JOHN RUTLEDGE.

THE practical sagacity of Washington, and his almost intuitive knowledge of character, rarely failed him in that most difficult branch of executive duty, appointments to places of official trust and responsibility. In the administration of government, as well as upon the theatre of military operations, he was not only quick in discerning real merit, but correct in estimating the true worth of a man and his fitness for the discharge of a specific duty. The same penetrating glance which discovered under the modest garb of General Greene a military genius fit to direct the operations of the southern army, discovered also, not the ability and worth only, but the precise sphere of action suited to the capacity and genius of the men he called around him to fill the highest executive and judicial stations under the Federal Government. Thus it was that, on the resignation of Chief-Justice Jay, trusting to the instincts of his own mind, and relying upon his own discriminating judgment, in opposition to the advice of perhaps the most trusted of his counsellors, he passed by such able jurists as Ellsworth and Livingston, Cushing and Paterson, and promptly tendered the vacant Chief Justiceship to John Rutledge, of South Carolina.

It is much to be regretted that no complete biography of this eminent statesman and jurist has been written, and that so little is now known of one of the earliest, and ablest, and firmest friends of American independ

ence.

John Rutledge was a man of mark and of note in his day; at once the Adams and the Patrick Henry of South Carolina-chief among the South Carolina revolutionary leaders-first in station, in influence, in talent, amid the brilliant galaxy of patriots whose names adorn the revolutionary annals of his native State. It is true that the main facts of his public career remain to us, forming, as they do, a part of the history of his native State and the country. Here and there may also be discovered traces of his judicial life, in the few and not very fully stated cases found in the earlier South Carolina reports; but it is to be feared, that now, after the lapse of more than half a century, the real John Rutledge of the Continental Congress and of the Revolution-The John Rutledge as he lived and acted in private as well as in public life as he appeared upon the bench and to his contemporaries of the bar-has passed away, and that it will be difficult, if not impossible to revive any considerable portion of those private memoirs and personal reminiscenses which go to make up the most suggestive and interesting portion of biography. A late writer has alluded to the difficulty of drawing a faithful sketch of Rutledge's career, and remarks: "This now can only imperfectly be done. The private records are wanting. There are no family memorials, or very few. The voluminous correspondence of Mr. Rutledge, as President of the colony of South Carolina, Governor of the State, its representative in Congress, and Chief-Justice of the United States, seems now to be irrecoverable, and but a few letters remain to us which are yet unpublished."* I shall, however, avail myself of such materials as can now be obtained, to give some account of the life, public services, and judicial career of the second Chief-Justice of the United States.

*From an interesting sketch of the life of Rutledge, by the author of "The Partisan," "The Yemassee," etc., etc., published in the American Review for 1847. In this sketch Dr. Simms has presented us with some curious original correspondence of Rutledge during the war, from which I have taken the liberty to make a few brief extracts. See Post, pages 134140.

The father of John Rutledge was a physician. He emigrated from Ireland with his brother Andrew about the year 1735. The two brothers settled in South Carolina, where John commenced the practice of medicine, and Andrew the practice of the law. Two or three years after his arrival, Dr. John Rutledge married Miss Hexe, a young lady not yet fifteen years of age, who in 1739 gave birth to a son, the subject of this memoir. John was the oldest of seven children. The celebrated Edward Rutledge, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, of whom I shall hereafter have occasion to speak, was the youngest of these children. He was born in 1749, soon after which Dr. Rutledge died, leaving to his young widow the care and training of her large family. We are told she was a woman of great energy, and of more than ordinary endowments. How she accomplished the task thus devolved upon her, the future history of her distinguished sons will speak for itself.

The early education of young Rutledge was the best that the colony of Carolina at that day afforded. He was placed under the tuition of David Rhind, an eminent and successful teacher of the classics. Having made what progress he could in the institutions of Charleston, his mother, who was possessor in her own right of an ample fortune, and spared no pains in the education of her children, sent him to England to complete his preliminary studies. Here, after a time, having determined to follow the profession of the law, he was entered a student of the Temple, in London, and was in due time licensed a barrister-at-law. The same course was subsequently pursued by his younger brother, Edward.*

*This was the course usually followed by young gentlemen of fortune and family at that day in South Carolina. Rutledge's three colleagues who signed the declaration, Heyward, Linch, and Arthur Middleton, all young men like himself, completed their academic studies at the English universities; and so also did the Pinckneys, William Henry Drayton, and others.

Mr. Rutledge returned to Charleston, where he commenced the practice of the law in 1761. He was then twenty-two years of age. He entered upon his profession under the prestige of a reputation for ability, attainments and eloquence second to that of no young man in the colony. Unlike many others, however, who have commenced life under equally favorable auspices, but whose attainments have been brilliant and precocious, rather than solid, young Rutledge did not disappoint the high expectations that had been formed of him. It has been said of him with truth that he rose in his profession at a bound, and that his was no tedious probation. Contemporary accounts still preserve the memory of his first effort at the bar,* an effort in which the vehemence and power of his diction, the splendor of his declamation, the brilliancy of his eloquence, confounded his adversaries, and carried away the judgment and feelings of the jury. It was in an action for damages for a breach of promise to marry-an action of very infrequent occurrence at the south, and one which was well calculated to excite the interest and fix the attention of the public. His successful debut in this suit was but the prelude to a brilliant career at the bar. It gave him at once position among his brethren of the profession. How Mr. Rutledge maintained that position is shown by his future forensic triumphs.. Business accumulated rapidly on his hands; that description of business which furnishes the best test of professional ability and success, a test which is to be found in the importance and character of the cases submitted to the care of the advocate, and the liberal compensation with which his services are rewarded. It became customary, says the writer I have quoted, to think that his clients were necessarily to be successful, and no doubt a foregone conclusion of this sort did much towards the further conviction of judge and jury. Such a conviction could not readily have been reached until repeated triumphs had impressed the

*See Sketch of Rutledge by Dr. Ramsay, 2 History of South Carolina.

popular mind with the most perfect assurance of his powers.

The same writer,* speaking of Rutledge's characteristics as a lawyer, remarks: "He had shown himself equal at once to the boldest flights of passion and fancy, and to the strictest and severest processes of ratiocination. His reason and his impulse wrought happily together. His enthusiasm was never suffered to cripple his induction, nor the severity of his analysis to stifle the ardor of his utterance. A happy combination of all the essentials of the lawyer and the orator were soon acknowledged to be in his possession."

And again, at a later period, in speaking of his qualifications as a judge; "He was born a lawyer. His studies in his profession had been pursued con amore. He had wrestled with the law as one wrestles with a mistress, and had taken her to his heart as well as to his lips. His knowledge of principles was profound-his appreciation of details accurate and immense; and that large grasp of judgment, that comprehensive reach of vision, which enabled him to take in at a glance, not merely the central proportions, but all its several relations and dependencies, eminently fitted him for the new career before him. With the facts fairly within his survey, his coup d'ail was instantaneous. His mind seemed to leap to its conclusions at a bound. He loved pleading--could listen with rare delight to the eloquence of the specious advocate; but while these gratified his sense of the ingenious and beautiful, they failed to persuade his fancy or to mislead his judgment. His sense of justice was invincible. He threaded with ease the most difficult avenues of litigation-speedily resolved the subtleness of special pleading-steadily pursued, and finally grasped the leading principle of the case, and rendered his judgments so luminously and forcibly, as in most cases to satisfy even those who suffered from his decision."

Such was Rutledge as he afterwards appeared in the

* Dr. Simms' Sketch of the Life of Rutledge, American Review.

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