James Wilson (September 14, 1742 – August 21, 1798) was a Scottish-born American Founding Father, legal scholar, jurist and statesman who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1789 to 1798. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, was a signatory of the Delaration of Independence, and was a major participant in drafting the U.S. Constitution. A leading legal theorist, he was one of the first four Associate Justices appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington. In his capacity as the first professor of law at the College of Philadelphia (later to become the University of Pennsylvania), he taught the first course on the new Constitution to President Washington and his Cabinet in 1789 and 1790. Born near Leven, Fife, Scotland, Wilson emigrated to Philadelphia in 1766 and became a teacher at the College of Philadelphia. After studying law under John Dickinson, he was admitted to the bar and set up legal practice in Reading, Pennsylvania. He wrote a well-received pamphlet arguing that the British Parliament's taxation of the Thirteen Colonies was illegitimate because the colonies lacked representation in Parliament. In 1775, he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he signed the …
James Wilson
Author details
- Born:
- Sept. 14, 1742
- Died:
- Aug. 21, 1798
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James Wilson (September 14, 1742 – August 21, 1798) was a Scottish-born American Founding Father, legal scholar, jurist and statesman who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1789 to 1798. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, was a signatory of the Delaration of Independence, and was a major participant in drafting the U.S. Constitution. A leading legal theorist, he was one of the first four Associate Justices appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington. In his capacity as the first professor of law at the College of Philadelphia (later to become the University of Pennsylvania), he taught the first course on the new Constitution to President Washington and his Cabinet in 1789 and 1790. Born near Leven, Fife, Scotland, Wilson emigrated to Philadelphia in 1766 and became a teacher at the College of Philadelphia. After studying law under John Dickinson, he was admitted to the bar and set up legal practice in Reading, Pennsylvania. He wrote a well-received pamphlet arguing that the British Parliament's taxation of the Thirteen Colonies was illegitimate because the colonies lacked representation in Parliament. In 1775, he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he signed the Declaration the next year. In addition to his roles in public service, Wilson served as president of the Illinois-Wabash Company, a land speculation venture. Wilson was a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where he was a member of the Committee of Detail which produced the first draft of the Constitution. He was the principal architect of the executive branch of the federal government and was an outspoken supporter of greater participatory democracy, a strong national government, and proportional legislative representation based on population. Along with Roger Sherman and Charles Pinckney, he proposed the Three-fifths Compromise, which counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purposes of representation in the United States House of Representatives. While preferring the direct election of the president through a national popular vote, he proposed the use of an electoral college, which provided the basis of the Electoral College system ultimately adopted by the convention. Follwoing the convention, Wilson campaigned for the Constitution's ratification, and his "speech in the statehouse yard" was reprinted in newspapers throughout the country. However, he opposed the Bill of Rights. Wilson also played a major role in drafting the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitution. In 1789, Wilson joined the Supreme Court and also was named a professor of law on the faculty at the College of Philadelphia. Wilson experienced financial ruin in the Panic of 1796–1797 and was sent to debtors' prison on two occasions. In August 1798, he suffered a stroke, becoming the first U.S. Supreme Court justice to die.
