Iredell

The answer provided by James Iredell, later to be appointed by President Washingto the Supreme Court, during the North Carolina ratification debates wasthis:

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And in North Carolina, James Iredell, who subsequently was appointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court by Washington, eloquently argued:

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As future Supreme Court Justice James Iredell put it while discussing the “no religious test” clause in the North Carolina ratifying convention:

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Iredell answered that there would be twenty-seven representatives from states north of Pennsylvania and thirty to its south.

Ratification Pauline Maier 2010

“We have been grossly used in this business,” Davie wrote Iredell; “the money was all he was interested in”—that is, the money Robinson received in advance—and the reporter was unwilling to see the debates through the press.

Ratification Pauline Maier 2010

For a man who had not been at the federal Convention, Iredell became amazingly knowledgeable about its proceedings.33

Ratification Pauline Maier 2010

However, Iredell had never served in an elected body before Edenton chose him as its delegate to the Hillsborough convention.

Ratification Pauline Maier 2010

James Iredell was well rewarded for his services at the North Carolina convention in Hillsborough: In February 1790, President Washington nominated him as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Ratification Pauline Maier 2010

Spaight corresponded with Iredell, and, like Davie, probably talked with him at length about the convention in Philadelphia.

Ratification Pauline Maier 2010

“We are… for the present out of the Union,” James Iredell wrote his wife, “and God knows when we shall get in to it again.”

Ratification Pauline Maier 2010