Signing Their Rights Away (16 page)

Nevertheless, Ingersoll was involved in some landmark Supreme Court cases, including one that inspired the Eleventh Amendment.
Chisholm v. Georgia
concerned a South Carolina man suing the state of Georgia for nonpayment of war debts. Ingersoll, the counsel for Georgia, refused to appear before the court, arguing that the feds had no right to hear the case because Georgia was a sovereign, or independent, state and couldn’t be dragged into a case before the Supreme Court. In a 4-1 decision, the Supreme Court rejected his argument, saying that the Constitution did give the high court the right to hear cases brought against states by citizens of
other
states. They might have been willing to hear the merits of Georgia’s case, but because the state of Georgia didn’t appear, four justices said they had no choice but to decide in favor of Chisholm.

What irritated Americans more than anything was the court’s assertion that only the federal government had sovereign immunity from such suits. Because the issue of states’ rights was (and still is) a touchy one, Congress immediately proposed the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, which specifically prohibits the Supreme Court from hearing cases in which states are sued by citizens of other states. Ratified in 1795, less than a year after it was proposed, the amendment may be one that most Americans never pause to consider, but it
became the first passed specifically to overturn a Supreme Court ruling. And to this day it’s still debated by legal scholars.

In 1796, while he was attorney general of Pennsylvania, Ingersoll argued and lost another pivotal case,
Hylton v. United States
, the first legal challenge to the constitutionality of an act of Congress. (In the case, the court found that Congress did not overstep its taxing and spending powers when it imposed a $16 tax on carriages.) One of Ingersoll’s more infamous cases was his defense of William Blount, a shady Tennessee politician and Constitution signer who was the first person ever to be impeached by the federal government under the Constitution.

When John Adams was about to leave office as president, one of his last official acts was to stack the circuit courts throughout the land with as many Federalist “midnight judges” as possible. Ingersoll was so rewarded for his loyalty, but he declined the post.

Thomas Jefferson’s rise to the presidency spelled doom for most Federalists in power, and Ingersoll was no exception. He retreated into private practice for a decade but remained active in the Federalist Party in Pennsylvania. In 1812, he ran unsuccessfully for vice president of the United States with presidential running mate DeWitt Clinton. If you’re asking, “DeWitt who?” you already know the outcome. The pair lost, and James Madison was swept into office as the nation’s fourth president.

Still, Ingersoll remained active—as attorney general, in Philadelphia district court, and in private practice—almost to the day he keeled over. But it wasn’t a love of work that kept him going; he was desperately out of money. Some years back, he had invested in western land with fellow signer Robert Morris, and when those deals proved disastrous, all investors were left looking at empty bank accounts. This likely explains why Ingersoll wore colonial clothes long after they’d gone out of style. While the fashions of the period were transitioning to long pants and tall boots, Ingersoll still fastened his colonial breeches and buckle shoes and dressed in frilly shirts, bowing to the ladies while doffing his old tricorn hat. He died on Halloween day of 1822, at the age of seventy-three.

The Signer-Turned-Fugitive

BORN
: September 14, 1742

DIED
: August 21, 1798

AGE AT SIGNING
: 45

PROFESSION
: Lawyer

BURIED
: Christ Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

James Wilson wasn’t the first signer of the Constitution to make a few extremely boneheaded financial decisions, but rare is the story that can match the quirky details of his brilliant rise and fall. This astute colonial lawyer went from being a Supreme Court justice to a jailbird to a man on the run. He contributed so much to the founding of the nation—and yet his reputation was quickly erased by colleagues the moment he died, in an effort to sweep his scandals under the rug of history.

Wilson was born in Scotland and studied at not one but three universities before arriving in Philadelphia to seek his fortune. When he soured on a teaching job, he zeroed in on law. Once he was admitted to the bar, Wilson left Philadelphia for Reading, and then Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he developed a lucrative practice
among Scotch-Irish settlers. Since many cases involved land disputes, he absorbed much privileged information about various parcels and soon succumbed to the lure of speculation: with borrowed money, he bought land and flipped it for a profit. In time, he acquired a home, a wealthy wife named Rachel Bird, and a slave, settling into a life he could not have imagined in his homeland. He and Rachel had six children.

Wilson found time to lecture on literature and other topics in Philadelphia. He was among the first intellectuals to argue that Parliament had no authority over the colonies, and he felt that the colonists should look instead to the king as their link to the Empire. Having analyzed Parliament’s decision to close the port of Boston in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party, Wilson called the act unconstitutional. That was a fascinating leap of logic, because under English law no act of Parliament could ever be considered unconstitutional. Wilson’s reasoning was ahead of its time. By presuming to judge whether a piece of legislation was correct, he implied that judges could, and should, second-guess legislators. This concept of judicial review would later become a central tenet of the U.S. legal system.

In Congress, the reserved, somewhat awkward Wilson cut an impressive figure with his six-foot height, his Scottish burr, and his dignified expression obscured behind thick, nerdy glasses. Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush called him a “profound and accurate scholar,” continuing rapturously: “His mind, while he spoke, was one blaze of light.”

Wilson was a political moderate, though he grew more conservative with each passing year. He was sent to Congress in May 1775 and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. But later, when his new state was crafting a constitution that gave power to the citizens, Wilson attacked it. Although he
believed
that the power of any government rested with the people, he acted like a man lacking these beliefs. Eventually, such behavior made him unpopular with his constituents, and they voted him out of Congress in the fall of 1777.

In the years following the signing of the Declaration, Wilson transformed himself from a frontier lawyer into an odious corporate attorney. He also switched from being a Whig—the party that opposed royal power—to a virtual Tory. He even changed his religion; the traditional Scottish Presbyterian converted to the Episcopal faith. He bought a nice townhouse in Philadelphia, invested in land, and defended beleaguered Tory merchants in court. The city’s patriots grew to detest him. In the fall of 1779, when inflation was at an all-time high and food was scarce, a mob of angry, inebriated lower-class citizens and militiamen swarmed Wilson’s townhouse at Third and Walnut Streets. “Get Wilson!” was their rallying cry. Wilson and his cronies barricaded themselves inside and desperately fired on the crowd, which returned shots. Between three and seven people were killed; as many as nineteen may have been injured. Wilson decided to flee town until emotions cooled. The next spring, the legislature pardoned everyone involved in what was sarcastically called the Fort Wilson incident.

Wilson returned to public life after the war, when others like him—aristocratic in bearing and behavior—were in power. But he seemed to set all that aside when he walked into the 1787 Constitutional Convention. There he was a major force behind the creation of the U.S. Constitution, championing its most democratic principles. Friends with Benjamin Franklin since the days of the Declaration, Wilson sat near the older man and often read aloud Franklin’s notes and speeches. At age eighty-one, the once-spry Franklin was too tired to stand and address the delegates.

But Wilson was no mere mouthpiece. James Madison may be credited as the father of the Constitution, but Wilson is often recognized as the number-two man. Not only was he one of the top speakers at the convention (with an impressive 168 recorded remarks), he put forth an idea that is the cornerstone of American government: namely, that a system of checks and balances was required to ensure that the power invested in leaders cannot be
abused. Wilson famously showed the delegates a picture of a pyramid. In order for the federal government to be truly powerful, he explained, it must, like a pyramid, have the broadest possible base. In other words, it must have the support of the American people. Again, he argued that judges would act as a check on the legislature by striking down unconstitutional laws. He defended the idea of having one person as the chief executive when delegates insisted that such a practice would lead to the creation of a virtual monarchy. And he insisted that the president should be elected by the American people and not the legislature, as some had suggested. Only then would citizens feel invested in their government.

True to his big-state roots, Wilson supported the idea of proportional representation in Congress. He proposed that senators be elected to nine-year terms. At the time, everyone assumed that the Senate would draw the wealthiest, most educated Americans. Two-year terms were fine for the rabble in the House; but senators needed to serve for a substantial time. The delegates finally settled on six-year Senate terms, rotating so that one-third of the Senate would leave each year; that way, the assembly would always have fresh blood. Wilson served on the committee that wrote the Constitution and may himself have contributed substantial chunks of the text. He signed the document a few days after his forty-fifth birthday, returning home to convince Pennsylvanians to ratify the document.

Wilson expected to be selected as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court—but those hopes were soon dashed. Washington did choose him as the court’s first justice, but he was tapped to be an associate, not chief justice (that honor went to John Jay). Around the same time, Wilson became the first law professor at the future University of Pennsylvania.

All might have ended well if Wilson hadn’t made a number of ill-advised business decisions. Chief among them was buying land tracts in western New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia—all on borrowed money. If he had lived in the twenty-first-century, Wilson
would have been at the head of the housing-bubble pack, gobbling up more land than he could afford. It’s estimated he held one million acres in his portfolio, not to mention factories, ships, and ironworks. He and his investors, among them signer Robert Morris, had a scheme to import immigrants to settle the land, thereby earning a handsome profit. While on the high court, he was hounded by critics and almost impeached because he promoted laws written to help—who else?—land speculators.