Justice William Johnson, Jr.
Today’s Justice of the Day is: WILLIAM JOHNSON, JR. Justice Johnson took the Judicial Oath to officially join the Supreme Court of the United States on this day, May 7, in 1804.
Justice Johnson was born on December 27, 1771, in Goose Creek, just north of Charleston, South Carolina, the state he resided in during his early professional career and from which he would be appointed to the SCUS. He was educated at the College of New Jersey (now called Princeton University), receiving an A.B. in 1790.
Justice Johnson spent much of his early career in private practice in his home state of South Carolina (specifically from 1793 to 1794), before being elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1794, and then becoming that body’s Speaker in 1798. He stepped down from the South Carolina House in 1799 to begin a 5-year term as a Judge of the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas, where he would remain until his appointment to the SCUS.
Justice Johnson was nominated by President Thomas Jefferson on March 22, 1804, to a seat vacated by Justice Alfred Moore. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 24, and received his commission on March 26. Justice Johnson served out his entire tenure on the Marshall Court, and his service was terminated on August 4, 1834, due to his death.
Justice Johnson developed a reputation for having a uniquely independent mind while at the SCUS. This trait was displayed especially prominently in 1808 when he defied the very man who had appointed him, President Thomas Jefferson, along with a whole host of other authorities, by clearing a ship docked in the port of Charleston to sail in defiance of President Jefferson’s effort to enforce a ban on trade with Great Britain and France (Justice Johnson did so because he felt the ban was an unconstitutional overreach). He also showed his independence when he moved away from his native South Carolina in 1831 to avoid being influenced by the intensity of local opinion on the nullification crisis. Justice Johnson’s independence extended to his relationship with the great Chief Justice John Marshall, who had developed quite the reputation for being uniquely able to influence his colleagues, yet wasn’t able to exert quite as much power over Justice Johnson. This lead Justice Johnson to become perhaps the SCUS’s first great dissenter; nonetheless, his willingness to defy Chief Justice Marshall was not absolute, as seen in his decision to join the opinion of the Court he authored in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), which helped lay the groundwork for the doctrine of federal supremacy that is universally accepted in mainstream law today.