James Wilson, Pennsylvania

1742-1798

Representative for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress

James Wilson was born in Scotland in 1742. He attended a surprising number of Universities there, and never attained a degree. He emigrated to America in 1766, carrying a number of valuable letters of Introduction with him. Through these connections he began tutoring and then teaching at the Philadelphia College. He petitioned there for a degree and was awarded an honorary Master of Arts several months later.

The most popular career field in those days was the law. Wilson managed to secure studies at the office of John Dickinson a short time later. After two years of study he attained the bar in Philadelphia, and the following year (1767) set up his own practice in Reading. His office was very successful and he managed to earn a small fortune in a few short years. At that point he had bought a small farm near Carlisle, was handling cases in eight local Counties, and lecturing on English Literature at the College of Philadelphia. It was also during this period that he began a life-long fascination with land speculation.

In 1774 Wilson attended a provincial meeting, as a representative of Carlisle, and was elected a member of the local Committee of Correspondence. He wrote a pamphlet titled "Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament." In it, he argued that the Parliament had no authority to pass laws for the colonies. It was published, and later found its way to the Continental Congress, where it was widely read and commented on. In 1775 he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he assumed a position with the most radical members-a demand for separation from Britain. James Wilson's powers of oration, the passion of his delivery and the logic he employed in debate, were commented on favorably by many members of the Congress. He was, however, in a bind. Pennsylvania was divided on the issue of separation, and Wilson refused to vote against the will of his constituents. Many members felt that it was hypocritical to have argued so forcefully and so long for Independence, only to vote against it when the occasion came. Wilson, with the support of three other members who were sympathetic to his position, managed a delay of three weeks, so that he could consult with people back home. When the vote came, he was able to affirm Pennsylvania's wish for Independence.

Following the Declaration, Wilson's attention turned back to his state, where a new constitution was proposed. He was strongly opposed to its form, and argued against it at every opportunity. This placed his office in jeopardy. He was recalled from Congress for about two weeks in 1777 but no one would take his place, so he was restored until the end of his term. Wilson did not return home following his term. He stayed in Annapolis through the winter, settled in Philadelphia. He resumed some of his former law practice there, only now he consulted to corporations. He was a leader in the Democratic-republican party. He also resumed his activities in speculation, including profiteering. He borrowed heavily and gambled aggressively. These activities eventually caught up with him in two ways. First, he acquired a great deal of debt and for this he was very near ly arrested on several occasions. Second, he was repeatedly accused of "engrossing," the practice of hoarding goods against the public need in order to drive up prices. During a food shortage in 1779, he and his property were attacked during riots in Philadelphia. He was rescued by a law enforcement troop, but had to hide for some time.

In 1779 Wilson was appointed by France to serve as its US advocate general for maritime and commercial enterprises. He was elected to Congress again in 1782, where he worked closely with Robert Morris on financial matters of state. In 1781, Wilson was appointed a director of the original Bank of North America. In 1784, he was appointed to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Following ratification of the new Constitution, he searched for an appointment to the Federal government. He appealed directly to Washington, and was appointed an Associate Justice in 1789.

The remainder of his life was miserable. His wife had died in 1786. In 1792 he returned again to speculation in land New York and Pennsylvania. His finances were completely destroyed within a short time and he spent some time in a debtors prison (while still serving on the Supreme Court!). By 1798 Wilson was destroyed as a man as well. He complained of great mental fatigue and an inability to work any longer. He died while visiting a friend in North Carolina that same year.

From: US History.org

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Wilson was born in 1741 or 1742 at Carskerdo, near St. Andrews, Scotland, and educated at the universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. He then emigrated to America, arriving in the midst of the Stamp Act agitations in 1765. Early the next year, he accepted a position as Latin tutor at the College of Philadelphia (later part of the University of Pennsylvania) but almost immediately abandoned it to study law under John Dickinson.

In 1768, the year after his admission to the Philadelphia bar, Wilson set up practice at Reading, Pa. Two years later, he moved westward to the Scotch-Irish settlement of Carlisle, and the following year he took a bride, Rachel Bird. He specialized in land law and built up a broad clientele. On borrowed capital, he also began to speculate in land. In some way he managed, too, to lecture on English literature at the College of Philadelphia, which had awarded him an honorary master of arts degree in 1766.

Wilson became involved in Revolutionary politics. In 1774 he took over chairmanship of the Carlisle committee of correspondence, attended the first provincial assembly, and completed preparation of Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament. This tract circulated widely in England and America and established him as a Whig leader.

The next year, Wilson was elected to both the provincial assembly and the Continental Congress, where he sat mainly on military and Indian affairs committees. In 1776, reflecting the wishes of his constituents, he joined the moderates in Congress voting for a 3-week delay in considering Richard Henry Lee's resolution of June 7 for independence. On the July 1 and 2 ballots on the issue, however, he voted in the affirmative and signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2.

Wilson's strenuous opposition to the republican Pennsylvania constitution of 1776, besides indicating a switch to conservatism on his part, led to his removal from Congress the following year. To avoid the clamor among his frontier constituents, he repaired to Annapolis during the winter of 1777-78 and then took up residence in Philadelphia.

Wilson affirmed his newly assumed political stance by closely identifying with the aristocratic and conservative republican groups, multiplying his business interests, and accelerating his land speculation. He also took a position as Advocate General for France in America (1779-83), dealing with commercial and maritime matters, and legally defended Loyalists and their sympathizers.

In the fall of 1779, during a period of inflation and food shortages, a mob which included many militiamen and was led by radical constitutionalists, set out to attack the republican leadership. Wilson was a prime target. He and some 35 of his colleagues barricaded themselves in his home at Third and Walnut Streets, thereafter known as "Fort Wilson." During a brief skirmish, several people on both sides were killed or wounded. The shock cooled sentiments and pardons were issued all around, though major political battles over the commonwealth constitution still lay ahead.

During 1781 Congress appointed Wilson as one of the directors of the Bank of North America, newly founded by his close associate and legal client Robert Morris. In 1782, by which time the conservatives had regained some of their power, the former was reelected to Congress, and he also served in the period 1785-87.

Wilson reached the apex of his career in the Constitutional Convention (1787), where his influence was probably second only to that of Madison. Rarely missing a session, he sat on the Committee of Detail and in many other ways applied his excellent knowledge of political theory to convention problems. Only Gouverneur Morris delivered more speeches.

That same year, overcoming powerful opposition, Wilson led the drive for ratification in Pennsylvania, the second state to endorse the instrument. The new commonwealth constitution, drafted in 1789-90 along the lines of the U.S. Constitution, was primarily Wilson's work and represented the climax of his 14-year fight against the constitution of 1776.

For his services in the formation of the federal government, though Wilson expected to be appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in 1789 President Washington named him as an associate justice. He was chosen that same year as the first law professor at the College of Philadelphia. Two years later he began an official digest of the laws of Pennsylvania, a project he never completed, though he carried on for a while after funds ran out.

Wilson, who wrote only a few opinions, did not achieve the success on the Supreme Court that his capabilities and experience promised. Indeed, during those years he was the object of much criticism and barely escaped impeachment. For one thing, he tried to influence the enactment of legislation in Pennsylvania favorable to land speculators. Between 1792 and 1795 he also made huge but unwise land investments in western New York and Pennsylvania, as well as in Georgia. This did not stop him from conceiving a grandiose but ill-fated scheme, involving vast sums of European capital, for the recruitment of European colonists and their settlement in the West. Meantime, in 1793, as a widower with six children, he remarried to Hannah Gray; their one son died in infancy.

Four years later, to avoid arrest for debt, the distraught Wilson moved from Philadelphia to Burlington, NJ. The next year, apparently while on federal circuit court business, he arrived at Edenton, NC, in a state of acute mental stress and was taken into the home of James Iredell, a fellow Supreme Court justice. He died there within a few months. Although first buried at Hayes Plantation near Edenton, his remains were later reinterred in the yard of Christ Church at Philadelphia.

From: National Archives