James Wilson

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James Wilson
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office October 5, 1789 – August 21, 1798
Nominated by	George Washington
Preceded by	(none)
Succeeded by	Bushrod Washington
Born	September 14, 1742 Carskerdo, Scotland
Died	August 21, 1798 Edenton, North Carolina

James Wilson (September 14, 1742 – August 21, 1798), was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, twice elected to the Continental Congress, a major force in the drafting of the nation's Constitution, a leading legal theoretician and one of the six original justices appointed by George Washington to the United States Supreme Court in 1789. James Wilson was so knowledgeable on the subject of government that he was generally regarded as the most erudite of all the learned Founding Fathers. A fellow delegate in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia made the following assessment of James Wilson: "Government seems to have been his peculiar study, all the political institutions of the world he knows in detail, and can trace the causes and effects of every revolution from the earliest stages of the Grecian commonwealth down to the present time." ^[1]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Thought 3 Notable Quotations 4 Trivia 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Biography

One of seven children, Wilson was born to a Presbyterian farming family at Carskerdo, Fife in the East of Scotland and educated at the University of St. Andrews, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Glasgow. Unable to graduate because of his father's death, he sailed to America in 1765 and quickly became a tutor at the College of Philadelphia. After arriving in Philadelphia, with letters of introduction, Wilson took up the job as a legal assistant in the offices of Philadelphia lawyer John Dickinson. This is where he learned much of his trade. After several years as a legal assistant he passed the bar examination and was admitted to the bar of Philadelphia. He began his own practice in the town of Reading, Pennsylvania and then in the town of Carlisle, a small hamlet west of Harrisburg. He became one of the most prominent lawyers of his time and is credited for being the most learned of the Framers of the Constitution.

Taking up the proto-revolutionary cause in 1774, Wilson published "Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament," a pamphlet denying all authority of Parliament over the Colonies. Though considered by scholars on par with the seminal works of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams of the same year, it was actually penned in 1768, perhaps the first cogent argument to be formulated against British dominance.

In 1775 he was a Colonel in the 4th Battalion of Associators and rose to the rank of Brigadier General of State Milita.

As a member of the Continental Congress in 1776, Wilson was a firm advocate for independence and became an imposing figure that was looked upon favorably by his fellow Congressmen. But with Pennsylvania divided on the issue of separation, Wilson, not wanting to go against the wishes of his constituents, refused to vote. Only when he received more feedback did he vote for independence.

On October 4th, 1779, the Fort Wilson Riot began. In response to inflation, poverty and food shortages which had been on the rise in the last 3 years, a crowd of militia who supported price regulation and opposed Philidelphia's conservative leadership marched to James Wilson's house, on Third and Walnut Streets. Wilson and 35 of his colleagues who feared the crowd barricaded themselves in his home, which was later nicknamed Fort Wilson. In the short battle that ensued, 5 soldiers died, and 17-19 people were wounded. The city's soldiers, the Light Horse & Baylor's 3rd Continental Light Dragoons, led by Joseph Reed [1] eventually intervened and rescued James Wilson and his colleagues. [2] [3] [4]

In 1779 Wilson accepted the role of Advocate General for France in America. He held this post until 1783.

Wilson's most lasting impact on the country came as member of the Committee of Detail, which produced the first draft of the United States Constitution in 1787 (a year after the death of his wife). He wanted senators and the president to be popularly elected. He also proposed the Three-Fifths Compromise at the convention, which made slaves count as three-fifths of a person for representation in the House and Electoral College. Along with James Madison, he was perhaps the best versed of the framers in the study of political economy. He understood clearly the central problem of dual sovereignty (nation and state) and held a vision of an almost limitless future for the United States.

Though not in agreement with all parts of the final, necessarily compromised Constitution, Wilson stumped hard for its adoption, leading Pennsylvania, at its ratifying convention, to become the second state (behind Delaware) to accept the document. His October 6, 1787 speech in the State House Yard has been seen as particularly important in setting the terms of the ratification debate, both locally and nationally. In particular, it focused on the fact there would be a popularly elected national government for the first time. Wilson was later instrumental in the redrafting of the 1776 Pennsylvania State constitution, leading the group in favour of a new constitution, and entering into an agreement with William Findley (leader of the Constitutionalist Party) that limited the partisan feeling that had previously characterised Pennsylvanian politics.

He began a series of law lectures at the College of Philadelphia in 1790—only the second at any academic institution in the United States—in which he mostly ignored the practical matters of legal training. Like many of his educated contemporaries, he viewed the academic study of law as a branch of a general cultured education, rather than solely as a prelude to a profession.

Wilson broke off his first course of lectures in April 1791 to attend to his duties as Supreme Court justice on circuit. He appears to have begun a second-year course in late 1791 or in early 1792 (by which time the College of Philadelphia had been merged into the University of Pennsylvania), but at some unrecorded point the lectures stopped again and were never resumed. They were not published (except for the first) until after his death, in an edition produced by his son, Bird Wilson, in 1804.

Wilson's final years were marked by failure. He assumed heavy debts investing in land, and was briefly imprisoned for a small debt in Burlington, New Jersey. His son paid the debt, but Wilson went to North Carolina to escape other creditors. He was again briefly imprisoned, but nevertheless became a circuit judge there. In 1798, he suffered a bout of malaria, then died of a stroke while visiting a friend in Edenton, North Carolina. He was buried in the Johnston burial ground on a plantation near Edenton, but was reinterred in 1906 at Christ Churchyard, which is located in Philadelphia.

[edit] Thought

In the lectures mentioned above, Wilson, among the first of American legal philosophers, worked through in more detail some of the thinking suggested in the opinions issuing at that time from the Supreme Court. He felt, in fact, compelled to begin by spending some time in arguing out the justification of the appropriateness of his undertaking a course of lecture. But he assures his students that: "When I deliver my sentiments from this chair, they shall be my honest sentiments: when I deliver them from the bench, they shall be nothing more. In both places I shall make ― because I mean to support ― the claim to integrity: in neither shall I make ― because, in neither, can I support ― the claim to infallibility." (First lecture, 1804 Philadephia ed.)

With this, he raises the most important question of the era: having acted upon revolutionary principles in setting up the new country, "Why should we not teach our children those principles, upon which we ourselves have thought and acted? Ought we to instil into their tender minds a theory, especially if unfounded, which is contradictory to our own practice, built on the most solid foundation? Why should we reduce them to the cruel dilemma of condemning, either those principles which they have been taught to believe, or those persons whom they have been taught to revere?" (First lecture.)

That this is no mere academic question is revealed with a cursory review of any number of early Supreme Court opinions. Perhaps it is best here to quote the opening of Justice Wilson's opinion in Chisholm v. State of GA., 2 U.S. 419 (1793), one of the most momentous decisions in American history: "This is a case of uncommon magnitude. One of the parties to it is a State; certainly respectable, claiming to be sovereign. The question to be determined is, whether this State, so respectable, and whose claim soars so high, is amenable to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States? This question, important in itself, will depend on others, more important still; and, may, perhaps, be ultimately resolved into one, no less radical than this 'do the people of the United States form a Nation?'"

In order to arrive at an answer to this question, one that would provide the foundation for the United States of America, Wilson knew that legal thinkers had to resolve in their minds clearly the question of the difference between "the principles of the constitutions and governments and laws of the United States, and the republicks, of which they are formed" and the "constitution and government and laws of England." He made it quite clear that he thought the American items to be "materially better." (First lecture.)

For more on his thought, see: Corporations law, Criminal law, Evidence (law), Municipal law, Sheriff, United States constitutional law, and Property law.

[edit] Notable Quotations

• "Every juror swears that he will give a true verdict according to his evidence. The sacred obligation of this oath demands, that to unanimity truth shall not be made a sacrifice." Lectures, II, vi, The subject continued. Of juries.

• "That men ought to be governed, seems to have been agreed on all hands: the reason is, that, without government, they could never attain any high or permanent share of perfection or happiness. But the question has been ― by whom should they be governed? And this has been made a question, by reason of two others ― by whom can they be governed? ― are they capable of governing themselves?" Lectures, II, xi, Of citizens and aliens.

• "With regard, says Rousseau, to the prerogative of granting pardon to criminals, condemned by the laws of their country, and sentenced by the judges, it belongs only to that power, which is superiour both to the judges and the laws ― the sovereign authority." Lectures, II, ii. Of the executive department.

[edit] Trivia

• James Wilson appears on the $10,000 Series EE Savings Bond issued by the United States Government.

• James Wilson was portrayed by Emory Bass in the 1969 Broadway musical and 1972 movie 1776. Michael Winther portrayed him in the 1997 revival of the musical.

• In the film 1776, he is portrayed as having largely stood by fellow Pennsylvania delegate John Dickinson in opposing independence, only to reverse his position in the final vote.

[edit] References

• Works of James Wilson 3 vol (1804) online edition
• Hall, Mark David (1997). The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson, 1742-1798. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-1103-8. 
• Read, James H. (2000). Power Versus Liberty: Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and Jefferson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. ISBN 0-8139-1911-8. 

[edit] External links

• James Wilson biography
• Appleton's Biography edited by Stanley L. Klos
• Declaration Signers biography of James Wilson
• Penn Law School biography of James Wilson
• Biography by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856

Preceded by (none)

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States October 5, 1789 – August 21, 1798

Succeeded by Bushrod Washington

The Jay Court
1789–1792:	J. Wilson | Wm. Cushing | J. Blair | J. Rutledge | J. Iredell
1792–1793:	J. Wilson | Wm. Cushing | J. Blair | J. Iredell | Th. Johnson
1793–1795:	J. Wilson | Wm. Cushing | J. Blair | J. Iredell | Wm. Paterson
The Rutledge Court
1795:	J. Wilson | Wm. Cushing | J. Blair | J. Iredell | Wm. Paterson
The Ellsworth Court
1796–1798:	J. Wilson | Wm. Cushing | J. Iredell | Wm. Paterson | S. Chase