It numbered among its children many famous statesmen, including Jefferson, Marshall, Peyton Randolph, and Monroe.
Washington was its Chancellor for twelve years.

Its graduates loved it ardently.

I came to the conclusion that it would tend very much to restore the old affectionate feeling between the States to rebuild this College without inquiring too strictly into the merits of the case, as tested by any strict principle of law.

I accordingly reported and advocated a bill for appropriating sixty or seventy thousand dollars to rebuild the College.
Afterward, when on the Committee of Claims in the Senate, I advocated extending the same principle to all colleges, schools and other institutions of education and charity destroyed by the operations of the War without regard to the question who was in fault.

This policy was, after a good deal of opposition and resistance, successfully carried out.
But the William and Mary College Bill was reported at the time when the passions excited by the War were still burning in the breasts of many Republican statesmen.