After dying in scandal, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson finally gets his moment
Although James Wilson signed both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, his name is rarely mentioned alongside other historical figures key to American history. Perhaps this is because, while serving on the U.S. Supreme Court, the Pennsylvania man had stints in jail for unpaid debt. He succumbed to malaria in 1798, at age 55.
After his scandalous downfall, Wilson’s legacy “was erased almost immediately,” according to Jesse Wegman, whose book on Wilson was published this month. Titled The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People’s Constitution, it was released by Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, and recounts Wilson’s role in the creation of the United States’ new government.
Wilson, Wegman says, was “a complicated person who did not personally live up to his ideals perfectly … as none of us do.”
As the country rapidly approaches its celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Wegman hopes to bring Wilson’s achievements back into the country’s collective memory.
A senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, Wegman writes about the Supreme Court and constitutional reform. He became intrigued with Wilson while researching a previous book, Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College.
“I discovered this Scottish guy who keeps talking about self-government in a way that sounds much more modern than any of the other founders,” Wegman says.
Born into a poor farming family in Scotland before immigrating to America as a young man, Wilson argued for placing more power in the hands of the people, even though his home was targeted by a mob in Philadelphia in 1779, Wegman writes in a New York Times editorial.
President George Washington nominated Wilson to the Supreme Court in 1789, and he served for eight years until his death.
His final years were plagued by debt due to compulsive land speculation, according to Wegman. He adds that land speculation was a side hustle for other Founding Fathers, but Wilson engaged in it with “a recklessness” exceeding his contemporaries. Wilson’s reputation plummeted, and he died in the back room of a North Carolina tavern while hiding from his creditors.
Wegman says that Wilson’s writings on popular sovereignty were prescient.
“It’s always been a shame to me that Wilson did not get a chance to see how his theories played out because I would be fascinated to know what he thought” of how the country turned out, Wegman says.
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