John Blair (1732 - 1800)

John Blair was born in 1732 in Williamsburg, Virginia. In his early 20s, after graduating from William & Mary, Blair traveled to London to learn law. After returning to Virginia, Blair practiced law successfully for a decade before serving in Virginia's colonial House of Burgesses.  Between 1770-75, Blair served on the colonial Governor's Council. Despite these connections with colonial authority, Blair supported independence from England. During the Revolutionary and early national period, Blair served in a number of judicial positions in Virginia. In 1787, he served as a delegate from Virginia at the Constitutional Convention. In September 1789, George Washington nominated Blair as one of the initial six members of the Supreme Court. Blair's most important opinion was in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), which held that a state could be sued in federal court even if it objected to the suit. The outcry at this opinion led to the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment in 1798. While riding circuit, Blair, James Wilson, and Richard Peters declared unconstitutional Congress's effort to require circuit courts act as pension commissions. This case, Hayburn's Case, is the first case in which an act of Congress was held unconstitutional.

In 1796, Blair resigned due to ill health. He died in 1800.

Further reading: Robert M. Ireland, John Blair, in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (1992).