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WHERE is the Scottish influence more
marked and dominating than in the legal profession and the courts. The
interpretation of law
in America has been chiefly the work of
non-English judges; and perhaps it is not too much to say that the
distinctive character of American jurisprudence is due to the
preponderating influence of men of Celtic blood at the bench and bar.
The second Chief Justice of the
United States Supreme Court, John Rutledge, and three of the four original
Associate Justices, Blair, Wilson and Iredell, were of Scottish origin.
John Marshall, the great Chief Justice, was Welsh and Scottish. His mother
was a Keith.
Of fifty judges of the United States
Supreme Court from 1789 to 1882, not more than
twenty-two were of
English blood: Rutledge, Wilson, Blair, two Johnsons,
Paterson, Moore, Livingston, Todd, Thompson, Trimble, McLean, Barbour,
McKinley, Daniel, Nelson, Grier, Campbell, Miller, Davis and Harlan were
of Scottish descent. Biographies of some of these will be found elsewhere
in this book. |
