Mr. Rutledge was a most prominent member of this Congress, from which he retired in 1783. Under the new organization of the courts in South Carolina, he was elected Judge of the Court of Chancery, which held its first term in Charleston, June, 1784. We have little or no record of the proceedings of this court, except merely about eighty pages of the first volume of De Saussures' "South Carolina Chancery;" but the principles which regulated their proceedings were, of course, those handed down by the English chancellors.

The courts of the State were re-organized in 1791, and Rutledge was elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature, succeeding to the able and learned Chief Justice Drayton, the first native-born judge of the colony. For four years Rutledge continued his position on the bench, from which he listened to the arguments of the many able men who then graced the South Caro

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But a period of greater importance had arrived, and the eminent citizen of South Carolina was called to represent her in a more important sphere of public duty. That memorable body which framed the Constitution of the United States, organized on the 25th of May, 1787. The evils of the Confederation had drawn men to the devising of some plan for relief; but wide differences prevailed. The idea of one party was to abolish the State Governments, except as subdivisions for the more convenient exercise of administrative power. They were the National consolidated party. Another party looked to the States as the great guardians of liberty, as the true representatives of the rights of the people; and while they were forced to admit the necessity of some great power in a central government, they were anxious to restrain that power within the narrowest possible limits. They were the States' Rights confederation party. The views of neither were fully carried out. More power was given to the General Government, than the latter wished; while the Government thus formed did not favor the centralizing ideas of the former.

It is singular, though well known now, that the great questions which divided the members of the Constitutional convention have long since ceased to agitate the minds of men. Difficulties have

since arisen in the working of the federal system, of which its framers never contemplated the possibility, while the adjustments and balances, which occupied their attention, have, in many instances, never been regarded as of practical importance in the movements of the great machine. Accordingly we see all the eloquence and reason of the leading members of the convention employed in an earnest contest, where the small and large States were the opposing parties. The small States insisted upon an equal representation in both branches of the legislature, while the larger States were equally urgent in pressing the claims of their superior wealth and population to be estimated in the composition of both the first and the second Houses. Indeed, it was actually carried by a vote of six States to five, that such should be the representation in both Houses of the Legislative body. New York, then considered a small State, voted with Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey, against the proposition, while both the Carolinas and Georgia voted with Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, in its favor.

Time has since shown that the contest between States as small and great has never arisen. Small and large have banded together in promoting interests which the citizens of each, or both, or all, had in particular questions of public policy. The manufacturing, the commercial, and the agricultural interests have successively combated each other. New England, at one time commercial solely, resisted other portions of the country in protecting manufactures. And, in turn, the South, once protectionists against New England, afterwards solely agricultural and trading, resisted New England in the support of manufactures, when she, in turn, had become mechanical rather than commercial.

Lately, another great question of self-interest has divided the States into slave holding and non-slave holding. This, as it has drawn the larger States much together, because they happened to be non-slave holding, gives place for the practical operation of the equal representation in the Senate, in protecting the numerically weaker part of the Confederacy, although that equality was introduced for an entirely different reason.

If the wishes of the South, at the time of the formation of the Constitution, had been carried out, they would now be deprived of that barrier of defence against which the waves of fanaticism, folly and violence have so long beat in vain. The victory of the large States drove the small ones to resistance against the will of the majority, and one of their ardent representatives exclaimed: "Sooner than be ruined, there are foreign powers who will take us by the hand." The House, alarmed at the prospect of dissolution, was shaken in its resolve; and when the question came again to be taken on the adoption of the basis of representation, which had been carried in committee of the whole by a vote of six to five, the result was five States against five, and Georgia divided.

In the midst of great confusion, and against the votes of the extreme on both sides, a committee of one from each State was chosen, and Rutledge represented South Carolina, By this body the compromise was effected, which has since proved wise in its design, by the blessings of its results. Rutledge was made chairman of the committee of five, to draft a constitution; that draft was finally submitted, but again referred to a committee for revision, as to style and arrangement into articles, and principally at the hands of the accomplished Governeur Morris, it received its easy grace and elegant chasteness. Of Rutledge's particular views, we may say that he favored the election of the President by the Senate, or at least by both branches of the Legislature. He was much opposed to giving to the President the sole power of appointments, and one leading idea of his was, what now would be considered eminently un-democratic, namely, that property was the principal object of society, and, therefore, the most correct basis of representation.

Mr. Rutledge's position on the Federal Constitution was eminently wise, moderate, and patriotic. While earnestly contending for a proper share of power in the general Government, and advocating warmly the adoption of the constitution, he resisted all attempts to destroy the State governments and carry out the idea of consolidation. When it was proposed to give the National Legislature the power to declare void any law of a State,

which in their judgment was in conflict with the general interests of the Union, Rutledge warmly exclaimed, "This alone, if nothing else, will damn, and ought to damn the constitution."

In the South Carolina convention, among the brilliant intellects which adorned the State, Rutledge, proudly pre-eminent with his impassioned eloquence, urged the adoption of the constitution, and all opposition being defeated, his efforts were crowned with success by a decided majority of seventy-six. South Carolina adopted the sentiments of Rutledge, when he exclaimed, "So far from thinking that the sun of this country was obscured by the new constitution, he did not doubt but that when it was adopted, the sun of this State, united with twelve other suns, would exhibit a meridian radiance astonishing to the world." May a merciful Providence grant that not one ray of light from that noon-day splendor may ever be dimmed or darkened.

At the first election, Rutledge received the votes of his State for Vice President, and on the organization of the Supreme Court, was appointed as an associate justice, next in order to the chief: Cushing, Harrison, Wilson and Blair, following in order. A warm advocate of the administration of Washington, Rutledge divided from his party on the Jay treaty. His impassioned and proudly patriotic spirit could not approve of the provisions of a treaty, which, whatever may have been the necessity, or the excuse for its rejection, reflected no light on the honor or the dignity of the nation. The noble spirit of Washington resisted all the endeavors of the ultra Federalists, to cast odium on Rutledge on account of his views. No mean design to force men to the adoption of all his own ideas, or punish them as refractory when they exercised independence, found a resting-place in the bosom of the Father of his country. On Mr. Jay's resignation, the President instantly tendered the chief justiceship to Rutledge. The judicial career of the subject of this sketch on the supreme bench, was brief. He presided in August term of 1795, of which there are only two reported cases. Of his demeanor on the judgment seat, it is remarked, in the volume under review, "The dignified bearing of Chief Justice Rutledge on the bench, has been spoken of on the authority of traditional accounts, in the highest terms

of praise; it was graceful and courtly, though tinged, it is said, by that haughtiness which in late years had marked him."

His judicial career was brought to a close by the action of the Senate, which, on political grounds, rejected his nomination by a small majority. But the mandate of Omnipotence had closed his intellectual existence, almost as soon as the decree of the Senate cut short his judicial labors. The dark cloud of insanity settled over the blazing sun of this great genius, before it went down into the darkness of death. After about five years spent in a condition of mental imbecility, the great South Carolinian, or, in other words, "the great American," (to borrow the language of Daniel Webster,) died in the summer of the year eighteen hundred. As a conclusion to this brief review of his life and character, we append the following extract from Mr. Van Santvoord's able and interesting work.

"There are many traits in the character of Judge Rutledge calculated to attract the popular admiration. He was bold, open, frank and ardent in temper and disposition, and was gifted with captivating conversational powers, which rarely failed to find their way to the sympathies and hearts of his fellows. But, independent of this, he possessed many of those higher and more sterling qualities which stamp the man of real superiority of mind. I am doing no injustice to others, in claiming for Rutledge a place among the very ablest and greatest of the revolutionary soldiers. He exhibited abilities of the most striking character, in every condition in which he was placed. He was eminent, not merely as an orator, in the eloquence of language and action, but as a statesman, a legislator, and a jurist. His administrative talents were of the very first order. He was a man of action, of energy, of resources; a man of powerful grasp of intellect, of liberal views, and of original impressions. He possessed the qualities of decision and firmness, in a remarkable degree and in their best sense; and he was endowed with an indomitable will which adversity could not shake, nor misfortune crush. The courage of Rutledge was of the highest character,-he exhibited every degree of it from the courage of the grenadier to that of the statesman; from mere physical composure and intrepedity in the midst of danger, to that of the more exalted species of courage, which shrinks not to evade a responsibility, or boldly own an unpopular principle in the face of the world. His public career is full of instances of courageous action and fearless independence. No public man of