Tysons [Corner, in McLean, VA] is an easy target for anger, with its combination of ostentatious wealth and its utter lack of coherent planning or design. It is the very archetype of ugly American sprawl: neither truly suburban, in which a leisurely drive or stroll down a sidewalk is at least in theory possible, nor truly urban, with all of the cheek-by-jowl rough-and-tumble life and character of a city. Tysons Corner instead consists of miles of grim concrete big-box stores, parking garages, flashy towers, garish office blocks, and decaying mid-century kitsch, all lining an expanse of 10-lane expressways that will kill you instantly if you crane your neck toward the dismal view for more than a second. It is the visual equivalent of putting a Beethoven symphony and a Metallica concert in a blender and piecing them back together at random.

But what should draw more attention is the fact that the greater Washington area now boasts one of the highest concentrations of wealth anywhere in the United States, much thanks to the ginormous federal bureaucracy and National Security State which has grown exponentially since the 9/11 attacks. As of 2015, fully half of the top 10 highest-income counties in the nation are in Maryland and Virginia, within an hour of the capital. There are probably as many Teslas in Fairfax County as there are in Silicon Valley.

None of this, of course, negates the reality that there is plenty of poverty, some of it desperate, right in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. For example, there are the inner-ring suburbs of southern Maryland, largely decaying time-capsules of the 1950s which might be largely abandoned if not for people left behind by the 2008 financial crisis, low-wage workers who likely spend their days servicing their wealthy neighbors, and a deluge of poor immigrants, not all of them legal. These pockets of poverty only make the bloat and waste of the government—and its symbiosis with the sprawling, ever-increasing network of contractors, consultants, lawyers, and establishment media organs—more shameful. It is not as if these counties are rich through a roll of the dice: it is rather through what James Howard Kunstler calls “asset-stripping”—the matrix of financialization, offshoring, and an ever-increasing “Deep State” bureaucracy.

If the government should ever shrink, if the financial system should ever truly collapse, or if the military industrial complex stopped turning, this whole region would be depopulated. The “Alexandria” of The Walking Dead might prove prophetic. Without the steady flow of federal dollars, the 10-lane superhighways, luxury apartment towers, those kitschy mid-century diners, not to mention most of Loudoun and Clarke counties, would make Detroit look like a boomtown.

Tysons Corner, the Bubble Inside the Beltway Bubble

Ozymandias

George Wythe (pronounced “with”) was the personal mentor to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison (1749-1812) [a cousin to the more famous James Madison], John Marshall, and many other notable founders of the United States. Consequently, he was known as America’s “Teacher of Liberty.”

A statesman in his own right, Wythe signed the Declaration of Independence, served in the First Continental Congress, and was a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He also helped develop the Bill of Rights. While teaching at the College of William and Mary, he was the first professor to make American Constitutional Law the subject of regular instruction.

About George Wythe University

Wythe House in Colonial Williamsburg, VA, by Bradley Jones

His grave is in the yard of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, VA.
Source: America’s Founding Fathers: Virginia, National Archives

George Wythe, from William and Mary Law School

The first chair of law in America and the second in the English-speaking world was established December 4, 1779, at the College of William and Mary. The College’s board of visitors included among others Governor Thomas Jefferson, James Blair, James Madison (1749-1812) [a cousin to the more famous James Madison], Edmund Randolph, Thomas Nelson, and Benjamin Harrison. They elected as the first professor to occupy that chair George Wythe, styled by Jefferson as the American Aristides.
. . .
[Thomas] Jefferson said of Wythe, “He was my ancient master, my earliest and best friend, and to him I am indebted for first impressions which have had the most salutary influence on the course of my life.”

Besides Jefferson, Wythe at one time or another taught John Marshall, James Monroe, Edmund Randolph, and Henry Clay. Thus the mind of George Wythe, acting through those whom he had trained, dominated the policies of this republic for fully fifty years, and is still a potent force.

George Wythe: William & Mary’s – and the nation’s – first law professor, W&M Law School

Seals of Virginia, B&W

Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Encyclopedia Virginia

Wythe played a role in creating [Virginia’s] new constitution and served with Jefferson on the committee that revised Virginia’s laws. Wythe also sat on the committee to design Virginia’s seal.
…
Jefferson wrote a brief sketch of Wythe near the end of his own lifetime.

George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, Monticello.

Sic semper tyrannis

(letter) I became acquainted with Mr. Wythe when he was about thirty-five years of age. He directed my studies in the law, led me into business, and continued, until death, my most affectionate friend. A close intimacy with him, during that period of forty odd years, the most important of his life, enables me to state its leading facts, which, being of my own knowledge, I vouch their truth. Of what precedes that period, I speak from hearsay only, in which there may be error, but of little account, as the character of the facts will themselves manifest. In the epoch of his birth I may err a little, stating that from the recollection of a particular incident, the date of which, within a year or two, I do not distinctly remember. These scanty outlines, you will be able, I hope, to fill up from other information, and they may serve you, sometimes, as landmarks to distinguish truth from error, in what you hear from others. The exalted virtue of the man will also be a polar star to guide you in all matters which may touch that element of his character. But on that you will receive imputation from no man; for, as far as I know, he never had an enemy. Little as I am able to contribute to the just reputation of this excellent man, it is the act of my life most gratifying to my heart: and leaves me only to regret that a waning memory can do no more.
. . .
(notes) George Wythe was born about the year 1727 or 1728, of a respectable family in the county of Elizabeth City, on the shores of the Chesapeake. He inherited, from his father, a fortune sufficient for independence and ease. He had not the benefit of a regular education in the schools, but acquired a good one of himself, and without assistance; insomuch, as to become the best Latin and Greek scholar in the state. It is said, that while reading the Greek Testament, his mother held an English one, to aid him in rendering the Greek text conformably with that. He also acquired, by his own reading, a good knowledge of Mathematics, and of Natural and Moral Philosophy. He engaged in the study of the law under the direction of a Mr. Lewis, of that profession, and went early to the bar of the General Court, then occupied by men of great ability, learning, and dignity in their profession. He soon became eminent among them, and, in process of time, the first at the bar, taking into consideration his superior learning, correct elocution, and logical style of reasoning; for in pleading he never indulged himself with an useless or declamatory thought or word; and became as distinguished by correctness and purity of conduct in his profession, as he was by his industry and fidelity to those who employed him. He was early elected to the House of Representatives, then called the House of Burgesses, and continued in it until the Revolution. On the first dawn of that, instead of higgling on half-way principles, as others did who feared to follow their reason, he took his stand on the solid ground, that the only link of political union between us and Great Britain, was the identity of our Executive; that that nation and its Parliament had no more authority over us, than we had over them, and that we were co-ordinate nations with Great Britain and Hanover.

Letter to John Saunderson, Esq., Notes for the Biography of George Wythe, by Thomas Jefferson, August 31, 1820. (Copy of handwritten note at the Library of Congress.)

General Court in the Capitol, Williamsburg, James City County, VA, Library of Congress, csas200905870

One person has estimated that Wythe instructed fewer than 200 pupils in the law, yet is is amazing what these students accomplished in later life. Students taught by George Wythe occupied almost every office this young nation had to offer, including President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Attorney General, U.S. Senator, Speaker of the U.S. House, Chief Justice, Associate Justice, federal District Judge, foreign Minister, Governor of Virginia, President of the Virginia Court of Appeals, member of the Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina legislatures, President of William and Mary, Professor of Law at both William and Mary and Transylvania, and Episcopal Bishop of Virginia. While some of the men who occupied such stations were taught by Wythe in a private capacity, it is also true that “no law school in America has since sent from its class rooms into public life, in the same length of time, if at all, an equal number of men of such amazing ability.”

Chapter 8 The Teaching of George Wythe, by Thomas Hunter, in “The History of Legal Education in the United States: Commentaries And Primary Sources, Volume 1, by Steve Sheppard and William Enfield. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 1999, reprinted by Lawbook Exchange, 2007, pages 153-154, footnotes omitted.

More

• George Wythe – Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
• “George Wythe Teaches America the Law,” by Jack Lynch, Colonial Williamsburg Journal, Spring 2010
• George Wythe – Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• George Wythe – Wikipedia
• “George Wythe: Lawyer, Revolutionary, Judge,” by Robert Bevier Kirtland. New York: Garland, 1986. Worldcat
• “George Wythe of Williamsburg,” by Robert A. Peterson, The Freeman, June 1984
• “American Aristides: A Biography of George Wythe,” by Imogene E. Brown. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981.
• Chapter 8 The Teaching of George Wythe, by Thomas Hunter, in “The History of Legal Education in the United States: Commentaries And Primary Sources, Volume 1, by Steve Sheppard and William Enfield. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 1999, reprinted by Lawbook Exchange, 2007 (Dr. Thomas R. Hunter is a professor at the University of West Georgia.)
• “Discovered: Jefferson’s list of George Wythe’s ‘legacie’,” Monticello, Winter 2009 (2-page PDF)
• George Wythe House on Palace Green, Williamsburg, VA

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