James Wilson (Founding Father)

James Wilson
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
In office October 5, 1789 – August 21, 1798[1]
Nominated by	George Washington
Preceded by	Seat established
Succeeded by	Bushrod Washington
Personal details
Born	(1742-09-14)September 14, 1742 Carskerdo Farm, Fife, Scotland, Great Britain
Died	August 21, 1798(1798-08-21) (aged 55) Edenton, North Carolina, U.S.
Political party	Federalist
Spouse(s)	Rachel Bird ​ ​ (m. 1771; died 1786)​ Hannah Gray ​ (m. 1793)​
Education	University of St Andrews University of Glasgow University of Edinburgh
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United Colonies of North America
Branch/service	Continental Army
Years of service	1775–1783
Rank	Brigadier General
Unit	4th Pennsylvania Regiment
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War

James Wilson (September 14, 1742 – August 21, 1798) was a Scottish-born American Founding Father, legal scholar, jurist, and statesman who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1789 to 1798. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, and was a major participant in drafting the U.S. Constitution becoming one of only six people to sign both documents.^[2] A leading legal theorist, he was one of the first four Associate Justices appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington. In his capacity as the first professor of law at the College of Philadelphia (a year after he was appointed as a professor at the College of Philadelphia, the college merged with University of the State of Pennsylvania to become the University of Pennsylvania), he taught the first course on the new Constitution to President Washington and his Cabinet in 1789 and 1790 and continued as a professor of law at Penn until his death in 1798.^[3]

Born near Leven, Fife, Scotland, Wilson immigrated to Philadelphia in 1766 and became a teacher at the College of Philadelphia. After studying law under John Dickinson, he was admitted to the bar and set up legal practice in Reading, Pennsylvania. He wrote a well-received pamphlet arguing that the British Parliament's taxation of the Thirteen Colonies was illegitimate because the colonies lacked representation in Parliament. In 1775, he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he signed the Declaration the next year. In addition to his roles in public service, Wilson served as president of the Illinois-Wabash Company, a land speculation venture.

Wilson was a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where he was a member of the Committee of Detail which produced the first draft of the Constitution. He was the principal architect of the executive branch of the federal government^[4] and was an outspoken supporter of greater participatory democracy, a strong national government, and proportional legislative representation based on population. Along with Roger Sherman and Charles Pinckney, he proposed the Three-fifths Compromise, which counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purposes of representation in the United States House of Representatives. While preferring the direct election of the president through a national popular vote, he proposed the use of an electoral college, which provided the basis of the Electoral College system ultimately adopted by the convention. Following the convention, Wilson campaigned for the Constitution's ratification, and his "speech in the statehouse yard" was reprinted in newspapers throughout the country. However, he opposed the Bill of Rights. Wilson also played a major role in drafting the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitution.

In 1789, Wilson joined the Supreme Court and also was named a professor of law on the faculty at the College of Philadelphia. Wilson experienced financial ruin in the Panic of 1796–1797 and was sent to debtors' prison on two occasions. In August 1798, he suffered a stroke, becoming the first U.S. Supreme Court justice to die.