Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/83

Rh resigned to accept the position of Chief Justice of his State. Although there was a distinguished Judge of the United States District Court in Georgia, Nathaniel Pendleton, who was an active candidate for the pro- motion to the Supreme Court and who was warmly indorsed by the veteran Edmund Pendleton of Virginia, a close personal friend of Washington, the President determined to make the appointment from South Carolina. ^ Accordingly, he adopted the singular expe- dient of addressing a letter jointly to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and to Edward Rutledge (both of that State), asking if either of them would accept the position. Upon receipt of a reply from both stating that they thought that they could be of more service to the Greneral Government and to their State by remaining in the State Legislature, Washington, on October 31, 1791, appointed Thomas Johnson, a former Governor of Maryland, and then Judge of the United States District Court. As Johnson was fifty-nine years of age — the oldest man on this first Court — he only consented to accept, after assurances from Chief Justice Jay and from the President that the Circuit Court system requiring arduous labor and long traveling by the Judges would probably be altered by the next Congress.*

At the February Term in 1792, there was still no case ready for argument, and the Court adjourned, after hearing a motion in Oswald v. Stale of New York to compel an appearance on the part of the State.

While it thus appears that during these first three years of its existence the Court had practically no business to transact, its Judges found themselves

1 See letters of March 5, July 18, 1791; Calendar qf ApplieaHofu (1901), by Gaillard Hunt.


 * Washington X, letters of May 24, Aug. 7, 1791. Johnson had been given appointment, Aug. 5, 1791 ; be was confirmed by the Senate, Nov. 7.