John Rutledge was the second Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and the first Governor of South Carolina after the Declaration of Independence. He was the first, though not the last, justice to abandon his service on the Supreme Court in exchange for more attractive opportunities - in his case a judicial post in his home state. Although he would return briefly to the Court in 1795 as its interim chief justice.
Background
Mr. Rutledge was born in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, in September 1739 to Dr. John Rutledge and his 15-year-old wife, Sarah Hext Rutledge, a wealthy young heiress. The elder Rutledge died in 1750, leaving young John Rutledge to be raised by his mother and mentored by his uncle, Andrew Rutledge, who served as Speaker of the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly.
Education
John Rutledge received the rudiments of a classical education first from his father, then from an English clergyman who tutored him privately, and finally from a school in Charleston run by David Rhind. After these educational experiences, he studied law for a time with his uncle Andrew Rutledge and then, after his uncle’s death in 1755, in the law office of James Parsons of Charleston. After two years of this apprenticeship, Mr. Rutledge journeyed to London, where he studied at the Middle Temple of the Inns of Court and was eventually called to the bar on February 9, 1760.
In December 1760 Mr. Rutledge returned to South Carolina and at once took possession of the fertile opportunities that family wealth and connections presented him. He was admitted to the South Carolina bar the next month and in March 1761 was elected to a seat in the South Carolina Assembly. The following year the colony’s governor, Thomas Boone, appointed him attorney general, a post that the latter held for 10 months. In 1765 John Rutledge traveled as one of South Carolina’s delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York; at the age of 25, he was the youngest delegate present. His youth did not deter him from leadership, however, and he served as the chairman of the Resolutions Committee, which drafted a memorial to the House of Lords requesting repeal of the tax. A year later the Stamp Act was, in fact, repealed.
In the 15 years after John Rutledge’s return from England, his law practice developed steadily. His legal work included representing many of the South Carolina’s wealthiest landowners and merchants. By 1763 he was able to announce that he would not even consider cases that did not provide him a retainer of at least 100 pounds.
When events in the mid-1770s began to cascade toward what would become the struggle for independence, Mr. Rutledge played a central role. In September 1774 his state sent him to the Continental Congress as chairman of its delegation. In December 1775 Mr. Rutledge returned to South Carolina and helped draft a state constitution that provided for a bicameral legislature and an executive chosen by this legislature. When the legislature met for the first time in March 1776, it promptly elected John Rutledge the first president of the South Carolina Republic. John Rutledge attended the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia as one of South Carolina’s delegates. Months had passed since the First Continental Congress, and Mr. Rutledge had become more hospitable to the idea of independence, though it would be some time before he accepted the notion of permanent severance from England.
John Rutledge served as president of South Carolina until March 1778, when a dispute over a newly proposed constitution set him at odds with the South Carolina assembly. The new constitution weakened the executive’s power and made both houses of the assembly elected by popular vote. No great friend of direct democracy, Mr. Rutledge opposed the document and eventually resigned. The constitution was ratified, and under its terms South Carolina became a state rather than a republic and its chief executive a governor rather than a president. In February 1779, however, facing the threat of British invasion, the South Carolina assembly elected John Rutledge governor. But he could not repeat the victory that had saved Fort Sullivan in 1776. The British captured Charleston in May 1780, forcing him to flee the state until the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781.
After the war, since John Rutledge could not succeed himself as governor, he was elected instead to the Continental Congress in 1782. When the South Carolina legislature created a new court of chancery in 1784, Mr. Rutledge accepted an appointment as its chief judge. His own political stature and his ties to other South Carolina leaders made him a natural choice to serve as one of South Carolina’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. While there, he served on the Committee of Detail charged with producing a first draft of the Constitution.
After George Washington’s election as the nation’s first president, John Rutledge was among the top contenders for the position of chief justice of the Supreme Court, established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. But numerous posts were already occupied by southerners in the new government. He did not hold the appointment for long, however. During his brief time as a justice, Mr. Rutledge never attended a session of the Court, though he did fulfill his circuit-riding responsibilities. Within a little more than a year, unhappiness with being passed over for chief justice, the lack of cases before the Court, and the arduous nature of circuit riding persuaded him to retire from his position on the Supreme Court in favor of becoming the chief justice of the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas.
A few years after John Rutledge resigned from the Court, he learned that John Jay would soon be stepping down from the position of chief justice, after being elected governor of New York. The imminent vacancy prompted him to express his interest in returning to the Court as chief justice. He wrote privately to Mr. Washington in June 1795 to state his willingness to accept the position, and Mr. Washington immediately responded by forwarding John Rutledge a temporary commission, dated July 1, 1795, as chief justice.
Because the Senate was in recess, the commission was effective until the end of the next session. As a consequence of this appointment, Mr. Rutledge presided over the August term of the Court, during which it decided two cases. His permanent appointment was derailed, however, after he made an intemperate speech in opposition to the Mr. Jay Treaty with Britain, a treaty to which President Washington and the Federalists were committed. When word of the speech, along with suggestions that John Rutledge might be mentally unbalanced, reached the Capitol, the Senate, which convened in December 1795, declined to confirm him by a vote of 14-10. Upon hearing of this vote, Mr. Rutledge attempted suicide on December 26, 1795, by throwing himself off a wharf into Charleston Harbor. Two slaves managed to rescue him, however, and he lived five more years in relative seclusion before his dying.
During the 1774 Continental Congress John Rutledge championed a moderate course in the dealings of the colonies with Great Britain and sought to safeguard his home state’s economic interests. He allied himself with other conservative delegates who steadfastly resisted more radical demands for independence from Britain. Furthermore, when the Congress moved to ban imports and exports from England, Mr. Rutledge seemed an exemption for the sale of rice - South Carolina’s principal export.
In his capacity as chairman of the Committee on Government, he helped to establish procedures for the states to form new governments. He also supported the appointment of George Washington as commander in chief of American forces and even contributed advice about building an American fleet and defending it against the British navy.
During the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 John Rutledge argued in favor of provisions that would place significant government power into the hands of those with wealth and property. He supported property requirements for public officials and would have withheld a salary from the upper house of Congress to assure that only the wealthy could serve as senators. He was no more successful in achieving these aims than he had been in opposing the democratic reforms embraced by South Carolina’s 1778 constitution. He did, however, join with others in defeating a proposed ban on the slave trade in the new nation.
Views
Quotations:
"So long as we may have an independent Judiciary, the great interests of the people will be safe."
"By doing good with his money, a man, as it were, stamps the image of God upon it, and makes it pass current for the merchandise of heaven."
"So long as we may have an independent Judiciary, the great interests of the people will be safe."
Personality
William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, described him as "a Gentleman of distinction and fortune," though he added that Mr. Rutledge was "too rapid in his public speaking to be denominated an agreeable orator."
Connections
In 1763 Rutledge married Elizabeth Grimke; the couple eventually had 10 children, one of whom - John Rutledge, Jr. - later served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1797 to 1803. Two of Elizabeth Grimke’s nieces would achieve prominence in the 1830s and 1840s as abolitionists and reformers in South Carolina.