William Paterson brought a wealth of legal experience to his positon as senior associate justice. Prior to joining the Court, Paterson had practiced law privately and as an attorney general for the state of New Jersey. In addition to this practical experience, Paterson had helped revise the laws of his state and, importantly, served as a principal architect of the federal judicial system through his role in drafting the Judiciary Act of 1789.
Background
Mr. Paterson was born on December 24, 1745 in County Antrim, Antrim, Nothern Ireland (United Kingdom), but his family soon migrated to America, living briefly in New York and Connecticut before finally settling in Princeton, New Jersey. There his parents opened a general store, lived frugally, and invested wisely.
Education
In 1759 William Paterson was able to attend the College of New Jersey (which eventually became Princeton University); he graduated in 1763. Over the next several years he pursued a master’s degree, which he obtained in 1766, and studied law with Richard Stockton. By 1769 he had been admitted to the bar and moved to New Bromley, New Jersey, where he established his practice.
By the mid-1770s Mr. Paterson had earned one the first of many public posts that would fill most of his life. In 1775 Somerset County sent him as a delegate to the First Provincial Congress of New Jersey, where he assumed the position of assistant secretary. Within a short time he was named secretary of the New Jersey congress and played an important part in drafting the New Jersey constitution. In 1776 William Paterson became New Jersey’s first attorney general. He served in this position until 1783, when he returned to the private practice of law.
In 1787, when the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, William Paterson attended as a delegate from New Jersey. There he played a crucial role in the proceedings by proposing the famous New Jersey Plan. Satisfied with his plan, William Paterson joined in signing the Constitution on September 17,1787.
Mr. Paterson returned to New Jersey, where he advocated ratification of the Constitution. Once this was done, his state promptly elected him to a seat in the U.S. Senate. As a U.S. senator he, together with Oliver Ellsworth, played the principal role in fashioning the formative Judiciary Act of 1789, which established a vigorous role for federal courts in the new nation and guided the conduct of those courts for more than a century to come. However, William Paterson did not serve long in the U.S. Senate. In 1790 the governor of New Jersey died, and the New Jersey legislature elected Mr. Paterson to fill the vacant position. He was subsequently reelected governor for three more one-year terms. President George Washington interrupted William Paterson’s tenure as governor of New Jersey in 1793 by nominating him to fill the seat on the Supreme Court so briefly occupied by Thomas Johnson, and before him John Rutledge.
Mr. Washington had nominated him to the Supreme Court on February 27,1793, but the following day he withdrew the nomination on discovering that William Paterson had served in the Senate that had passed the Judiciary Act of 1787 and that his term as a senator had not yet expired. George Washington viewed these circumstances as violating Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, which prevents members of the House and Senate from being appointed to a civil office created during their service as legislators. The president nominated Mr. Paterson again on March 4, 1793, and the Senate confirmed the nomination the same day. William Paterson took the oath of office as an associate justice of the Supreme Court within a week and began one of the longest tenures on the Court of any Washington appointee. Only William Cushing and Samuel Chase would exceed Mr. Paterson’s 13 years on the Court.
In 1795, shortly after William Paterson joined the Court, President Washington offered him the post of Secretary of State, but he chose instead to remain on the Court. Five years later, when Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth resigned in 1800, it was widely believed that Mr. Paterson would be nominated to succeed him. But President John Adams preferred his secretary of state, John Marshall, over William Paterson for that post. Though the Senate briefly stalled John Marshall’s confirmation, hoping that Mr. Adams would relent and appoint Mr. Paterson chief justice, but the president ultimately secured the confirmation of John Marshall as chief justice. Mr. Paterson would not have occupied the chief seat on the Court for long in any event. The circuit riding took an inevitable toll on his health, and in 1804 he suffered severe injuries as a result of a carriage accident. His service on the Court was intermittent after this accident, and on September 9, 1806, while en route to his daughter’s home in New York he died.
Achievements
Politics
William Paterson influenced greatly on the New Jersey Plan, offered to counter the proposal of the Virginia delegation. Virginia, a large state, had proposed a bicameral legislature for the new national government, in which the number of representatives in each house would be selected according to the population of their respective states. Smaller states such as New Jersey opposed this plan, so Mr. Paterson proposed instead a plan that would have created a legislature with a single chamber and given all the states given equal representation in this chamber. The ultimate bicameral scheme adopted in the Constitution reflected a compromise between the Virginia plan and Mr. Paterson’s plan. So, in other words, he championed the cause of small states in the Constitutional Convention, thus facilitating the Great Compromise that eventually secured passage of the Constitution.
As a senator, his most memorable work was to help draft the Judiciary Act of 1789. Together with Oliver Ellsworth - himself a future chief justice of the Supreme Court - William Paterson played a principal role in establishing the basic framework of the federal courts: a Supreme Court consisting of a chief justice and five associate justices, three circuit courts, and a district court for each of the original 13 states.
Views
Quotations:
"What is a Constitution? It is the form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first principles of fundamental law are established. The Constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the power of the Legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it."
Membership
Cliosophic Society
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United States
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
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United States
Personality
William Paterson was an able, energetic judge, upholding Federal power.
Connections
In 1777 Mr. Paterson married Cornelia Bell, who died in childbirth in 1783. Together they had three children. The next year after Mrs. Bell death William Paterson married one of his wife's close friends, Euphemia White.