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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: WIL-YAK |
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WILSON, JAMES (17421798) , American statesman and jurist, was born in or near St Andrews, Scotland, on the 14th of September 1742. He matriculated at the University of St Andrews in 1757 and was subsequently a student at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1765 he emigrated to America. Landing at New York
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Soon after leaving Congress in 1777 Wilson removed to Annapolis, Maryland, to practise law, but he returned to Philadelphia in the following year. In 1779 he was commissioned Advocate-General for France, and in this capacity he represented Louis YVI. in all claims arising out of the French alliance until the close of the war. In 17811782 he was the principal counsel for Pennsylvania in the Wyoming Valley dispute with Connecticut, which was decided in favour of Pennsylvania in December 1782 by an arbitration court appointed by Congress. Wilson was closely associated with Robert Morris in organizingthe Bank of North America, and in the Act of Congress incorporating it (December 31, 1781) he was made one of the directors. In 1782 the legislature of Pennsylvania granted a charter to this bank, but three years later it passed an act to repeal it. Wilson responded with a famous constitutional argument in which he sustained the constitutionality of the bank on the basis of the implied powers of Congress. As a constructive statesman Wilson had no superior in the Federal Convention of 1787. He favoured the independence of the executive, legislative and judicial departments, the supremacy of the Federal government over the state governments, and the election of senators as well as representatives by the people, and was opposed to the election of the President or the judges by Congress. His political philosophy was based upon implicit confidence in the people, and he strove for such provisions as he thought would best guarantee a government by the people. When the constitution had been framed Wilson pronounced it " the best form of government which has ever been offered to the world," and he, at least, among the framers regarded it not as a compact but as an ordinance to be established by the people. During the struggle for ratification he made a speech before a mass meeting in Philadelphia which has been characterized as " the ablest single presentation of the whole subject." In the Pennsylvania ratification convention (November 21 to December 15, 1787) he was the constitution's principal defender. Having been appointed professor of law in the university of Pennsylvania in 1790, he delivered at that institution in 17901791 a course of lectures on public and private law; some of these lectures, together with his speeches in the Federal convention, before the mass meeting in Philadelphia, and in the Pennsylvania ratification convention, are among the most valuable commentaries on the constitution. Wilson was a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 17891790, and a member of the committee which drafted the new constitution. In 1789 Washington appointed him an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, and in 1793 he wrote the important decision in the case of Chisolm v. Georgia, the purport of which was that the people of the United States constituted a sovereign nation and that the United States were not a mere confederacy of sovereign states. He continued to serve as associate justice until his death, near Edenton, North Carolina, on the 28th of August 1798. Wilson's Works, consisting principally of his law lectures and a few speeches, were published under the direction of his son, Bird Wilson (3 vols., Philadelphia, 18031804). A revised edition in two volumes with notes by James D. Andrews was published in Chicago in 1896. See also Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States of America, vols. i. and iii. (Washington, 1894) ; J. B. McMaster and F. D. Stone, Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 17871788 (Philadelphia, 1888) ; L. H. Alexander (ed.), James Wilson (Philadelphia, 1908), a biographical sketch entitled " James Wilson, Nation-Builder," by L. H. Alexander, in the Green Bag, vol. 19 (1907); " James Wilson, Patriot, and the Wilson Doctrine," by Alexander, in the North American Review, vol. 183 (1906) ; Justice J. M. Harlan, " James Wilson and the Formation of the Constitution," in the American Law Review, vol. 34; B. A. Konkle et al. " The James Wilson Memorial," in the American Law Register, vol. 55 (1907). End of Article: WILSON, JAMES (17421798) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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