The Creation of American Law: John Jay, Oliver Ellsworth and the 1790s Supreme Court

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The development of an American Constitutional law after achieving independence eluded the Founders until the Constitutional Convention in 1787. With that event, America was set on a course to develop an unique system of law with roots deep in the English common law tradition. This new system of law, embodied in a Constitution, forever changed the course of American national development after the failure of the Articles of Confederation.

The new system of American law had at its foundation Article III of the Constitution, calling for a national judiciary headed by a supreme court. In February 1790, the new Supreme Court met for the first time. Over the next decade, before the arrival of John Marshall (oftentimes mistaken as the first Chief Justice) jurists such as John Jay (the first Chief), James Iredell, Bushrod Washington, James Wilson, and others, set in motion not only the new Supreme Court but the new federal judiciary which has become the envy of the world today. These Founders, many forgotten today, displayed great dexterity in maneuvering the fraught political landscape quickly developing in the 1790s.