Nevertheless, upon completion of his congressional term, his eloquent publications led Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to offer him an appointment as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the newly founded University of Virginia; he accepted and held that post until 1845.

After retiring, Tucker relocated to Philadelphia, continuing his research, and expounding upon a variety of subjects, which included monetary policy and socio-economics, until his death in Virginia at the age of 85.

At Bascomb's death, the firm's clients urged Tucker to assume their representation, but feeling quite unqualified, he declined, and initiated plans for a career in the United States.

"[6] After a free-spending time with other Bermudians in the capital city, he ran out of funds, and proceeded to Williamsburg, Virginia to seek advice and borrow money from his famous cousin St. George Tucker, a maneuver he would repeat.

[4] Though he had initially preferred to delay the wedding until he was admitted to the bar, he gave in to his heart's desire, borrowed the needed funds from an uncle, and they married in April 1797.

[8] Except for trips to North Carolina to collect rents on his wife's property, Tucker avoided work, attending horse races in Fredericksburg, and frequenting fashionable watering places with friends and family.

[10] After a prolonged trip to the sugar plantation in Antigua, and on to Martinique and Bermuda, he returned to Williamsburg and then determined his future was in the nearby state capital of Richmond, Virginia as a practicing attorney.

A conspiracy of slaves initiated a futile attempt to destroy the city, and he was prompted to publish an essay suggesting a remedy to slavery, entitled Letter to a Member of the General Assembly of Virginia (1801).

[18] In the 1820s, however, Tucker's views of slavery changed notably with personal experience, and profit, realized in his purchase and sale of slaves for his account and that of his father-in-law, Charles Carter.

To this he added, "This heedlessness I had from a child, and during my practice of the law, I strewed the upper country as well with countless umbrellas, gloves, watches, cufflinks, handkerchiefs, and knives.

"[2] In 1806, Tucker relocated his family, including newborn daughter Maria, to the Carters' home in Frederick County, Virginia, and attempted to put his financial house in order.

[31] Tucker's maritime roots in Bermuda instilled an interest in intracoastal navigation, and he began an intense campaign with the legislatures of North Carolina and Virginia to improve the waterways to Norfolk along the Roanoke, Dan, and Staunton Rivers, in order to avoid inefficient portage required to Petersburg and Richmond.

[2] Tucker continued his work in literature along with his law practice, and in 1814–1815 the Philadelphia Port Folio published a series of his essays entitled Thoughts of a Hermit.

[33] His financial largess was short-lived, as Tucker was unable to resist the allure of society and lavish living in Washington, not to mention the increased expenses of a larger immediate family.

[37] Due in part to these personal trials, he made no momentous contributions to Congress beyond his reliable positions representing Virginia's interests, with a consistent Jeffersonian Republican voting record.

[38] Tucker's self-assessment as a congressman is otherwise much less forgiving: “In addition to the pecuniary engagements and difficulties which unfitted my mind for the current business of legislation, I spent all my leisure hours playing chess, to which I was shamefully and regretfully, but passionately devoted.

I had then a livelier ambition to be a great chess player than to be a distinguished member of Congress.“[2] Near the end of Tucker's third congressional term in 1824, Thomas Jefferson presented him with an offer on behalf of the fledgling University of Virginia, sanctioned by Trustees James Madison and Joseph C. Cabell, to serve as the first Professor of Moral Philosophy.

His continued faculty chairmanship certainly testified to his relative popularity among colleagues, and he published numerous works—including one satire, a fiction, three books on economics and statistics, a Jefferson biography, as well as two pamphlets.

The Valley stressed Tucker's professorial objective, that history must inform the reader with "the progress of society and the arts of civilization; with the advancement and decline of literature, laws, manners and commerce."

He also conveyed through the fiction his view that gentility was independent of wealth, that the relationship between masters and slaves was imbued with mutual trust and happiness, and that the strong currents of socio-economic change were on the whole beneficent.

[49] In his negotiations with the publisher Harpers, Tucker relates: "As an excuse for not offering me more liberal terms, one of them, the eldest partner, said, “Why, we shall have to give a man fifty dollars to read your book.

[2] Using the pseudonym Joseph Atterley, in 1827 he wrote the satire A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of the People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians.

[2] This study of the life of Jefferson was published in two volumes the following year, and received complimentary assessment in the Edinburgh Review from Lord Brougham, as "a very valuable addition to the stock of our political and historical knowledge.

The work, indeed, manifests a laudable desire to do justice, and to decide impartially on contested topics; and hence, perhaps, it failed to give satisfaction to the ardent supporters, as well as to the bitter opponents, of Mr.

With his finances in order and a three-month leave from the university, in 1839 he made a trip to Great Britain and after some time in Shakespeare country, Stratford-Upon-Avon, he settled in Liverpool.

"[52] This journey, along with his interest in the doctrines of Thomas Robert Malthus on populace, inspired Tucker to expound upon the mixed blessings of a prospective urbanized world.

Musing on his own past errors, he told them that "except for the loss of friends, a want of prudence in money matters has contributed nine-tenths of the pain and vexation of [my] life.

"[62] Even after the death of his wife Louisa in 1858, Tucker's vitality persisted and, not long before the American Civil War began, in January 1861 he journeyed south through Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia to Alabama to visit a friend in Mobile.

[64] Tucker sustained head injuries at Mobile Bay when, awaiting his ship's departure for return to the north, he was struck by a large bale of cotton being loaded on board.

[50] He was moved to the home of daughter Eleanor and husband George Rives in Albemarle County, Virginia, where he died on April 10, 1861, two days prior to the Battle of Fort Sumter and the beginning of the American Civil War.