Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/69

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THE FIRST COURT AND THE CIRCUITS

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judge of the pleasure I feel in the prospect of a reunion of efforts in this same cause; for I consider this business of America's happiness as yet to be done. In proportion to that sentiment has been my disappointment at learning that you had declined a seat on the Bench of the United States. Cannot your determination, my dear friend, be reconsidered? One of your objections, I think, will be removed; I mean that which relates to the nature of the establishment. Many concur in opinion that its present form is inconvenient, if not impracticable. Should an alteration take place, your other objection will also be removed, for you can then be nearly as much at home as you are now. If it is possible, my dear Harrison, give yourself to us. We want men like you. They are rare at all times.

In Harrison's place, Washington appointed James Iredell of North Carolina, who was commissioned February 10, 1790, and took his seat on the Bench at the second Term of the Court in August, 1790. Iredell was only thirty-eight years old and had been Attorney-General of his State.

From South Carolina, the President hesitated between the appointment of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Rutledge and Edward Rutledge. William H. Drayton was also urged upon him. Finally his choice fell on John Rutledge, a man of fifty years of age, who had been a former Governor of the State and a Judge of the State Court of Chancery for the past six years.^[1] Of the warmth of feeling which Washington had for his appointee, evidence was given in a personal

↑ South Carolina Federalist Correspondence, 1789-1797, Amer. Hist. Rev. (1906), XIV, letter of Ralph Izard to Edward Rutledge, Sept. 21, 1784. Izard continued as follows: "The President asked me before the nominations were made whether I thought your brother John, General Pinckney, or yourself would accept of a Judge in the Supreme Court. I told him that I was not authorized to say that you would not, but intimated that the office of Chief Justice would be most suitable to either of you. That, however, was engaged. … The President will not appoint any but the most eminent; and if none in South Carolina of that description will accept, he will be obliged to have recourse to some other State."

[1] South Carolina Federalist Correspondence, 1789-1797, Amer. Hist. Rev. (1906), XIV, letter of Ralph Izard to Edward Rutledge, Sept. 21, 1784. Izard continued as follows: "The President asked me before the nominations were made whether I thought your brother John, General Pinckney, or yourself would accept of a Judge in the Supreme Court. I told him that I was not authorized to say that you would not, but intimated that the office of Chief Justice would be most suitable to either of you. That, however, was engaged. … The President will not appoint any but the most eminent; and if none in South Carolina of that description will accept, he will be obliged to have recourse to some other State."

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