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Supreme
Court Justices
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William Paterson (1745 - 1806) |
 William Paterson was born in Ireland on
December 24, 1745. Paterson's family immigrated to New Jersey when he was
young, and Paterson obtained his education at Princeton. He was admitted to
the bar in New Jersey in 1768, and after independence, became a very
successful lawyer. While in his mid-20s, Paterson took up the cause of
independence from England. He wrote New Jersey's first constitution. During
the 1780s, Paterson supported the creation of a stronger national
government. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and
floated a proposal that eventually led to the Great Compromise, in which the
Congress would be divided into two Houses: a senate composed of an equal
number of representatives from each state, and a house of representatives
composed of members elected in proportion to population. After ratification,
Paterson became a Senator from New Jersey in the first Congress. He helped
draft the Judiciary Act of 1789.
In 1793, Paterson was nominated to the Supreme Court by George Washington. As might be expected based on his past efforts, Paterson was strongly nationalistic as a member of the Supreme Court. Paterson was reviled by a number of Jeffersonian Republicans for his enthusiastic enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798). Possibly his most important opinion was in Stuart v. Laird (1803), in which the Court held constitutional Congress's repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801, an opinion that was rendered 9 days after the Court's decision in Marbury v. Madison. A year later, Paterson was riding circuit when his coach overturned on a poor road. Paterson’s injuries led to his death in 1806. |
