George Washington Gale

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Washington, George (b. Pope's Creek [now Wakefield], Westmoreland County, Va., 22 Feb. 1732; d. Mt. Vernon, Va., 14 Dec. 1799), commander in chief of the Continental Army, president, 1789–1797. Washington's most enduring legacy to the Supreme Court was the precedent he established in his selection criteria for the nomination of justices. During his two terms of office, he made fourteen nominations to the high court—a record that still stands and is unlikely to be surpassed.

Of Washington's fourteen Supreme Court nominations, only ten individuals served. The Senate confirmed twelve, but Robert H. Harrison and William Cushing (as chief justice) declined their appointments. Washington's recess appointment of John Rutledge for chief justice was ultimately rejected. Washington withdrew his selection of William Paterson but later successfully appointed him. Thus, the fourteen nominations involved eleven different men. The ten who served on the Court include the following with their dates of tenure: John Jay (chief justice, 1789–1795), John Rutledge (1789–1791), William Cushing (1789–1810), James Wilson (1789–1798), John Blair, Jr. (1789–1796), James Iredell (1790–1799), Thomas Johnson (1791–1793), William Paterson (1793–1806), Samuel Chase (1796–1811), and Oliver Ellsworth (chief justice, 1796–1800).

President Washington's considerations in naming Supreme Court justices are readily identifiable. First, he insisted that his nominees be political and ideological soul mates. A number of Washington's choices for the high court had established their loyalty to the nation through distinguished service during the Revolutionary War. Washington was particularly impressed with Thomas Johnson's war record, which included recruiting a force of 1,800 soldiers while governor of Maryland and personally leading them to the commander in chief's headquarters. Moreover, the first president insisted that future justices demonstrate support for and advocacy of the new U.S. Constitution. Indeed, all but three of the justices that Washington placed on the Court (Jay, Cushing, and Iredell) had participated in the Constitutional Convention. The first chief executive also established the precedent of choosing judicial nominees solely from his own political party, the Federalists.

Washington's second criterion for Supreme Court service was merit. In addition to having a distinguished record during the Revolutionary War, a Washington nominee had to display a “favorable reputation with his fellows.” For example, James Wilson, who had signed the Declaration of Independence and contributed his abundant talents to the Philadelphia convention, was considered among the outstanding lawyers and legal scholars of his day.

Third, Washington usually chose justices with whom he had forged personal ties. John Blair, for instance, was a fellow Virginian, who had joined Washington and James Madison as the only members of their state delegation to support the entire Constitution.

Fourth, America's first president established the tradition of balancing the nation's highest court along representational lines. Although his predecessors would expand the list of representative criteria to include religious affiliation, race, and gender, Washington focused on the Court's geographic balance. In appointing James Iredell, the president commented: “He is of a State [North Carolina] of some importance in the Union that has given no character to a federal office.”

Finally, he searched for nominees who had political experience at the state or local level or judicial experience on the lower courts. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut was an illustrative appointee with his previous service as a state judge and as a member of Congress.

See also History of the Court: Establishment of the Union; Selection of Justices.

Bibliography

Henry J. Abraham , Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Clinton, rev. ed. (1999).
Henry J. Abraham and and Barbara A. Perry , The Father of Our Country as Court‐Packer‐in‐Chief: George Washington and the Supreme Court, in George Washington and the Origins of the American Presidency, edited by Mark J. Rozell, William D. Pederson, and Frank J. Williams (2000).

Barbara A. Perry

George Washington Gale 1789–1861, American educator and clergyman, b. Stanford, N.Y., grad. Union College, 1814, and Princeton Theological Seminary, 1819. In 1827 he founded Oneida Institute at Whitesboro, N.Y., where students paid for their instruction by doing manual labor. He planned a college in the West to be similarly maintained, and he organized a land company that founded Galesburg, Ill. From the proceeds he established Knox Manual Labor College in 1837; the manual labor feature was later dropped and the institution became Knox College. Gale served as trustee and taught literature and moral philosophy there until his retirement in 1857.

Bibliography: See his autobiography (1964).