TAZEWELL, Henry, senator, born in Brunswick county, Virginia, in 1753; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 24 January, 1799. He was educated at William and Mary, studied law with his uncle, John, was admitted to practice, and in 1775 was elected to the house of burgesses. In the convention of 1776 he was placed on the committee that reported the declaration of rights and the constitution. He continued a member of the legislature, taking an active part in its deliberations till 1785, when he was appointed to a seat on the supreme bench of Virginia. He served as a member of the court of appeals, and in 1793, when a separate appellate court was constituted, he was chosen one of the judges. In the following year he resigned in order to take his seat in the United States senate, of which he was a member till his death. In 1795 he was elected president, pro tempore. During the discussion of John Jay's English treaty he was the leader of the Republican opposition.--His son, Littleton Waller, statesman, born in Williamsburg, Virginia, 17 December, 1774; died in Norfolk, Virginia, 6 March, 1860, was graduated at William and Mary in 1792, studied law, was admitted to the Richmond bar in 1796, and entered on the practice of his profession in James City county. He was elected in 1796 a member of the Virginia house of delegates and served in that body, by re-election, for four years. As an adherent of the Jefferson party he supported the famous resolutions of 1798, and James Madison's report of 1799. In 1800 he was elected to succeed John Marshall as a member of the United States house of representatives, and participating in the presidential election that devolved on that body he supported Thomas Jefferson against Aaron Burr. Declining a re-election to congress he removed in 1802 to Norfolk, where he soon took rank among the foremost lawyers of that commercial port, then noted for its able bar. He gained special distinction in criminal and in admiralty law. Though sharing, in politics, the general views and constitutional opinions of Jefferson, he frankly dissented from the chief measures of the administration--its gun-boat system of defence, its non-intercourse act, and the embargo. He was equally opposed to the wrongs that were committed by England and by France against our commerce during the Napoleonic wars, and, favoring at an early stage a declaration of war against both alike, he avowed his readiness to make the attack of the "Leopard" on the cruiser " Chesapeake" in 1807 a cause of immediate war against Great Britain, and offered his military services at the head of a cavalry troop. But he finally broke with the administration at all points on the ground of its incapacity for either war or peace, and in 1808 opposed the election of Madison as president for a like reason. In 1809 he supported the Federalist candidate for congress in the Norfolk district, and, on grounds of public policy, continued in steadfast opposition to war with England; but when war was declared in 1812 he gave to it his hearty support. The close of the war left Norfolk to deal with a new set of economical and fiscal questions, and, as Mr. Tazewell was known to be specially versed in such matters, he was elected a member of the Virginia legislature in 1816, and took an active part in its deliberations. He was appointed by President Monroe as one of the commissioners of the United States under the treaty with Spain for the purchase of Florida in 1819. In 1824 he was elected to the United States senate, and he was re-elected in 1830. As a member of the committee on foreign relations, of which for several years he was chairman, he wrote the celebrated report on the Panama mission, while his speeches on the piracy act, the bankrupt act, the prerogatives of the president in the appointment of foreign ministers, and the tariff, were greatly admired. Though antagonizing the general policy of the administration of John Quincy Adams, he soon arrayed himself, with equal independence, against the financial measures of President Jackson. In 1832 he favored a reduction of the tariff of 1828. While showing himself no zealot of the Bank of the United States, when the question of its recharter arose in 1832, he publicly denounced the act of the president in removing the deposits. He opposed the nullification measures of South Carolina, but at the same time dissented from the high Federal doctrines of Jackson's proclamation. When he was elected president of the senate in 1831, he refused to accept the honor, and in 1833 resigned his seat in that body from pure disgust of Federal politics. In the following year he was chosen governor of the state, and after his term of office had expired he withdrew entirely from all connection with politics. While serving in the United States senate, he was elected a member of the convention that was called in 1829 to revise the constitution of Virginia, and distinguished himself in that body among men like Madison, Monroe, and Marshall by the solidity of his counsels, and the weight of his influence. In standard English literature Tazewell was deeply read; in familiarity with English and American history he had few equals; in knowledge of law he had no superior; in politics he exhibited the traits of a Cato as much by the impracticability of his principles as by the severity of his virtues. The character of "Sidney," in William Wire's "Old Bachelor," is a sketch of Tazewell drawn from life by his friend and compeer at the bar. He was the author of "Review of the Negotiations between the United States and Great Britain respecting the Commerce of the Two Countries" (London, 1829), and contributed under the pen-name of Senex to the Norfolk " Herald" in 1827. See a discourse on his life by Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL. D. (Norfolk, 1860).