Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/59

upon every consideration are the most deserving and will be most likely to promote, this important end."^[1]

On September 24, the day on which he affixed his signature to the Judiciary Act, Washington sent in to the Senate the names of his appointees to the Supreme Court of the United States constituted by that statute. Of all appointments to be made, that of Chief Justice of the United States was by far the most important and had given to the President the greatest concern. Rightly he felt that the man to head this first Court must be not only a great lawyer, but a great statesman, a great executive and a great leader as well. Many eminent names were presented to him. Among the earliest and probably the most illustrious as a jurist was that of James Wilson of Philadelphia, who, on April 21, 1789, addressed himself to Washington as an aspirant for the place in the following interesting letter:^[2]

A delicacy arising from your situation and character as well as my own has hitherto prevented me from mentioning to your Excellency a subject of much importance to me. Perhaps I should not even now have broke silence but for one consideration. A regard to the dignity of the Government over which you preside will naturally lead you to take care that its honours be in no event exposed to affected indifference or contempt. For this reason, you may well expect that, before you nominate any gentleman to an employment (especially one of high trust), you should have

1. Washington Papers MSS, letters to Robert R. Livingston, May 81, 1789, and Nathaniel Gorham, May 7, 1789; see also Washington, X, letter to Edward Rutledge, May 5, 1789. To his nephew Bushrod Washington, who sought to be appointed United States Attorney, Washington wrote, July 27, 1789: "My political conduct in nominations, even if I were uninfluenced by principle, must be exceedingly circumspect and proof against just criticism, for the eyes of Argus are upon me, and no slip will pass unnoticed that can be improved into a supposed partisanship for friends or relatives."
2. This letter, hitherto unpublished, is in the Library of Congress; see Calendar of Applications and Recommendations for Office under the Presidency of George Washington (1901), by Gaillard Hunt.