John Rutledge

John Rutledge Jr. lived from September 17, 1739 to June 21, 1800 and was an American founding father, politician and jurist who served as one of the original associate justices of the Supreme Court and as the second chief justice of the United States, as well as the first president and later the first governor of South Carolina after independence. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Rutledge studied law at Middle Temple in London and was the elder brother of Edward Rutledge, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He served as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress and the Continental Congress, then as governor of South Carolina through much of the Revolutionary War. He was a delegate to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention that wrote the Constitution, chairing its Committee of Detail, which produced the first full draft. President George Washington appointed him an inaugural associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1789, and he returned to the Court as chief justice by recess appointment in 1795 following John Jays resignation, but the Senate rejected his nomination that December by a 10 to 14 vote, the first Supreme Court nomination ever rejected by the Senate. He holds the record for the shortest tenure of any chief justice and remains the only recess appointed justice never subsequently confirmed.