Rebecca Slaughter speaks out

Justice John Blair, Jr.

Justice John Blair, Jr. may be the least remembered of the Supreme Court’s inaugural bench. This is not to say, however, that he was a man without some remarkable accomplishments: Blair signed the Constitution, helped secure its ratification in his home state of Virginia, and spent six years on the first Supreme Court helping establish what the founding document meant in practice.

Blair was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1732 into “one of Virginia’s most prominent families”; his father served as Virginia’s acting governor on four occasions, and his great-uncle, James Blair, founded the College of William and Mary and was its first president. John graduated with honors from that school in 1754 before heading to the Middle Temple in London for legal training. In 1756, he married his cousin Jean Blair in Scotland.

Once back home, Blair found Patrick Henry’s response to the British government’s Stamp Act of 1765 (which taxed the colonists by requiring stamps on printed materials) too radical and opposed Henry’s resolutions attacking Parliament’s authority. However, Blair later joined the 1770 boycott pledge against British imports and backed the 1774 call for a Continental Congress. At Virginia’s 1776 convention he served on the committee that produced the state’s declaration of rights, then rose through the state’s new judiciary (becoming a General Court judge in 1777 and its chief judge by 1779, and later serving on the First Virginia Court of Appeals). In 1782’s Commonwealth v. Caton, that court asserted the power to strike legislation that was unconstitutional – though how Blair himself viewed judicial review is disputed, with Edmund Pendleton’s notes suggesting that “[he] took no position on the issue.” Less ambiguously, Blair signed the judges’ 1788 “Remonstrance” declaring that a statute putting new duties on the bench unconstitutionally infringed upon judicial independence.

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, fellow delegate William Pierce reportedly judged Blair a weak public speaker (but with “a very extensive knowledge of the Laws”). Blair may have shared Pierce’s assessment of his public speaking abilities, as he stayed off the floor at the Convention. Blair believed that Congress should choose the president but changed his vote once he realized he was dividing Virginia’s delegation against the preferences of Washington and James Madison.

On Sept. 24, 1789, the same day that he signed the Judiciary Act, Washington nominated Blair to the newly established Supreme Court, and the Senate confirmed him by a voice vote two days later. Blair was reportedly not expecting the position and admitted to Washington that he “could not but entertain some fears.” He took the oath on Feb. 2, 1790, one day late (travel troubles had delayed the court’s first sitting).

The court’s early docket was sparse – Oyez counts just 13 cases across his tenure – but circuit riding kept the justices busy, given they were sometimes on the road for 19 hours in a single day. In Blair’s circuit work, he helped rule in 1792’s Collet v. Collet, which held that states had “concurrent authority” (along with Congress) to naturalize citizens, so long as the states did not violate federal naturalization rules (e.g., by refusing to recognize a federally naturalized citizen). His defining opinion on the Supreme Court came in 1793’s Chisholm v. Georgia. The dispute arose when Alexander Chisholm, a South Carolina merchant acting as executor of an estate, sought payment from the state of Georgia and, unable to obtain relief, invoked the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction over cases involving it. Georgia denounced the proceedings as “unconstitutional and extrajudicial,” insisting a sovereign state could not be hauled into court by a private citizen of another state. Four justices ruled against Georgia, including Blair.

Blair issued his opinion seriatim (separately) per the era’s custom. In this, he “demonstrated his belief in the Constitution as the supreme legal authority in the nation and strengthened the federal government’s power over the states,” writing that “[t]he constitution of the United States is the only fountain from which I shall draw.” That said, Chisholm was functionally overturned shortly after by the 11th Amendment, which limited the federal courts’ power to hear lawsuits brought against states by foreign citizens and citizens of other states.

Blair’s wife died in November 1792, and his own frequent illnesses kept him from many sessions. Bothered by what he called “a rattling, distracting noise” in his head (possibly tinnitus), he resigned in late October 1795. Justice Samuel Chase would take his seat on the court. Blair died in Williamsburg in August 1800 and rests by Bruton Parish Church. Eulogists praised “his mildness, gravity, and piety.”