National University - Docket Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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stitution to prevent such suits. A threat of war between the United States and Great Britain arising, Jay, while still Chief Justice, was sent to London and the famous Jay treaty was the result. So unpopular and unsatisfac- tory was this treaty that there was a great outburst of public indignation and the Chief Justice was burned in effigy in several communities. But the young republic was unprepared for a foreign war and the treaty was reluc- tantly accepted by Washington and confirmed by the Senate as containing the best terms obtainable at the time. Upon his return from England, Jay found that he had been elected Governor of New ork and he then did something that seems odd to us in this day — he resigned as Chief Justice to become Governor of his State! He was a brother of Sir James Jay, an eminent physician, who was knighted by George III and who was suspected of disloyalty to the United States after the Revolution, being practically disowned by the Chief Justice. To succeed Jay President Washington selected a distinguished South Carolinian, John Rutledge (1739-1800), who had served as an Associate Justice from 1789 to 1791 and who resigned from the Court to become chief justice of his State. He was a brother of Edward Rutledge, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the father of John Rutledge, Jr., who represented a South Carolina district in Congress from 1797 to 1803. Rutledge assumed his duties as Chief Justice in 1795 and presided over the Court during the August term, but in the following December the Senate refused to confirm his nomination. I he position was next offered to Caleb Cushing, the senior Associate Justice, who declined the honor. Washington now turned to Connecticut and his third choice met with the approval of the Senate. Oliver Ellsworth was born in 1 745 the same year in which Jay was born. He was of English ancestry and was edu- cated for the ministry at Yale and Princeton. There has always been con- siderable mystery as to just why Ellsworth suddenly quit Yale in 1764. In

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