James Iredell

James Iredell (October 5, 1751 – October 20, 1799) was one of the first justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President George Washington and served from 1790 until his death in 1799. His son, James Iredell Jr., was a governor of North Carolina.

Early life

James Iredell was born in Lewes, England, the oldest of five surviving children of Francis Iredell, a Bristol merchant and his wife, the former Margaret McCulloch, of Dublin, Ireland. The failure of his father's business (and health) impelled James to emigrate to the Colonies in 1767 at the age of 17. Relatives assisted him in obtaining a position in the customs service as deputy collector, or comptroller, of the port of Edenton, North Carolina.

While working at the customs house, Iredell read law under Samuel Johnston (later governor of North Carolina), began the practice of law and was admitted to the bar in 1771. The grandson of a clergyman, he was a devout Anglican throughout his life and his writings display an interest in spirituality and metaphysics beyond a simple attachment to organized religion.

In 1773, Iredell married Johnston's sister Hannah and the two had four children after twelve childless years. In 1774 he was made collector for the port.

Roles in the Revolution

Although employed by the British government, Iredell was a strong supporter of independence and the revolution. In 1774, he wrote To the Inhabitants of Great Britain where he laid out arguments opposing the concept of parliamentary supremacy over America. This essay established Iredell, then 23, as the most influential political essayist in North Carolina at that time. His treatise Principles of an American Whig predates and echoes themes and ideas of the Declaration of Independence.

After the revolution began, Iredell helped organize the court system of North Carolina, and was elected a judge of the superior court in 1778. His career advanced through a number of political and judicial posts in the state, including that of attorney general from 1779 to 1781. In 1787 the state assembly appointed him commissioner and charged him with compiling and revising the laws of North Carolina. His work was published in 1791 as Iredell's Revisal.

Following the Revolution, financial limitations barred his being a delegate to the Philadelphia convention, he corresponded regularly with the North Carolina delegates. Iredell was a leader of the Federalists in North Carolina, and a strong supporter of the proposed Constitution. In the 1788 convention at Hillsborough, he argued unsuccessfully in favor of its adoption. Iredell was the floor leader for the Federalists (North Carolina later ratified the Constitution after Congress amended it through the addition of the Bill of Rights). After the convention failed to ratify the Constitution, he continued to promote it, joining William R. Davie (the later founder of the University of North Carolina), to publish the convention debates at their own expense for distribution across the state. He was sworn into office on May 12.

Justice Iredell's opinion in Calder helped establish the principle of judicial review five years before it was tested in Marbury v. Madison (1803). The Supreme Court has followed Iredell's approach throughout its subsequent history.

Iredell's charge to the federal grand jury in Fries' Case is commonly cited as evidence that the framers' intent was to limit the scope of the First Amendment to freedom from prior restraint. He praised Sir William Blackstone's narrow interpretation of freedom of the press, noted that the framers were very familiar with Blackstone's work, and observed that "unless his explanation had been satisfactory, I presume the amendment would have been more particularly worded, to guard against any possible mistake."

Circuit riding

An important part of Iredell's duties on the Supreme Court was circuit riding. Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress created three geographical circuits—the Eastern, Middle, and Southern—and required Supreme Court justices to travel to the federal circuit courts within their assigned regions. The circuit courts were the principal trial courts of the federal judiciary and initially had no judges of their own; each was staffed by the local federal district judge and two Supreme Court justices.

Circuit riding placed substantial demands on the justices, particularly during the early years of the federal judiciary. Roads were often poor or nonexistent, bridges were scarce, and travelers sometimes had to ford rivers or rely on ferries. Travel was generally by horseback or horse-drawn carriage and offered little protection from severe weather. Accommodations along the routes were also limited; inns frequently offered little privacy or comfort, and travelers sometimes had to share rooms or beds with strangers. Iredell experienced such conditions himself, on one occasion sharing a room with five other people and a bed with another traveler. Iredell owned 14 slaves in 1786, In 1769, Iredell assisted his father, Thomas, in selling a runaway slave and requested herring and red-oak staves as part of the proceeds. In 1789, Iredell was listed as the contact for the sale of an enslaved man named Jack, who had belonged to the late Mrs. Nash.

Opinions on the Slave Trade Clause Iredell addressed Virginian delegate George Mason's objection to Article One, Section 9, Clause 1 of the US Constitution ("Slave Trade Clause") on grounds of practicality. Iredell believed that the Constitution would not be ratified by South Carolina nor Georgia without the inclusion of the Slave Trade Clause, writing, "Our situation...makes it necessary to bear the evil as it is."

While Iredell believed "the interests of humanity" would be advanced through abolition, that slave trade existed too long "for the honor and humanity of those concerned in it," During his lifetime, James Iredell freed some of his slaves, including Peter, Edy, and Dundee, and visited them in subsequent years in Philadelphia. Scholars consider Iredell a "humane master", based upon surviving writings. However, James Iredell and his wife Hannah both owned slaves at the time of their deaths.

, a ship in World War II, was named after him.

The James Iredell House at Edenton was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

In popular culture James Iredell is featured as a character in A More Obedient Wife: A Novel of the Early Supreme Court, a historical novel by Natalie Wexler focused on his wife, Hannah, and her friend Hannah Wilson.