virginia. Joseph Cabell acquired the Carter family plantation Corotoman and a large population of enslaved workers in 1807 when he married Mary Walker Carter. Tucker clashed with his son-in-law over control and management of his step-daughter’s inheritance.
St. George Tucker, ed., Blackstone’s Commentaries with Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia, 5 vols. (1803).
Chad Vanderford, The Legacy of St. George Tucker: College professors in Virginia Confront Slavery and Rights of States, 1771-1897 (2015).
Research Collections:
Charles F. Hobson, Charles F., ed., St. George Tucker’s Law Reports and Selected Papers, 1782–1825 (2013).
Founders Online from the National Archives and Records Administration provides access to several pieces of St. George Tucker’s correspondence.
College of William and Mary (Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library)
Williamsburg, Va.
Tucker-Coleman Papers, 1664-1945; ca. 30,000 items; collection description available in online catalog record.
St. George Tucker to Joseph C. Cabell Letters, 1807-1820; 7 letters.
Includes a letter, January 2, 1811, discussing the Court of Appeals and possible new regulation requiring judges to live in Richmond. Finding aid available.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library)
Williamsburg, Va.
St. George Tucker Collection, 1771-1821; 1 vol. and 41 pieces. Finding aid available.
Library of Congress (Research and Reference Services)
Washington, DC
St. George Tucker Papers, 1776-1818; 39 items (1 microfilm reel).
Description from catalog record: “Chiefly letters (1788-1801) to Tucker from his stepson, John Randolph of Roanoke (1773-1833), relating to personal and family matters. Other correspondents include Bishop James Madison, James Monroe, and John Page. Topics include the Revolution and politics in Virginia. Also includes two copies of a poem (1818 March 20) entitled “To the Memory of General Washington.”
Library of Virginia (Personal Papers Collection)
Richmond, Va.
Coalter-Tucker Family Letters, 1802-1819; 12 leaves; finding aid available.
Virginia Museum of History and Culture
Richmond, Va.
St. George Tucker Correspondence, 1775-1779; 1 microfilm reel.
Description from catalog record: Correspondence “with individuals in Bermuda and Petersburg and Williamsburg, Va., concerning primarily naval activities during the Revolutionary War.” Microfilm made in 1959 from the originals at the Swem Library of the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. (Tucker-Coleman papers) for the U.S. Navy Department.