measures are hurt by Mr, Rutledge's appointment and
are unable to account for it," wrote Chauncey Goodrich, "but impute it to want of information of his hostility to the Government, or some hidden cause which
justified the measure. We shall be loth to find faction is to be courted at so great a sacrifice of consistency." Oliver Ellsworth (then a Senator, and soon to become Rutledge's successor) wrote more temperately to Wolcott, that "if the evil is without remedy, we must, as in
others, make the best of it." Stephen Higginson
wrote to Timothy Pickering: "I presume he never will receive a commission. It would be an unfortunate
thing for the public, as well as for himself, since with
the present public opinion as to his conduct and character, he can never have the confidence of the people, nor
be confirmed by the President and Senate at the next
session of Congress." "No man in the habit of thinking
well, either of Mr. Rutledge's head or heart but must
have felt at reading the passages of his speech, which
have been published, pain, surprise and mortification,"
wrote Alexander Hamilton. The sensation which the
address created testified very strongly to the importance
which the country attached to Rutledge's opinion; but
the Federalist resentment was further increased by the
false and exaggerated reports which were given wide
currency in the newspapers. The leading Federalist
paper, the Columbian Centinel of Boston, published a
long and virulent attack on Rutledge (which was widely
republished), stating that he could not pay his debts,
assailing his private character as well as his political
views, and lamenting that "though the President's motives, however, cannot be questioned; everyone knows
and confesses his integrity and zeal to do right, but he cannot know every man in the United States and the information he got from others cannot always be relied
Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/158
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132
THE SUPREME COURT