Have you ever met someone truly virtuous? Did they inspire or annoy you? Maybe a little of both? Well, today I want to tell you a story about a man of great virtue. Someone who so loved justice, individuality, and morality that he became the beloved mentor to leaders of nations.

This is the President’s Lawyer. It is the cocktail I have made for you to commemorate the life of George Wythe, a political leader during America’s founding and a mentor to many of the founding fathers themselves.

Looking back on George’s life, it almost seems like he was destined for greatness. He was born in Chesterville, Virginia (modern day Hampton) in 1726. When his father died when he was just 3, his mother, Margaret, was left to instill in him every good value. She started by imbuing a sense of scholarly wonder, and teaching him both Latin and Greek. It was this very sense of scholarly wonder that drove George to accomplish a lot, and I mean a LOT of impressive achievements. In fact, let’s list them…

He was Virginia’s foremost classical scholar, the dean of lawyers, a Williamsburg alderman and mayor, a member of the House of Burgesses, and house clerk. He was the colony’s attorney general, a delegate to the Continental Congress, speaker of the state assembly, the nation’s first college law professor, Virginia’s chancellor, and a framer of the federal Constitution. And that’s not even what he’s best known for! If you Googled my friend George, two of the first things you’d see are that he signed the Declaration of Independence, and he mentored future U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson. But even that’s not the full story.

George’s ethics were so uniquely virtuous that they were described as being “spotless” and “of the purest tint.” He was so respected that the Virginia delegation saved a spot at the top of their section of the Declaration of Independence so that George could sign his name above them all.

He was clearly an impressive man! But even everything I’ve described to you only begins to scratch the surface of his political and cultural impact. But it’s not his accomplishments that impressed me. Well yeah, I am very impressed by his accomplishments, but more than that–what impressed me the most about George was his stout belief in the equal rights of all men, and his stern stance against slavery. He spoke often against the practice and even went so far as to issue judgments against it during his chancery (which were unfortunately overturned on appeal).

Now, you might be asking, “Um wait, wasn’t he a plantation owner? That would make him a slave holder and a hypocrite.” But hold your horses, because yes, George owned slaves but according to records, he didn’t buy any of them. Every single one was inherited from either his family or his wife’s family, which is important to note because the fact that he didn’t buy any of his slaves made emancipating them legally complicated. To over-simplify it, the law basically boiled down to, “if you bought them, you can free them, if you didn’t, then you can’t.”

After his wife, Elizabeth’s, death in 1787, the slaves he’d inherited from his wife’s family were sent back to her family, as was required by law. But George still had the slaves he’d inherited from his family: Charles, Polly, James, Benjamin, Lydia, and Michael. And he wanted them to be free. Not only did he want them to be free, he wanted to be sure they were given a fair opportunity to live well. So, finding his way around Virginia’s very complicated slavery laws, George emancipated each slave left in his care. As John Sanderson later wrote, “In emancipating his slaves, Wythe did not cast them in the world friendless and needy; he gave them sufficient to free them from want and his example had taught them industrious habits.”

George respected all of them, but there were two in particular that he cared for especially: Lydia Broadnax and Michael Brown. After they were freed, Lydia elected to stay and continue working in George’s manor while Michael became his student. Like his mother once taught him, George taught Michael Latin, Greek, and the rule of law.

In his will, George left an inheritance for Michael, Lydia, and his grandnephew, George Sweeney, since he’d had no children of his own. But where George Wythe had a generous heart, George Sweeney had a greedy one. He wanted the full estate. And he had figured out a way to get it: poison. Arsenic, specifically. As Sweeney poisoned the trio’s food and drink over time, their health deteriorated. Michael died first. With the loss of Michael and his own untimely (and painful) end drawing near, George began to suspect his nephew, and so he cut him out of the will. Sweeney didn’t get his uncle’s estate, what he did get was indicted on charges of double homicide. Unfortunately, with nothing but circumstantial evidence and no witness to the poisoning, Sweeney walked. A sad ending for an honorable man. But it’s not entirely tragic, Lydia survived.

And while Lydia is long gone now, I’m sure she would appreciate us taking a moment to honor George, a leader, an abolitionist, and a proponent of human dignity and equal rights. George, I think we should get a drink!