William Cushing

For other people named William Cushing, see William Cushing (disambiguation) .

William Cushing (March 1, 1732 – September 13, 1810) was an American lawyer who was one of the original five associate justices of the United States Supreme Court ; confirmed by the United States Senate on September 26, 1789, he served until his death. His Supreme Court tenure of 20 years and 11 months was the longest among the Court's inaugural members. In January 1796, he was nominated by President George Washington to become the Court's Chief Justice ; though confirmed, he declined the appointment. He was the last judge in the United States to wear a full wig as part of his court dress .

Contents

• 1 Early life and education

• 2 Career

  • 2.1 Massachusetts chief justice

  • 2.2 U.S. Supreme Court

• 3 Later life and death

• 4 See also

• 5 References

• 6 Bibliography

• 7 External links

Early life and education

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Cushing was born in Scituate , Massachusetts Bay , on March 1, 1732. The Cushing family had a long history in the area, settling Hingham in 1638. Cushing's father, John Cushing (1695–1778), was a provincial magistrate who in 1747 became an associate justice of the Superior Court of Judicature , the province's high court. William Cushing's grandfather John Cushing (1662–1737/38) was also a superior court judge and member of the governor's council.

Cushing's mother, Mary Cotton Cushing, was a daughter of Josiah Cotton (1679/80–1756). They were descended from Rev. John Cotton , the great 17th century Puritan theologian. Josiah Cotton and Richard Fitzgerald, a teacher at a local Latin school, were responsible for young Cushing's early education.

Cushing graduated from Harvard College in 1751 and became a member of the bar of Boston in 1755. After briefly practicing law in Scituate, he moved to Pownalborough (present-day Dresden, Maine , then part of Massachusetts ), and became the first practicing attorney in the province's eastern district (as Maine was then known). In 1762 he was called to become a barrister , again the first in Maine. He practiced law until 1772, when he was appointed by Governor Thomas Hutchinson to replace his father (who had resigned) on the Superior Court bench.

Career

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Not long after his tenure on the Massachusetts bench began, a controversy arose over revelations that court judges were to be paid by crown funds from London rather than by an appropriation of the provincial assembly. Cushing did not express any opinion on the matter, but declined the crown payment in preference to a provincial appropriation.

After the American Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress (which exercised de facto control over the province outside besieged Boston ), sought to reorganize the courts to remove the trappings of British sovereignty. Consequently, it essentially dissolved the Superior Court and reformed it in November 1775. Of all its justices, Cushing was the only one retained.

The congress offered the seat of Chief Justice first to John Adams , but he never sat, and resigned the post in 1776. The provincial congress appointed Cushing to be the court's first sitting Chief Justice in 1777. He was a charter member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1780). He would sit as Massachusetts Chief Justice until 1789, during which period the court ruled in 1783 that slavery was irreconcilable with the new state constitution, and it was ended in the state.

Massachusetts chief justice

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In 1783, Cushing presided over a series of cases involving Quock Walker , a slave who filed a freedom suit based on the language of the new state constitution. In _Commonwealth v. Jennison _, Cushing stated the following principles, in his charge to the jury:

As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and cattle, that (it is true) has been heretofore countenanced by the Province Laws formerly, but nowhere is it expressly enacted or established. It has been a usage – a usage which took its origin from the practice of some of the European nations, and the regulations of British government respecting the then Colonies, for the benefit of trade and wealth. But whatever sentiments have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example of others, a different idea has taken place with the people of America, more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses-features) has inspired all the human race. And upon this ground our Constitution of Government, by which the people of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves, sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal – and that every subject is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws, as well as life and property – and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case, I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract ...

This was taken to mean that slavery was incompatible with the state constitution ratified in 1779, and that slavery was therefore ended in the state.

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