resigned to accept the position of Chief Justice of his
State. Although there was a distinguished Judge of
the United States District Court in Georgia, Nathaniel
Pendleton, who was an active candidate for the promotion to the Supreme Court and who was warmly
indorsed by the veteran Edmund Pendleton of Virginia,
a close personal friend of Washington, the President
determined to make the appointment from South
Carolina.[1] Accordingly, he adopted the singular expedient of addressing a letter jointly to Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney and to Edward Rutledge (both of that State),
asking if either of them would accept the position.
Upon receipt of a reply from both stating that they
thought that they could be of more service to the General Government and to their State by remaining
in the State Legislature, Washington, on October 31,
1791, appointed Thomas Johnson, a former Governor
of Maryland, and then Judge of the United States
District Court. As Johnson was fifty-nine years of age—the oldest man on this first Court—he only
consented to accept, after assurances from Chief Justice
Jay and from the President that the Circuit Court
system requiring arduous labor and long traveling by
the Judges would probably be altered by the next Congress.[2]
At the February Term in 1792, there was still no case ready for argument, and the Court adjourned, after hearing a motion in Oswald v. State of New York to compel an appearance on the part of the State.
While it thus appears that during these first three years of its existence the Court had practically no business to transact, its Judges found themselves
