in advance of Jay's intention, had endeavored to obtain acceptance of the position by Alexander Hamilton, pointing out to him through a letter written by Attorney-General William Bradford, "the immense importance of confiding that large trust to one who was not to be scared by popular clamor or warped by feeble-minded prejudices."[1] Hamilton, however, declined to accept the appointment, having but recently resigned as Secretary of the Treasury, and being anxious to renew his law practice and political activities in New York.
Meanwhile, Washington's close friend, James McHenry of Baltimore, recommended for any vacancy the appointment of Samuel Chase, then Chief Justice of the General Court of Maryland. Chase had been one of the foremost of the early patriots, "the torch that lighted up the Revolutionary flame", and was one of the ablest lawyers of the State. He was, however, a man of strong passions and prejudices and had been slightly implicated in certain contractors' frauds which his enemies had greatly exaggerated, McHenry, though not an intimate friend of Chase, urged, nevertheless, that the recognition of his long, patriotic services would have an excellent effect upon the country:
Among the inducements I feel for presenting his name on this occasion is his general conduct since the adoption of our government and the sense I entertain of the part he bore in the revolutionary efforts of a long and trying crisis. You know that his services and abilities were of much use to the cause during that period, sometimes by the measures
- ↑ History of the Republic (1860), by John C. Hamilton, VI, 263.
were his reasons, I am persuaded it was utterly unjustifiable. The President may, himself, make a temporary appointment, but it is not much to be expected, I fear, as few gentlemen would accept under the circumstances." William Flumer wrote to Jeremiah Smith, June 30, 1795, of Jay's "preeminent virtue" and said that his appointment as Governor "removes the complaint against the Administration of appointing a man to form a treaty who, from his office of Judge, must afterwards expound and execute it. Who will succeed him as Chief Justice in the Court?"
Phmer Papers MSS.
