James Wilson

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(b. Fifeshire, Scotland, 14 Sept. 1742; d. Edenton, N.C., 21 Aug. 1798; originally interred Hayes Plantation, Edenton, N.C., remains removed to Christ Church, Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 1906), associate justice, 1789–1798. Born into humble circumstances in rural Scotland, James Wilson became a poignant example of the “lad o'parts”: after university study during the heyday of the eighteenth‐century Scottish Enlightenment, he emigrated to America, at age twenty‐three, and achieved fame and fortune, largely through his intellect and industry. In Pennsylvania and on the national scene, he became a noted lawyer, pamphleteer, politician, financier, and framer and theorist of American constitutionalism. Yet ultimately he failed to realize the promise of his talents and achievements; his tenure on the Court proved largely but the anticlimax of his public career.

After settling in Philadelphia in 1765, Wilson read law under John Dickinson, one of the best‐educated American lawyers of the day. Like Dickinson, Wilson made the legal profession a vehicle to political prominence. In 1767 he launched a successful law practice in western Pennsylvania; but by 1768 his aspiration to become a voice in American politics was already evident. In that year he composed (although he did not revise and publish it until 1774) his Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, widely recognized as an important contribution to the pre‐Revolutionary pamphlet literature.

During the early 1770s, Wilson expanded his law practice and began his public career. In 1775 he was elected to the Second Continental Congress. Although not an early advocate of independence, he signed the Declaration, and during the Revolution and its aftermath he continued to make his way in national and Pennsylvania politics. Aligning himself with the leading conservatives in his home state, he was an inveterate critic both of the 1776 Pennsylvania constitution and of the Articles of Confederation. Having moved to Philadelphia in 1778, and become widely identified both as lawyer and investor with the interest of Robert Morris and the financial establishment there, Wilson produced in 1785 yet another important political pamphlet, his Considerations on the Bank of North America.

In that pamphlet, and otherwise as a delegate to Congress in the 1780s, Wilson promoted his strongly nationalist persuasion. His nationalism eventually brought him to the climax of his public career: his work in helping to frame and secure the federal Constitution. At the 1787 Convention, where he played a part second only to James Madison's, and during the ratification campaign he led in Pennsylvania, Wilson contributed at least as much as any other founder to promoting several of the signal features of American constitutionalism, especially the theory of the separation of powers, the importance of the presidency, and, above all, the fundamental significance of “the sovereignty of the People.” In 1790 he also successfully led a movement to replace the 1776 Pennsylvania constitution with a document that embodied his distinctive constitutional theory even more notably than the federal Constitution did. Wilson's most comprehensive exposition of his constitutional theory came in his Lectures on Law, composed for delivery during 1790–1791, upon his appointment as professor of law at the College of Philadelphia.

In 1789, on President George Washington's nomination, Wilson was also appointed an associate justice of the first Court. Although suggested by himself and others for the office of chief justice, he was passed over not only in 1789 but again in 1795 and 1796. Moreover, Wilson's cumulative accomplishments as associate justice fell short of fulfilling his earlier promise. His few written opinions were brief, except for his much‐remarked opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793). There, in disposing of a state's claim of sovereign immunity from suit in the federal courts, Wilson elaborated a conception of popular sovereignty that, while grounded on leading principles of contemporary philosophical thought, was nevertheless out of tune with the politics of the times. Yet, in eschewing the legal positivism associated with Sir William Blackstone, and in exalting and interrelating the authority of national government and of popular democracy, Wilson's Chisholm opinion prefigured future American jurisprudence.

Increasingly during the 1790s Wilson became overextended in his investments and overwhelmed by financial distresses. Twice he was jailed for debt. Eventually, to escape creditors he went into hiding in North Carolina. Isolated and disgraced, he died there, a great legal mind and constitutional theorist arguably undone by the visionary tendencies that have distinguished his legacy as a founder.

Bibliography

• Stephen A. Conrad, Metaphor and Imagination in James Wilson's Theory of Federal Union, Law & Social Inquiry 13 (1988): 1–70.
• Stephen A. Conrad, James Wilson's ‘Assimilation of the Common‐Law Mind,’ Northwestern University Law Review 84 (1989): 186–219.
• Robert Green McCloskey, ed., The Works of James Wilson, 2 vols. (1967)

— Stephen A. Conrad

Wilson, James Harrison (1837-1925) U.S. army officer. Born near Shawneetown, Illinois, on September 2, 1837, James H. Wilson was graduated from West Point and commissioned in the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1860. During 1861-1864, he served as a military engineer and an inspector general in the Union armies in both the eastern and western theaters. In 1864, Wilson was assigned to Washington to organize the Cavalry Bureau and its remount system. His success at that task led to his appointment to command a cavalry division in the Army of the Potomac and then the cavalry corps under Gen. William T. Sherman. He played key roles at Nashville (December 1864) and the capture of Selma, Alabama (April 1865). As Chief of the Cavalry Bureau, Wilson had championed the adoption of the Spencer repeating carbine for cavalrymen, and once in command of cavalry troops he developed the effective tactic of riding to battle and dismounting for the final assault, relying on the firepower of the Spencer. Following the Civil War, he supervised navigation improvements along the Mississippi River before resigning from the Army in December 1870 to enter private business. Wilson returned to active duty as a major general of volunteers in 1898 and saw service during the War with Spain in both Puerto Rico and Cuba. He also served as the second-in-command of U.S. troops in China during the Boxer Rebellion (July-November 1900), returning home in 1900 to retire as a brigadier general, Regular Army. He was advanced to major general on the retired list in 1915.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

(b London, 27 Sept 1922). Irish composer of English origin. A pupil of Rowley in London, he moved to Eire in 1948. He has worked with Bartókian complex metres in operas (Twelfth Night, 1969), choral works, concertos and chamber music.

James Wilson (1742-1798) was a patriot leader during the American Revolution and an influential delegate at the Federal Convention of 1787. He served on the first U.S. Supreme Court.

James Wilson was born on Sept. 14, 1742, on a farm in Fifeshire, Scotland. His family expected him to become a minister, and at 15 he entered St. Andrews University, but a family crisis interrupted his education. He took passage for America in 1765. In Philadelphia, Wilson turned to law studies; admitted to the bar in 1767, within six months he began practicing in Reading, Pa.

Wilson started his patriotic career in 1774 as head of the Carlisle Committee of Correspondence. In his pamphlet Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament (1774) he argued that the colonists, promoting genuine British constitutionalism, were being victimized by a corrupt ministry. He was sent to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. Wilson stood as a moderate but surrendered his early caution on July 2, 1776.

For the next decade, Wilson was mainly committed to the law and to his dream of vast wealth. He speculated in bank shares, land warrants, and similar ventures on borrowed capital. These involvements gave a misleading impression of great wealth, which in turn enabled Wilson to borrow more for speculations. In the Continental Congress he sought a national fiscal policy far sounder than that he personally practiced.

Wilson welcomed the Federal Convention call. He served on the Pennsylvania delegation, was on the powerful Committee of Detail, and was a persistent advocate for the direct election of both Congress and the president. His plan for an electoral college was ultimately accepted. His influence helped carry ratification of the Constitution in Pennsylvania in 1787.

With the establishment of the national government, Wilson vainly hoped to become chief justice of the Supreme Court but accepted an associate justiceship. On the Court he consistently favored the nationalistic position, and in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) he insisted that states were as liable to a "controlling judiciary" as an individual citizen.

Wilson enjoyed the thrill of speculation but was ultimately unsuccessful at it. His health and his credit began to fail perceptibly. In the winter of 1796/1797, he took flight to escape imprisonment for debt. A defaulted $197,000 debt sent him to jail. He died at Edenton, N.C., on Aug. 21, 1798.

Further Reading

The Works of James Wilson, edited by Robert Green McCloskey (1967), contains a lengthy, thoughtful introduction and analysis of Wilson's main ideas. Selected Political Essays of James Wilson, edited by Randolph G. Adam (1930), also contains an assessment of Wilson's contribution to American political ideas. The best biography of Wilson is Charles Page Smith, James Wilson, Founding Father: 1742-1798 (1956).

Additional Sources

Seed, Geoffrey, James Wilson, Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Press, 1978.

1789–98

• Born: Sept. 14, 1742, Fifeshire, Scotland
• Education: University of St. Andrews, Scotland; read law in the office of John Dickinson, Philadelphia, Pa.
• Previous government service: first Provincial Convention at Philadelphia, 1774; Continental Congress, 1775–77, 1783, 1785–87; Constitutional Convention, 1787; Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, 1787
• Appointed by President George Washington Sept. 24, 1789, as one of the original members of the U.S. Supreme Court
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Sept. 26, 1789, by a voice vote; served until Aug. 21, 1798
• Died: Aug. 21, 1798, Edenton, N.C.

James Wilson traveled to the British colony of Pennsylvania from rural Scotland and helped to found a new nation, the United States of America. He served in the Continental Congress during the American War of Independence and participated influentially in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Historians have rated him as one of the most important framers of the Constitution because many of his ideas were included in the final draft of this document.

In 1789, President George Washington appointed Wilson to the first Supreme Court of the United States. He was generally viewed as the best legal scholar among the original appointments to the Court. However, Justice Wilson's performance did not match his potential, and he contributed little of lasting significance as a Supreme Court justice.

His brief term on the Court was marred by heavy personal problems, including great indebtedness. Wilson's worries led to illness and death, in poverty, at the age of 55.

Sources

• Page Smith, James Wilson: Founding Father (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956)

Through the seventeenth century, astrology enjoyed broad support in the West, though it had come under attack by Protestant church leaders and from the same skeptical voices that had taken the lead in denouncing the witchcraft hysteria. In the eighteenth century it suffered greatly from the new scientific worldview and appeared to be on its way to disappearing completely. However, in the early nineteenth century, as part of the general post-scientific occult revival, astrology also experienced a rebirth. At the fountainhead of that revival in the English-speaking world was James Wilson.

Little is known of this astrologer who worked during the early decades of the nineteenth century except that he published what became the seminal work from which modern astrology would develop. The Dictionary of Astrology, a comprehensive new astrology textbook, appeared in 1819. Wilson had made an extensive study of the teachings accumulated by astrologers over the centuries and rejected everything for which he could find no evidence. He paid particular attention to horary astrology, a branch of astrology that assumes that whenever a question is asked, the answer is reflected in the patterns of the planets at that particular moment. The following year Wilson released a new set of astrological tables, the charts of planetary positions needed by the astrologer to construct a horo-scope. Later in the decade he would publish a new edition of Ptolomy's Tetrabiblos, the book from which all Western astrology derives.

Wilson's Dictionary went through several editions and was periodically reprinted throughout the century. It would influence several generations of British astrologers until replaced by the writings of William J. Simmonite and Raphael (Robert Cross Smith). It was regularly quoted by Luke Broughton, the founder of contemporary American astrology.

Sources:

Holden, James H., and Robert A. Hughes. Astrological Pioneers of America. Tempe, Ariz.: American Federation of Astrologers, 1988.

McCaffery, Ellen. Astrology: Its History and Influence in the Western World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942.

Wilson, James. Dictionary of Astrology. London: W. Hughes,1819. Reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, 1969.

——. A New and Complete Set of Astrological Tables. London: W. W. Hughes, 1920.

Lawyer, author, theorist and justice, James Wilson helped write the U.S. Constitution and served as one of the first justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Wilson emigrated from Scotland in the mid 1760s, studied law, and quickly gained prominence and success in Philadelphia. As a Federalist, Wilson believed in strong central government. This theme pervaded the pamphlets he wrote in the 1770s and 1780s. These highly influential tracts won him a national reputation. In 1787, he was a leading participant at the Constitutional Convention where the U.S. Constitution was written. Wilson served on the Supreme Court from 1789 to 1798, but the latter years of his life ended in disgrace.

Born on September 14, 1742, near St. Andrews, Scotland, Wilson came from a rural working class background. His quick intelligence took him far from his roots, however. He attended the University of St. Andrews from 1757 to 1759, the University of Glasgow from 1759 to 1763, and the University of Edinburgh from 1763 to 1765. At the age of twenty-three, he set out to make his fortune by emigrating to the American colonies, where he promptly began studying law under one of America's best lawyers, John Dickinson. Two years later, in 1767, he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar.

Over the next two decades, Wilson wrote political pamphlets that brought him national attention and launched his public career. In 1774 he argued that the American colonies should be free from the rule of British lawmakers in his widely read Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament. His writing soon led to involvement in the planning for American independence. He represented Pennsylvania at the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1776, and 1782 to 1783, and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Wilson's most important role came at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, where he argued on behalf of key features of the Constitution such as the separation of powers, which divided federal government into three parts, and the sovereignty of the people. A year later he helped persuade Pennsylvania to adopt the Constitution.

In 1789 President George Washington considered Wilson for the position of chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a post Wilson desired but never attained. He became an associate justice, and, in the same year, was made the first law professor of the University of Pennsylvania. The few short opinions he wrote for the Court embodied his strong Federalism. His most famous opinion was Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 1 L. Ed. 440 (1793), which upheld the right of citizens of one state to sue a different state.

But despite the accomplishments of his early life, Wilson remained a minor figure on the Court. As a result of bad investments he became heavily in debt in the 1790s, and he was jailed twice before fleeing his creditors. He died on August 21, 1798, in North Carolina, a pauper and a fugitive from justice.

For other persons named James Wilson, see James Wilson (disambiguation).

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(1742-09-14) Carskerdo, near Ceres, Scotland
Died	August 21, 1798 (aged 55) Edenton, North Carolina
Signature

James Wilson (September 14, 1742 – August 21, 1798), was a Scottish lawyer, most notable as a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. He was twice elected to the Continental Congress, a major force in the drafting of the United States Constitution, a leading legal theoretician and one of the six original justices appointed by George Washington to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Revolution 3 Philadelphia Convention 4 Supreme Court appointment 5 Jurisprudence 6 See also 7 References 8 External links 9 Further reading

Early years

James Wilson was born in Scotland in 1742. He attended a number of universities without attaining a degree. He emigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania British America in 1766, carrying a number of valuable letters of introduction with him. Through these connections he began tutoring and then teaching at the College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania. He petitioned there for a degree and was awarded an honorary Master of Arts several months later.

Wilson began to read the law at the office of John Dickinson a short time later. After two years of study he attained the bar in Philadelphia, and the following year (1767) set up his own practice in Reading. His office was very successful and he managed to earn a small fortune in a few short years. At that point he had bought a small farm near Carlisle, was handling cases in eight local Counties, and lecturing on English Literature at the College of Philadelphia. It was also during this period that he began a life-long fascination with land speculation.

Revolution

Taking up the pro-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 Militia.

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.

While serving in the Congress Wilson was clearly among the leaders in the formation of Native American policy. "If the positions he held and the frequency with which he appeared on committees concerned with Indian affairs are an index, he was until his departure from Congress in 1777 the most active and influential single delegate in laying down the general outline that governed the relations of Congress with the border tribes.” (James Wilson: Founding Father, Charles Smith Page, 1956, p. 72.)

Wilson also served from June 1776 on the Committee on Spies, along with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Rutledge, and Robert Livingston. They together defined treason. (Page, p. 119.)

On October 4, 1779, the Fort Wilson Riot began. After the English abandoned Philadelphia, James Wilson had successfully defended at trial 23 people accused them from exile and seizure of their property by the radical government of Pennsylvania. A mob whipped up by the writings and speeches of Joseph Reed, President of Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council, marched on congressman James Wilson's house at Third and Walnut Streets. Wilson and thirty five of his colleagues barricaded themselves in his home, which was later nicknamed Fort Wilson. In the fighting that ensued, 5 died, and 17-19 people were wounded. The city's soldiers, the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry and Baylor's 3rd Continental Light Dragoons, eventually intervened and rescued James Wilson and his colleagues. The rioters were pardoned and released by Joseph Reed [1] [2][3]

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

Philadelphia Convention

Known as one of the most prominent lawyers of his time, Wilson is credited for being the most learned of the Framers of the Constitution. 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]

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. Wilson addressed the Convention one hundred-sixty-eight times. (World Book Encyclopedia, 2003, James Wilson article.) A witness to Wilson’s performance during the convention, Dr. Benjamin Rush, called Wilson’s mind “one blaze of light.” (“James Wilson: A Forgotten Father,” St. John, Gerald J., in The Philadelphia Lawyer, www.philadelphiabar.org.)

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.

Supreme Court appointment

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 law-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. The University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia officially traces its foundation to Wilson's lectures.

Wilson's final years were marked by failure. He assumed heavy debts investing in land that became real liabilities with the onset of the Panic of 1796-1797. Of note was the failure in Pennsylvania with Theophilus Cazenove. Wilson 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.

“Tracing over the events of Wilson’s life, we are impressed by the lucid quality of his mind. With this went a restless energy and insatiable ambition, an almost frightening vitality that turned with undiminished energy and enthusiasm to new tasks and new ventures. Yet, when all has been said, the inner man remains, despite our probings, an enigma.” – Charles Page Smith, James Wilson: Founding Father, 1956, p. 393

Jurisprudence

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 Philadelphia 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 Georgia, 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.)

See also

List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States List of United States Chief Justices by time in office List of U.S. Supreme Court Justices by time in office

United States Supreme Court cases during the Ellsworth Court United States Supreme Court cases during the Marshall Court United States Supreme Court cases during the Rutledge Court

References

1. ^ Library of Congress: James Wilson

• Works of James Wilson 3 vol (1804) online edition
• Collected Works of James Wilson, 2 vols. Edited by Kermit L. Hall and Mark David Hall. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press, 2007.
• 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. 
• Wexler, Natalie (2007). A More Obedient Wife: A Novel of the Early Supreme Court. Washington: Kalorama Press. ISBN 0615135161. 

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: James Wilson

• James Wilson at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Declaration Signers biography of James Wilson
• Penn Law School biography of James Wilson
• Biography by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856
• Biography and portrait at the University of Pennsylvania
• Portrait at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
• James Wilson at Find a Grave

Further reading

• Abraham, Henry J. (1992). Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506557-3. 
• Cushman, Clare (2001). The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–1995 (2nd ed.). (Supreme Court Historical Society, Congressional Quarterly Books). ISBN 1568021267. 
• Frank, John P. (1995). Friedman, Leon; Israel, Fred L.. eds. The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0791013774. 
• Hall, Kermit L., ed (1992). The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195058356. 
• Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books. ISBN 0871875543. 
• Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994). The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland Publishing. pp. 590. ISBN 0815311761. 

Legal offices
New seat Created by the Judiciary Act of 1789	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1789-1798	Succeeded by Bushrod Washington

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Supreme Court of the United States

The Jay Court Chief Justice: John Jay (1789–1795) 1789–1792: J. Rutledge | Wm. Cushing | J. Wilson | J. Blair | J. Iredell 1792–1793: Wm. Cushing | J. Wilson | J. Blair | J. Iredell | Th. Johnson 1793–1795: Wm. Cushing | J. Wilson | J. Blair | J. Iredell | Wm. Paterson The Rutledge Court Chief Justice: John Rutledge (1795) 1795: Wm. Cushing | J. Wilson | J. Blair | J. Iredell | Wm. Paterson The Ellsworth Court Chief Justice: Oliver Ellsworth (1796–1800) 1796–1798: Wm. Cushing | J. Wilson | J. Iredell | Wm. Paterson | S. Chase

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