Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/200

172 in France, resigned owing to ill health, and President Adams at once appointed as his successor the former Chief Justice, John Jay. "I have nominated you to your old station,*' he wrote on December 19, 1800. "This is as independent of the inconstancy of the people as it is of the will of a President. In the future administration of our country, the firmest security we can have against the effects of visionary schemes or fluctuating theories will be in a solid Judiciary ; and nothing will cheer the hopes of the best men so much as your acceptance of this appointment. You have now a great opportunity to render a most signal service to your country. ... I had no permission from you to take this step, but it appeared to me that Providence had thrown in my way an opportunity, not only of marking to the public the spot where, in my opinion, the greatest mass of worth remained collected in one individual, but of furnishing my country with the best security its inhabitants afforded against the increasing dissolution of morals."> Though his appointment was confirmed by the Senate and his commission actually issued. Jay declined the office, basing

^Jay, rV, letter to Adams, Jan. 2, 1801; King, III; Works of John Adams, IX. It appears that Samuel Sitgreaves of Pemi^ylvania was suggested by some for the position. "There is a newspaper report that Judge Ellsworth is about to resign," wrote Timothy Pickering to Rufus King, Dec. 27, 1800. "I should be gratified to see our friend Sitgreaves on the Bench. If Judge Ellsworth contemplated a resignation when at Paris, I hope he may have mentioned it to Mr. S. and that he may be authorized to recommend the latter to the President." Robert Troup wrote to King, Dec. 31, 1800, regarding the effect of Ellsworth's resignation upon the Federalist party, stating that Alexander Hamilton was regarded "as an unfit head of the party, being radically deficient in the quality of discretion" and that "we are in fact without a rallying point. I have for some time past consoled myself with the idea that Mr. Ellsworth would form a rallying point for us. This idea, however, has vanished with his resignation of the office of Chief Justice. We fear he is lost to public life forever.*' A New York letter to the Aurora had stated as early as May 2, 1800, that: "We expect to put Mr. Jay in the way for a Federal office. It is understood that his old station of Chief Justice would be given him as a make-peace, but Jay wishes to be Vice-President or President." On March 10, 1800, the Aurora ^had said that Adams* friends "proposed 'old Father Ellsworth’ as his successor."

Jay was nominated Dec. 18, 1800, and confirmed Dec 19.