150
The Green Bag
is a party, to controversies between the states, or between
citizens of
differ
ofiice from Paris in 1800. John Adams, then President, nominated Jay the second
ent states, or between citizens of the
time, who was confirmed, his commission
same state claiming lands under grants
bearing date Sept. 19, 1800. Jay however declined. Perhaps the standing of the court, and the importance of its func tions as viewed by men of public afiairs, cannot better be shown than in his
of different states, within constitu tional limits its authority was absolute and
its
judgments
were
final.
Al
though in dignity and the attributes of jural prerogative it was second to no court of last resort in the civilized world, and its members were removed from the vicissitudes of political changes, owing to the permanency of their tenure, po sitions upon its bench, at first and long afterwards, were not sought or looked upon as the goal of professional ambi tion. Robert Hanson Harrison, after being commissioned an Associate Justice, resigned the oflice and returned his
commission to accept the position of Chancellor of the State of Maryland. John Jay, who was commissioned by Washington as the first Chief Justice September 26, 1789, held the ofiice until 1795, when he resigned to accept the
Governorship Rutledge,
of
of New York. South
Carolina,
John re
signed as Associate Justice to become
words declining the office, written Jan
uary 2, 1801.
“I left the bench," he
says, “perfectly convinced that under a system so defective it would not ob tain the energy, weight and dignity
which was essential to its affording due support to the national government, nor acquire the public confidence and re
spect which as the last resort of the jus tice of the nation it should possess. . . . Independent of this consideration the state of my health removes every doubt."
He did not foresee that the court was yet to become “the living voice of the
Constitution." It illustrates not only the dearth of business but the fact that the judicial oifice was largely looked upon as a position whose duties were not incom
patible with the holding of other public
him, but not being confirmed by the Senate, William Cushing, the senior
offices, to know that Jay concurrently held the office of Chief Justice while acting as special envoy of the United States in England, while Chief Justice Ellsworth, as we have seen, went to France as an
Associate and the first Justice appointed from New England, was promoted, but
a quorum, as Judge Chase at the August
Chief Justice of that state, was com
missioned during a recess to succeed
declined the honor, the only instance
in the history of the court of the ad— vancement of an Associate Justice to
be its head. He was followed by Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, the framer ofyahthe Judiciary Act of 1789, which provided for the Circuit and District
Courts and the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Having been appointed in October, 1799, one of the
three envoys extraordinary and minis ters plenipotentiary to France, the Chief Justice because of ill health resigned the
Ambassador.
He left the court without
term in 1800 was absent from the bench in Maryland on a political campaign in favor of the administration. If this course of action had persisted it would have wrecked whatever standing the court possessed as a seat of judgment. But this great and threatening evil soon passed.1 John Marshall, commissioned by John Adams January 31, 1801, although he retained the ofiice of Secretary of State 1See Carson's Supreme Court of States, vol. I.
the United
