TAYLOR, John, senator, born in Orange county, Virginia, in 1750; died in Caroline county, Virginia, 20 August, 1824. He was graduated at William and Mary college in 1770, became a planter, and did much to improve methods of cultivation and extend the knowledge of agriculture. When Richard Henry Lee resigned from the United States senate, Taylor was appointed to the vacant seat. He entered the senate on 12 December, 1792, and was elected for the term that began in the following March, but resigned in 1794. He was a presidential elector in 1797, and in 1803 again served in the senate for the two months that elapsed between the death of Stevens T. Mason and the election of his successor. He was elected a senator two years before his death, taking his seat on 30 December, 1824. He shared the political opinions of Thomas Jefferson, and was the mover in the Virginia house of delegates of the resolutions of 1798. He published " An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States " (Fredericksburg, 1814) ; "Arator ; being a Series of Agricultural Essays, Practical and Political" (6th ed., Petersburg, 1818); "Construction Construed and the Constitution Vindicated" (Richmond, 1820); "Tyranny Unmasked" (Washington, 1822); and "New Views of the Constitution of the United States" (Washington, 1823).