Justice Alfred Moore
Today’s Justice of the Day is: ALFRED MOORE. Justice Moore was born on this day, May 21, in 1755.
Justice Moore was born in New Hanover County, North Carolina, in the coastal southeastern part of the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He came from a family with a history of judicial service – his father, Maurice Moore, had served as one of three colonial judges in North Carolina and became famous for an essay he penned denouncing the Stamp Act. Justice Moore received no formal education at a college or university, as was not at all uncommon for the time.
Justice Moore served as a Continental Army officer of the North Carolina Regiment during the Revolutionary War (specifically from 1775 to 1777). He then served as a North Carolina militia colonel until just after the siege of Yorktown (or from 1777 to 1782), where the defeat of the British effectively ended their attempt to regain control of the American colonies. Justice Moore entered private practice after the war in Brunswick, North Carolina (from 1782 to 1798), while also serving in various political offices around North Carolina, including as a Member of the North Carolina Senate (in 1782), that state’s Attorney General (from 1782 to 1791), and a Member of the North Carolina House of Commons (in 1792). He was also a Judge of the North Carolina Superior Court in 1798.
Justice Moore was nominated by President John Adams on December 4, 1799, to a seat vacated by Justice James Iredell. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 10, and received his commission that day. He took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on (or around) April 21, 1800, and served on the Ellsworth and Marshall Courts. Justice Moore’s service was terminated on January 26, 1804, due to his resignation.
Justice Moore did not have a particularly distinguished career at the SCUS, and did not even take part in the most famous case of his era, Marbury v. Madison (1803); he most likely abstained from participating in that case because of his poor health, a condition which plagued him throughout his entire tenure at the Court. Justice Moore wrote one published opinion while at the SCUS, which was in the case of Bas v. Tingy (1800), a decision recognizing that the U.S. had indeed participated in a “quasi-war” with France from 1798-1799, and declaring that France was therefore an enemy nation for the purposes of a Congressional statute concerning the collection of salvage fees to be paid for ships recovered from the French Navy. The decision affirmed the position of his party, the Federalists, and was bitterly attacked by the Anti-Federalists on the grounds that only Congress could declare a state of war. Justice Moore is also the second, and to date last, North Carolinian to serve on the SCUS (his predecessor, Justice James Iredell, whose sudden death precipitated Justice Moore’s appointment, was the first). His is the eighth shortest tenure in SCUS history.