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James Iredell (October 5, 1751 – October 20, 1799) was one of the first justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President George Washington and served from 1790 until his death in 1799. His son, James Iredell Jr., was a governor of North Carolina.
While working at the customs house, Iredell read law under Samuel Johnston (later governor of North Carolina), began the practice of law and was admitted to the bar in 1771. The grandson of a clergyman, he was a devout Anglican throughout his life and his writings display an interest in spirituality and metaphysics beyond a simple attachment to organized religion.
In 1773, Iredell married Johnston's sister Hannah and the two had four children after twelve childless years. In 1774 he was made collector for the port.
After the revolution began, Iredell helped organize the court system of North Carolina, and was elected a judge of the superior court in 1778. His career advanced through a number of political and judicial posts in the state, including that of attorney general from 1779 to 1781. In 1787 the state assembly appointed him commissioner and charged him with compiling and revising the laws of North Carolina. His work was published in 1791 as Iredell's Revisal.
Following the Revolution, financial limitations barred his being a delegate to the Philadelphia convention, he corresponded regularly with the North Carolina delegates. Iredell was a leader of the Federalists in North Carolina, and a strong supporter of the proposed Constitution. In the 1788 convention at Hillsborough, he argued unsuccessfully in favor of its adoption. Iredell was the floor leader for the Federalists (North Carolina later ratified the Constitution after Congress amended it through the addition of the Bill of Rights). After the convention failed to ratify the Constitution, he continued to promote it, joining William R. Davie (the later founder of the University of North Carolina), to publish the convention debates at their own expense for distribution across the state.
The case load of the first Supreme Court was light. In fact, the court did not hear its first case until 1791 when it decided West v. Barnes. The decision was unanimous, but Iredell requested that Congress change the harsh statute governing the West decision. The Justices gathered to hear arguments only twice a year, and there are only a handful of opinions written by Justice Iredell in his years on the court. Of them, two of the most significant are:
In the Chisholm case, public and political opinion agreed with Iredell against the other Justices. The outcry and strong reaction of people against the Chisholm decision would lead to its reversal by the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment in 1795.
In the unanimous decision in Calder, the Court held that the Clause applied to criminal cases only, deciding that the legislature's act was not unconstitutional. More importantly, Calder raised the question of whether "principles of natural justice" constituted law. Iredell's opinion indicated that only those actions of a state that explicitly violated a textual provision of the Constitution could be declared void. He stated, "The principles of natural justice are regulated by no fixed standard; the ablest and the purest men have differed upon the subject; and all the court could properly say, in such an event, would be, that the legislature (possessed of an equal right of opinion) had passed an act which, in the opinion of the judges, was inconsistent with the abstract principles of natural justice." Scholars have pointed to Iredell's essay as one of the clearest and best reasoned defenses of judicial review. The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review , Larry Kramer (legal scholar)
Justice Iredell's opinion in Calder helped establish the principle of judicial review five years before it was tested in Marbury v. Madison (1803). The Supreme Court has followed Iredell's approach throughout its subsequent history.
Iredell's charge to the federal grand jury in Fries' Case is commonly cited as evidence that the framers' intent was to limit the scope of the First Amendment to freedom from prior restraint. He praised Sir William Blackstone's narrow interpretation of freedom of the press, noted that the framers were very familiar with Blackstone's work, and observed that "unless his explanation had been satisfactory, I presume the amendment would have been more particularly worded, to guard against any possible mistake."
It also established three circuits or appeals courts—one each in the eastern, central and southern United States. Unlike the modern Supreme Court sitting together in the capital to decide cases, Supreme Court Justices were required to "Circuit court" or travel to the various circuits, and hear cases and appeals twice each year.
Partially due to the heavy burden of travel, Justice Iredell's health failed and he died suddenly on October 20, 1799, in Edenton, North Carolina, at the age of 48.
As a lawyer, Iredell assisted in both abolitionist and pro-slavery cases. In 1777, Iredell and his friend William Hooper provided legal assistance to more than 40 former slaves emancipated by the Quakers in northeastern North Carolina after the 1777 North Carolina General Assembly ordered the former slaves' seizure and resale. In 1769, Iredell assisted his father, Thomas, in selling a runaway slave and requested herring and red-oak staves as part of the proceeds. In his legal practice, Iredell facilitated the sale of slaves for clients.
While Iredell believed "the interests of humanity" would be advanced through abolition, that slave trade existed too long "for the honor and humanity of those concerned in it," and that its abolition would be "pleasing to every generous mind, and every friend of human nature," he nonetheless believed the ratification of the Constitution would provide a pathway for abolition in the long-term, and that, unless they were beholden to the Constitution, states such as South Carolina and Georgia would never pursue the path of abolition. Therefore, "'though at a distant period,' the provisions for the abolition of the slave trade would 'set an example of humanity.'"
In the time between ratification of the Constitution and abolition, Iredell wrote, "judgement upon slavery in the United States must rest between the individuals' consciences and God."
In 1793, when the Iredell family moved from Philadelphia to Edenton, North Carolina, Iredell freed Peter along with 2 other slaves, Edy and Dundee. Peter became a woodcutter after gaining his freedom. He was regularly hired by Iredell when Iredell returned to visit Philadelphia and, on one occasion, check on Hannah Iredell's nephew, James Johnston.
, a ship in World War II, was named after him.
The James Iredell House at Edenton was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
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