James Wilson

Biography

James Wilson was born in Scotland, the son of farmer William Wilson and Alison Landall Wilson. He studied at the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh but did not receive a degree from any of the three. At the universities, he was exposed to, and embraced, Scottish Enlightenment ideas, which he carried with him when he emigrated to America in 1765. He arrived in Philadelphia with letters of introduction that allowed him to teach at the College of Philadelphia. The College granted him an honorary Master of Arts degree in 1766, and years later, in appreciation for his political and legal achievements, they awarded Wilson an honorary legal degree.

While he taught, he also studied law under John Dickinson. He was admitted to the bar only two years after arriving in Pennsylvania and established a practice in Reading, Pennsylvania. He was quickly successful, and by 1771, he felt he was established enough to marry. His wife Rachel Bird Wilson died in 1786, and in 1793 he married Hannah Gray.

Wilson had arrived in the colonies just as a changing British colonial policy had frayed the ties that bound mother country and colonies together. By 1774, colonists had established committees of correspondence to spread news throughout the colonies and created a Continental Congress to ensure collective action against what many Americans considered Parliament’s unfair taxation and regulation. In 1774, Wilson published a pamphlet he had drafted in 1768. This pamphlet, “Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament,” won him widespread recognition as it insisted that Parliament lacked authority to legislate for the colonies. By this time, Wilson was certain that war was inevitable, and in preparation he became an officer in the Pennsylvania state militia.

In 1775, Wilson was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Although he was a firm supporter of independence, he was also a firm believer that his constituents should have a voice in his vote. Thus when he was elected again in 1776, he delayed committing himself until he was certain they were ready to declare independence. Assured, he signed the Declaration of Independence. He remained in Congress through 1777, and made a major diplomatic contribution by establishing how Congress would relate to the Native American border tribes.

Wilson did not approve of the prosecution or persecution of colonists who remained loyal to the Crown. In 1779, he opposed Pennsylvania’s attempt to seize the property of Loyalists and exile them from the state. His defense of these Loyalists in court angered many, and a mob marched on his house that October. Thirty-five of Wilson’s colleagues barricaded themselves with him in his home and fought off the attackers. Six men died and over 17 were wounded. Only the arrival of Philadelphia cavalry troops and Continental Light Dragoons would rescue Wilson and his defenders.

Wilson’s reputation as one of the most outstanding legal minds of his day grew and was enhanced by his role at the 1787 convention that drafted the Constitution. During the Convention, he was one of three central speakers—along with James Madison and Gouverneur Morris—who led the key debates on the structure of the proposed government. Like Madison and Morris, Wilson advocated a strong national government, but he stood out for his advocacy of popular control of that government. He wanted representation in both houses of the Congress to be based on population and direct election by the people. Although he owned a household slave, Wilson quietly argued against the continuation of slavery. He was constrained from pressing the issue by the fear that the southern delegates would bolt the convention. But he did press for what was termed the Three-Fifths Compromise that would count 3/5 of a state’s enslaved population in determining that state’s number of representatives in the lower house. As the Convention continued, he came to regret this compromise, but it remained.

Wilson’s role in shaping the executive branch was critical. He was the first and most ardent supporter of a unitary executive rather than a triumvirate representing the three regions of the new country. It was also Wilson who begrudgingly came up with the Electoral College as the means to elect the President. He had come up with this workable, if awkward, solution early in the Convention, but it was not greeted warmly. Over the months, no solution met with the Convention’s approval. As the Convention drew closer to its end, Wilson and a committee aptly named “the Committee of Unfinished Parts” returned to the question: how should the president be chosen? Wilson’s electoral college, with some tweaking, now seemed the only viable answer.

Wilson threw himself into the campaign for ratification of the Constitution when the Convention ended. On October 6, 1787, he delivered a speech in the courtyard behind Independence Hall, arguing cogently for the virtues of the Constitution. His speech was widely reproduced in newspapers, and George Washington distributed it in an effort to win over Virginians to the ratification cause. In the speech, Wilson explained that there were three possible forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and a republic. The constitution, he said, ensured that the people would retain supreme power by creating a republic. “By adopting this system,” he declared, “we shall probably lay a foundation for erecting temples of liberty in every part of the earth.”

Wilson hoped that he would be chosen to be the first Chief Justice of the United States once the Constitution was ratified. But Washington chose New Yorker John Jay instead. The new President did, however, nominate James Wilson to be an associate justice, and the Senate confirmed his appointment. He was sworn in on October 5, 1789. Like the other members of the high court, Wilson spent much of his time circuit riding, traveling the country to oversee cases being tried in lower courts. Wilson sat on the Supreme Court for several early precedent-setting cases, among them Chisholm v. Georgia [1793], which gave federal courts the power to hear disputes between private citizens and states, and Hylton v. United States, which clarified the power of Congress to levy taxes. Wilson served on the Supreme Court until his death in August 1798.

Throughout the war years, Wilson had expanded his business interests, especially his speculation in western lands. He had served as a member or an officer in a number of land companies that purchased hundreds of thousands of acres. But an economic panic in 1796 reversed his fortunes and left him deeply in debt.

He was briefly imprisoned in a debtors' prison in New Jersey. After his son paid the debt and Wilson was freed, he fled to North Carolina to escape other creditors. In 1798 he came down with malaria and then died of a stroke while visiting a friend in Edenton, North Carolina. He was only 55 years old.