John Rutledge was the master lawyer of colonial Charles Town — in his third year at the bar he appeared in 52 cases and lost none, and his cash income from fees eventually exceeded that of any other professional in the colonies. He dominated South Carolina politics for a generation: delegate to the Stamp Act Congress at 26, president and then governor of revolutionary South Carolina, holding the state's government together through the British invasion.
At the Constitutional Convention in 1787 he had his most consequential moment: as chairman of the Committee of Detail, Rutledge drafted the first working text of the Constitution. The final document differed from the Rutledge draft, as a contemporary put it, "only in arrangement and in the addition of some qualifying and, presumably, some decorative phrases." His nationalism was understated but potent — he "breathed something to create national power" into its clauses. His uncle's maxim captured his hard-edged realism: "Care not who reigns; think only of who rules."
Washington appointed him one of the original associate justices in 1789. He accepted the seat believing his credentials exceeded John Jay's, and the wound of ranking second never fully healed. He resigned in 1791 — without ever sitting on a Supreme Court case — to become Chief Justice of South Carolina.
In June 1795, learning Jay had been elected Governor of New York, Rutledge wrote Washington one of the more remarkable letters in the founding archives — a masterpiece of 18th-century political face-saving, offering himself for the Chief Justiceship while insisting three times that he was not applying: "I never sollicited a Place, nor do I mean this Letter as an Application." Washington appointed him anyway, as a recess appointment.
Rutledge presided over the August 1795 term — and then destroyed himself. In a fiery speech in Charleston he denounced Jay's Treaty, declaring he would rather the President die than sign it. The Federalist Senate, outraged, rejected his nomination that December, 14–10 — the first rejection of a Supreme Court nominee in American history. Reports of his deteriorating mental health, worsened by his wife's death, circulated freely. Days after the rejection he attempted suicide by drowning in Charleston Harbor. He lived five more years in seclusion.
The man who lobbied to outrank Jay's legacy was ultimately destroyed by Jay's treaty.
United States v. Peters
1795Holding · The Court, under Chief Justice Rutledge, issued a prohibition against a federal district court exercising admiralty jurisdiction over a prize taken by a French privateer.
Role · One of the only decisions of Rutledge's brief August 1795 term as Chief Justice.
Rutledge's judicial record is almost entirely a record of absence: he resigned his associate seat before hearing a case, and his recess appointment as Chief lasted one term before the Senate rejected him. The significance is institutional — the first demonstration that the Senate's confirmation power is real.
James Haw's John & Edward Rutledge of South Carolina (1997) is the strongest modern account and the best first book to read — though because Edward shares the volume, it is broad political biography rather than a sustained study of the Court. The only dedicated full-length biography remains Barry's dated 1942 effort. Rutledge is still woefully under-biographied for a founder who shaped the constitutional text more directly than most of his peers.
The Bookshelf
The strongest modern account. Haw's joint biography gives substantial attention to John Rutledge's legal career, Revolutionary leadership, governorship, work at the Constitutional Convention, and final judicial years. Because Edward Rutledge shares the volume — and John's federal Court service was so brief — it is broader political biography rather than a sustained study of Supreme Court jurisprudence. University of Georgia Press.
Barry's study, though based on wide research and at times colorful, ultimately feels light rather than penetrating. Remarkably, the New York Times reviewer in January 1943 reached the same verdict: Barry "has searched deeply and widely" but "failed to produce a biography of the first quality. It is light and in places colorful, but it is hardly substantial and penetrating." Eighty years on, the verdict on both Rutledge's importance and Barry's limitations holds. For a founder who shaped the constitutional text more directly than most of his peers, Rutledge still awaits the substantial, first-rank biography his achievements demand.
The most useful scholarly judicial context — an essay on each major pre-Marshall justice, reconstructing the constitutional ideas they brought to the early Court. Especially valuable for Rutledge because his own Supreme Court record is too small to support a conventional jurisprudential biography. NYU Press.
Eight volumes in nine (Columbia University Press) — the essential documentary source for Rutledge's appointments, the early Court's proceedings, press reaction, and the Senate's rejection of his nomination. A research collection rather than a narrative; Volume 1 is the natural starting point for the appointment and confirmation story.
A substantial nineteenth-century account of the first two Chief Justices. It preserves early biographical traditions and shows how Rutledge was remembered before modern professional scholarship — a supplement, not a substitute, for Haw.
The dedicated study of the episode that defines Rutledge — his furious July 1795 speech against the Jay Treaty, delivered weeks after accepting the recess appointment as Chief Justice, which handed the Senate its reason to reject him that December. Cited in the Friedman & Israel chapter as the key account.
The standard study of Rutledge's extraordinary wartime governorship — the near-absolute powers South Carolina handed him as the British closed in, which earned him the nickname and made him the most powerful executive in revolutionary America. The pre-Court career at its dramatic peak.
The Reading Path
A researched route through the literature — in order.
- 1.Haw — for the best modern account of Rutledge's full public life and historical setting
- 2.Gerber's Seriatim — for the early Supreme Court and Rutledge's constitutional thought
- 3.Barry — for the only full biography devoted solely to Rutledge — read critically
- 4.The Documentary History — for the appointments, the 1795 nomination controversy, and original records
- 5.Flanders — for nineteenth-century biography and the evolution of Rutledge's reputation
Where the Papers Are Kept
Rutledge's sparse surviving papers include his extraordinary June 12, 1795 letter to Washington offering himself for the Chief Justiceship ("I never sollicited a Place, nor do I mean this Letter as an Application — it is intended, merely, to apprize you, of what I would do, if elected."). Visit →
Online Resources
Ideas for Further Research
- Rutledge is the most under-biographied major framer: chairman of the Committee of Detail, drafter of the Constitution's first working text, and the first rejected Supreme Court nominee. Haw's 1997 joint biography is the strongest modern account, but a dedicated, first-rank life of John Rutledge alone is still overdue.
- The December 1795 Senate rejection — the politics, the press campaign, and the role of reports about his mental health — has never received a full scholarly treatment.