Hawthorne called him a "fat-brained, good-hearted, sensible old man"; and in politics he was a typical Virginian of the old school, a state's rights Democrat, upholding slavery and hating abolitionism.
He at once began to take an independent part in the movements then agitating NewEngland, which between 1830 and 1850 was stirred by discussions pertaining to Unitarianism, transcendentalism, spiritualism, abolitionism and various schemes for communistic living.