The American historian George Tucker (1775-1861) was the most significant historian from the South in the era preceding the Civil War.

George Tucker was born on Aug. 20, 1775, in St. Georges, Bermuda. He received his early education from tutors and entered the College of William and Mary in 1795, graduating 2 years later. He studied law in his uncle's office at Williamsburg and, after admission to the bar, moved to Richmond to practice. He married Maria Carter, grandniece of George Washington, in 1802. Four years later the Tuckers moved to a country estate in Pittsylvania County, Va.

Tucker's Letters from Virginia: Translated from the French (1816), a satire on local customs, was published anonymously. Two years later he moved to Lynchburg and was elected to the U.S. Congress as a Jeffersonian Republican. During his three terms he was politically consistent, voting against protective tariffs and Federal subsidies for internal improvements.

In 1825 Tucker...