Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/74

48 Ordered that Richard Wenman be and he is hereby appointed Crier of the Court.

The Court adjourned until tomorrow at one o'clock in the afternoon.

At this first session, the Judges were attired in robes, probably of black and red, since a contemporary Senator described them as "party-colored"; and it is evident that considerable impression was made upon the public by this costume, for a Philadelphia newspaper, a little later, remarked upon the appearance of the Judges "in their robes of Justice, the elegance, gravity and neatness of which were the subject of remark and approbation with every spectator."

On Wednesday, February 3, the Court met again, chose John Tucker of Massachusetts as its Clerk, and passed an order as to the form of the seal of the various

^ William Allen Butler, as quoted in the accoimt of the Centennial Cd^ratioii of the organisation of the Federal Judiciary, in 134 U. S. Appendix, 712, stated that Jay wore "an ample robe of black silk with salmon colored facings*', whidi according to family tradition was the gown of a Doctor of Laws of the University of Dublin which had conferred a degree upon Jay ; and Butler stated that ** the Associate Justices wore the ordinary black robe which has since come into vogue as the vestment of all the members of the Court." This latter statement appears to be erroneous; for Senator Mason, speaking in the Senate in 1802 (7^ Cong^ IH 8e$s., Jime 13, 1802, 60), referred to : '* A State upon her knees before six ven- erable Judges decorated in party-colored robes, as ours formerly were, or arrayed in more solemn black such as they have lately assumed.*'

G. C. Hazelton, Jr., in Hiitory of the National CapUol (1897), 142, 154, quotes Benjamin Harrison (the elder) as saying that the question of the Court attire was a subject of discussion by public men of the day, and that "Jefferson was against any needless official apparel, but if the gown was to carry, he said : *For Heaven's sake, discard the monstrous wig which makes the English Judges look like rata peeping through bunches of oakum!' Hamilton was for the English wig with the English gown. Burr was for the English gown but against the inverted wool sack termed a wig! The English gown was taken and the wig left." Henry Flanders in his Lioei cf the Chief Justices (1858), I, 37, speaks of the excitement caused by the appearance of Judge Cushing in his old-fashioned judicial wig on his arrival in New York, and that "returning to his lodgings, he sent for a peruke- maker and obtained a more fashionable covering for his head. He never again wore the professional wig." An English traveler, writing of Washington in 1828, stated, on the other hand, that the Judges of the Supreme Court "com- menced with wigs and scarlet robes, but soon discarded them as inconvenient." Notions of the Americans (1850), by J. P. Cooper, II, 48.

F^. 11, 1792; Pnmdence Qautte (B. I.). Feb. U. 1792.
 * See New York DaOy Advertiser, Feb. 21, 1792; QcoMe qf the Utiited ^aUs,