Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/68

42 Moreover, it was unquestionably the fact that the best qualified lawyer in Pennsylvania, as well as the statesman most familiar with the proceedings of the Federal Convention, was James Wilson, a native of Scotland, forty-seven years of age, who had practiced at the Philadelphia Bar for eleven years, and who had been an aspirant for the Chief Justiceship; and Washington found no difficulty in deciding upon his appointment.

From Maryland, Washington appointed his former military private secretary and close personal friend, Robert Hanson Harrison, a man of forty-four years, who had been Chief Judge of the General Court of Maryland for eight years. That he entertained a more personal interest in this nomination than in any other was shown by the fact that he addressed to Harrison (and to no other Judge except Rutledge) a personal letter, in the course of which he said: "Your friends and your fellow citizens, anxious for the respect of the Court to which you are appointed, will be happy to learn your acceptance, and no one among them will be more so than myself." Five days after his confirmation, Harrison was chosen Chancellor of Maryland, and preferring that post to the laborious position on the Federal Court decided to decline the latter, in spite of Washington's urgent request to the contrary, and notwithstanding an urgent letter from his old comrade-in-arms, Alexander Hamilton, who wrote:

After having labored with you in the common cause of America during the late war, and having learned your value,