welcome back to supreme court.

thank you for inviting me to be with you this evening. my colleagues and i appreciate the work of the supreme court. historic coal society, all that it does to preserve the history of the court, the constitution and, the judiciary, and to expand educational outreach to the public about that history. this evening marks a return to the court for the society's lectures, and we all also welcome our friends from mount vernon, for the society's turn to host what has been an interesting exchange of programs. tonight's topic nicely links the supreme court historical society in mount vernon. the topic is justice bushrod

washington nephew of president george washington. justice washington was appointed to this court by president john adams in 1798 and served 31. very consequential. until 1829. our our speaker is professor gerard magliocca. he is a distinguished professor at, the indiana university school of law. he's a graduate of stanford and yale law school. following graduation from law school, professor magali oka as a law clerk to the famed judge guido calabrese easy on the u.s. court of appeals for the second circuit. judge calabrese, as he was my torts professor in law school, and i know that both professor magli oka and i learned a great of law and history and wisdom from judge calabrese, professor mack leocha teaches and writes in the field constitutional law

and the author of the book washing tins air the life of justice bushrod washington. professor magliozzi has authored four other books and, more than 30 articles on constitutional law and intellectual property. his sixth book will be released in 2025. it will be about the youngstown case and justice robert jackson. or, as we now like to refer to him, the first justice jackson. i look forward to that book as well. i could say more, but that would take away from our time to hear about justice. bushrod washington. please join me in welcoming professor gerard magliocca gerard magliocca. thank you. chilton. thank you, chilton. thank you, justice kavanaugh.

thank you all for coming. are you all hearing me all right? yes. okay, great. so i want to express appreciation to the supreme court historical and to mount vernon for co-sponsoring this event and supporting my research. all along the way. i learned just today that digital paper project bushrod washington papers is live as of today, been in the works for years and so it's a nice coincidence that it has come to fruition on the day of this talk. i also am very pleased and, gratified really to be the first person giving a lecture since the pandemic. i was asked a few times whether i would prefer to give talk on zoom, and i found various ways saying no or absolutely because how could i pass up a chance to speak to all of you in this amazing space?

so we look around this room, this we're taking a moment to reflect on far the court has come since the when bushrod washington was a justice. you probably know that court had no building of its own until 1935 when this building was built. and before that, the court met in the capital. now, you may not have asked yourself before, though, what where did the court meet? when british burned the capital down during the war of 1812, when of that attack reached richmond, chief justice marshall wrote justice washington at mount vernon and said, where are we going to stay? in what room are we to sit? basically saying, you have to solve this problem in washington and solve the courtroom problem by. convincing the clerk of the court to let the justices use

his house. the front parlor of his house as the courtroom. now try to imagine seven justices as there were at the time and the lawyers holding arguments in house in the living room right now. what adds to story is that the clerk of the court had eight children. some of them young. and as young children often do. they were running, playing, making a lot of noise. the story goes that more than once they burst into the room, somebody had to say, supreme court is in session. okay, so from those humble beginnings, the court has become central to rule of law. and much of the credit for that goes to bushrod washington. now, there were many dimensions to. his life, but my theme for tonight is that what we know the marshall court was, created by a

remarkable partnership between two men from virginia, john marshall and bushrod washington. now in saying this i'm going to challenge to common misperceptions about the marshall court. one is that john marshall did everything. he was a superhuman genius. that represented in this building by his giant statue, which is downstairs and all other images in the building. all right. now, an alternative myth about the marshall court is that it was the product, a partnership. but the partnership was between the chief justice and joseph story. that's depicted on the front door of the building the bronze door which has a panel it. that's basically marshall story in conversation. okay. now if it's true as i'm going to

that really the marshall court is marshall and washington conversation. why is it that justice washington overlooked. and answer is he wanted to be anonymous and he succeeded now he wanted to be anonymous for personal. he lived in america is most famous house and he had america's famous name. he didn't need more attention and he didn't want more attention. but he also had professional reasons. he felt strongly that individual justices should keep a low profile and, that the public's attention should be focused. the court as an institution. now he was so good at staying behind the scenes that he was basically forgotten by history until tonight. now, now i'm going to give kind of a brief sketch of his life

before he joined the. bush rod is the eldest son of, george washington's younger brother. now, jack is george washington's full sibling. george washington also had half siblings. jack mount vernon, when george is away fighting in the french indian war. and jack washington would have inherited the estate if george had died in the war. that was the understanding between. the brothers. okay, so george obviously returns from the war. and jack and, his wife, hannah bush, rod, moved to their own slave plantation about 80 miles from mount vernon in westmoreland, virginia. and is there that bush rod is born and he's basically educated at home until he's about 18? at that point in 80, he arrives

at william and mary to enroll in what is basically a new kind of legal education program and sitting the room with him is john marshall, who also happens to be taking the same law program. marshall is recently discharged from the continental army, where he had served under george washington at valley forge, among other places. okay. their studies interrupted. but when the british virginia under cornwallis and bush rival in tears for the state militia and sees action in a cavalry regiment. but after yorktown, george washington for bush rod to take a legal apprenticeship up in philadelphia with james wilson, who is a signer of the declaration of independence one of pennsylvania. his greatest lawyers and later plays a very important role in the constitution or convention.

george doesn't know bush right. well, at this point he's really doing his brother. jack, a favor by arranging and paying this apprenticeship with wilson in these days, lawyers typically would serve as apprentices, established lawyers to before they went into practice. okay. but over the next couple of years, george and right. get to know each other well they see each other often in philadelphia, at mount vernon, they travel together or they exchange lots of letters and george sort of takes bush rod under his wing and gives plenty of advice. now, the most important piece of advice, at least for purposes of this, is he his nephew, speak in public about politics as seldom as possible. and only when you're definitely sure about what you're saying. now, george wrote, a friend that

his greatest hope for his nephew was that would not, quote, become a babbler. that's right. now that's interesting, because it tells you a little bit about how washington thought about things and sort of operated in the political realm and of course, did so very effectively. but it's also advice bush took to heart because his uncle was a great influence kind of obviously in his life. and he was certainly no babbler in his career. he also shared think or sort of drew upon george's sound judgment and care for building institutions because george washington very much was about building institutions after. the american revolution. okay. so i'm after completing his apprenticeship in philadelphia, bush rod returns to virginia, becomes a lawyer. he marries julia blackburn, who whom the family referred to as nancy. her portrait is in the building,

i believe, in one of the dining rooms. but they have no children. but they do raise. some of their orphaned and nephews as their own. they're a devoted couple. actually, they die within just two or three days of each other. in 1829. she was in poor health for much of life. and so often bush, rudd was a caretaker for her. he was more robust. but with one exception, by the time he this court, he could only out of one eye and his portrait is downstairs. you might catch it on the way out and you will see, if you look carefully, that one eye is not quite right. it's sort wandering or set off. so he was depicted true to life. it makes all more remarkable what he was able to do later in his career, given that he could only see out of one eye. okay now, in 77, bush right is

elected to the virginia house of delegates, part the state legislature and. he is reunited with marshall who is also serving in the house of. a year later are both elected as delegates to the ratifying convention in virginia for the constitution. and they're both of course supporters of the constitution. now, as you'll see in a kind of it's an early foreshadowing of the future pattern, marshall speaks pretty often in this convention. bush rod not at all. okay. now, he was keeping george apprized of what was going on through letters, detailed letters. but there was a problem, right. which is that anything bush rudd might have said could have been attributed to george and george had to stay silent during the proceedings and to let his sort

of decision to preside over the constitutional convention speak for itself. so bush, rudd, instead of trying to raise his own profile, which he could easily have done, stayed publicly silent, worked behind the scenes to the job done. and that's basically going to be the theme repeated over and over again. he always, whatever the institutional goal was above his own personal renown or notoriety. okay. now, after the constitution ratified, bush tried concentrates on his legal career and he rapidly becomes one of the top lawyers in virginia, mostly arguing appeals before the virginia court of appeals, which is the highest court, virginia. and on many occasions, his opponent is john marshall. i think we'd all like to have been going to time machine and go in here of what one of those arguments was like. and it was in this that they

became close. they knew each other obviously before this. but they weren't close until they both living in richmond in the 1790s. they served together on the richmond city council. they socialize together and sometimes worked together on cases when they weren't competing for clients. they complemented each other. and the best way i can think of to describe it is marshall was the sale and bush rod the anchor meaning marshall was bolder willing to take more risks. bush rod was more cautious, probably had sound or judgment, sometimes. but you put that together and it's highly effective as a team. now, they also had lot in common, right? they were both federalists politically. they were both slave owners. and the book goes into great detail about their not so great record on slavery. and they were both admirers of

george washington from different vantage points. george also thought highly of both men and 1798. he strongly. charmed them into running for congress not as federalist because he was concerned about jefferson's growing influence in politics. now, the way bush told this story years later, the two men were summoned to mount and they were told that they would run for congress. and then bush, rod and marshall go out for a walk and they both agree that they don't want to do this partly because they would have been giving up of their lucrative practice, partly because they didn't they weren't sure they could win win. but marshall said to bush, right. well, you have to go and tell them that we don't want do this,

because i'm not going to tell them. and so bush rod went back into the house and those who had benjamin vernon know that george washington had his study kind of a special that basically he want that was his space to be with his thoughts. bush rod goes in and lays it out for him as to why maybe it's not such a good idea for the two of them to run for congress. and george listened at the end, he said to him, bush, rod, it must be done? query how many times did bush rod here that statement, you know, in his life but so washington goes out and says to marshall well, he won't he won't take no for an answer we have to do it. and so they they. okay. before the election, though, there was a vacancy on the supreme court and, president adams decides that virginia has to get this vacancy.

virginia is the most populous state and there are no justices from, virginia. so the attorney general says, okay, well, are the two names john marshall bushrod washington now marshall declines and it's not clear why exactly. he seems to have been more committed to the political campaign. he was more of a political sort of liked politics more, let's say, than bushrod washington. but bush rod accepted the offer. now, of course, three years later, right. president adams is going to prevail upon marshall to accept the chief justice ship and make them colleagues the court. now, in this period before they are supreme court colleagues, so we're talking about 1798 to 1801 are washington and marshall are already working together on important projects related to

george washington's death. so george washington dies in 1799 and he makes bush write his principal heir. but there are issues. it's a complex estate and martha washington is still living needs help and bush right marshall jointly advise her about different aspects of george's will and bequests and so on. okay. more is that bush right? in addition to inheriting mount vernon also inherits all of george washington's papers, which gives rise to the thought of having an authorized of george washington bush right decides that perfect person to do this is john marshall and they kind of have a handshake deal to work on a series of books and they work on this it's multi-volume set called life of washington and they work on this

over a period of many years. they never make quite as much money on it as they were hoping, but still, it a pretty successful project. now their work on the book together is very revealing, and marshall would do drafts of chapters or of an entire volume, and then washington would go to richmond and stay at marshall's house, which is still in richmond. some of you may have been there and they would go through it line by line and washington would make corrections and would sort of offer suggestions and changes. washington also served as a kind of research assistant. marshall we have a letter, for example, from bush rod to alexander hamilton saying, gee, can you us some details about some of the revolutionary war campaigns that you were involved in trying to make sure accurate?

bush i'd worked on the maps and illustrations are now this also happened in reverse. bushrod washington wrote a two volume set of reports on the virginia court of appeals and later on he did a revised edition and he asked, can you go to the courthouse in richmond and check details on this case for me to make sure that i've got it right? and marshall says, okay. and i was that was rather fond of seeing that because. it's like, oh, john marshall was the site checker, you know, a research assistant for somebody else. okay. now, in effect, bush rod was marshall's editor on these washington books. marshall, as much in the introduction or dedication of the book and we have plenty of letters from bush rod to their publisher describing their working process. is this how they might have on

some opinions together? it's impossible to know, because none of marshall's survive. and marshall didn't, at least for anything, survive. ing describe his own drafting process. however, there are some clues that are suggestive. i mean, one is that we know that washington collaborated on opinions with just a story. so it seems to possible that he also would have collaborated with chief justice marshall on some opinions. the other thing we know is that the justices were out writing in different parts of, the country, hearing appeals, doing trials, because that's most of supreme court justices did in this. they weren't in washington all much. they would frequently write to each other. and marshall in washington wrote to each other, hey, i have this difficult issue in this. what's your opinion or have this difficult issue? has it ever come up in one of your cases before?

and if so, what did you do? so if that kind of or exchange going on with respect to circuit opinions. one has to imagine that in person that also was going on with supreme court opinions. maybe we'll find some definite proof of that someday. i hope so. okay. now i'm let's come to kind of the marshall court, right? like what is the marshall court and why do i say that? this is a john marshall bushrod washington collaboration. okay. first, you know what makes the marshall distinctive? one thing is that they all lived together in a boardinghouse. when the court was in session they all eight together drank together discussed the cases over dinner together. right. and a lot of people believe that helps to explain how they achieved a high degree of

consent to this and unanimity in decisions it was just and convivial and that lent itself to ironing out disagreements. okay. who was in charge of these arrangements? bushrod washington now we know that because, as i mentioned at the beginning of the talk when washington, d.c. damaged during the war, marshall's first letter is to asking bush right where, are we going to stay? you know, like you're you got to figure this out. we also have many letters from washington where he his various attempts to negotiate sort of arrangements at this boardinghouse, that boardinghouse. okay. now, tellingly, when bush rod washington dies, that arrangement ends. so the very next term of the court, not of the justices, live together. some of them live separately.

soon, all of them are living separately. so what? that is that washington was maybe it wasn't his idea. we don't know. but he was one that held it together and made it work. and so that's sort of point number one. okay. more broadly, washington did, most of the day to day administration and within the court. and here's an example. a lawyer, a letter to chief justice marshall and says, i'm to argue a case soon, but my wife is ill. i don't know if can make it. can i submit my argument in writing? and the chief justice writes back and says, well only if justice washington agrees. now, when i saw that, i sort of eyebrow arched a bit, right? because like well he's the chief

justice. what? why does he need? justice, washington's consent to accede to this request? so the answer is that washington functioned informally as the courts secretary, the keeper of the records when it came arguments, the docket and all of that, that makes sense in part because he was very painstaking in his work slow but painstaking and everybody trusted him. but see, all of you who worked in an organization know the person who is in charge of the paper flow. right. exercises a certain amount of influence over the culture of that place. you know, whether they're consciously that or not. so. okay. he's in charge of living arrangements. he's basically in charge of all of the paperwork that's going

on. okay. all right. now, second, distinctive thing about the marshall court is that the court speaks as often as possible, unanimous, partly in an opinion by the chief justice. right. that's probably the thing we remember the marshall court for the most, especially in the most famous decisions. okay. so well, where did that practice come from? and the answer is it came from the virginia court of appeals, the highest of virginia, which experimented with this same idea during the 1790s, when marshall and washington were cases before that court all the time. they just took that idea and transplant it to the supreme court. okay. how do we know that. so we know that because in part there is a letter, kind of a smoking gun of sorts by.

justice william johnson, who was on this court for 25 years with washington marshall. he was appointed to the court by jefferson. he writes jefferson a letter kind of spilling the beans about everything that's going on internally. and he starts out by saying that he johnson had been a state court judge, the supreme court of south carolina and. on that court. he had been used to writing an opinion for himself in basically every case, there was idea of being unanimous or having the chief justice write the court's opinion. but he said well, once i got here, i got, quote, nothing lectures about how terrible it was when the virginia high abandoned the practice of having its head issue opinions on the court's and went back to having everybody their own opinion kind

of in a bit of a free for all. okay. well, who was giving these lectures? right. so the first thought would be, well, it's the two justices from virginia who practiced before that court and closely followed that court, as i mentioned earlier. justice wrote two volumes of case reports on that court. okay. now, in the next part of letter justice, johnson decided to talk about what he thought about his colleagues. this one's too old. this one can't write. this one's no. okay. then he gets to washington and marshall and he to jefferson. well, as you know, they are commonly esteemed as one judge. okay, two minds. one judge. okay. now, that, in a nutshell, is the argument that i make in the book about this aspect of things.

and that's, you know, someone speaking from the inside of the court in a way and in a private letter, of course, not publicly. right. but and with a lot of experience, sort of observing things close up. okay. now, why did the court want to speak through the chief justice as often as possible? right. and the answer is, it designed to strengthen the court, an institution, justice washington as a story told a friend, very much discouraged separate opinions because thought it weakened the authority of the court. okay, but here's a sort of different way of thinking about how justice washington fit into this approach or scheme. after 1810. bush rod, the senior associate justice on the court, which means that he presides when

chief justice marshall is or ill, which did happen from time time. okay. so happens in those cases. so you might think, well, this is washington's big chance to get to write more opinions. right. because he would have the power to assign the decision himself and he does write some of them. but actually what you see is that he doesn't distribute to himself, which would have been a logical thought that if you think the most senior person should write the opinion, he's now the most senior person. when the chief justice is absent. instead, he thinks carefully about, well, who's the best person to write this opinion in a way that will maximize the court's authority. now, here's my example of this martin versus hunter's let's see, is a very one of the most famous marshall court opinions and it's the most famous one not written by john marshall.

now i'm going to give a very barebones description of case in the interest of time. but basically this is a case involves property disputes in virginia between virginians and british from revolutionary period. in effect, the question of, okay british loyalists left what happened to their land? you know, could be redistributed to virginians or did it belong to the people who had abandoned it? and this was of a very hot controversy in virginia for many years an in the 18 tens, the supreme court issued an opinion written by justice story which said that basically the loyalists had the property interests in question because of the treaty that was made at the end of the revolutionary war between britain and the united states, the virginia court of

appeals, respond did with its own opinion, essentially telling the supreme court to -- out that you don't have authority to tell us what to do. this the property claim we're sovereign over state property law. you don't have any authority. okay. so this presented a very direct challenge to the supreme authority. marshall was recused because his brother owned some property that was affected by the decision. so washington then was acting chief justice. okay, so what did he do? okay. first he put the case down for expedited argument, kind of, i guess the rocket docket or emergency docket of the day and then he doesn't assign the opinion himself. he assigns it to just a story. who writes probably his most famous supreme court opinion,

rejecting the virginia court of appeals decision. okay. well, why why did he give it to story? why didn't he take it for himself? because if he had well, we'd all people would know him better, because he would have written this famous supreme court opinion. well, first of all, just the story had written the original opinion. so there was some important symbolism saying you decide that the same justice is going write for the same court, saying you have to follow it. second story wasn't from so the in the politics of the day or what now call the optics of the day having a virginia supreme court justice rebuke. the virginia court of appeals wouldn't look so good. it was better have somebody from outside of virginia do it. third story was a much faster. and time was of the essence. washington of his limited eyesight was.

a slower writer and whole point of this was get this out quickly as possible to in fatica say this virginia opinion is wrong. okay. so again, it's an example of washington putting the court above himself. he could taken the glory instead. he shared it, but also in a way that makes the court's institutional authority. okay. now, those are two distinctive features of the marshall court. lived in the boardinghouse together, spoke as often as possible through. the chief justice sort of taking this from virginia. okay. now there's a third piece of evidence that kind of tells us something. the special we'll call it the special relationship, if you want to put it that way, between marshall and washington. that is, they took decisions that affected the court without

consulting the others. now, case in point, mcculloch, maryland, which is the marshall court decision upholding the constitu personality of the national bank, was very unpopular in certain parts of virginia, among people were much more states rights oriented. they didn't like the nationalist rhetoric of the opinion. so chief justice marshall decided that he should. respond to these attacks by writing some newspaper essays, defending the opinion. now try to imagine that today. right. it's hard to thing but so okay. how does he make that happen? well, he sort of recruits pushrod into a bit of cloak and dagger operation where he gives washington the manuscript and he

tells them. okay, you got to get it to. the this newspaper editor, when you're visiting, you alexandria, are you visiting philadelphia, vian? and then sometimes he says something like, okay. and make sure you burn, you know, the other court matching letters so people can't like figure out that it was it was for me. now, of course, not all that got burned because we know that he later figured out that this happened. they not ask for permission from the other justices. okay. now, i can't say that that means the others didn't know. right. it's possible they did know or that they sort of in some informal sense made marshall and washington the standing committee of the court because they were the closest to washington d.c. but it's a pretty extraordinary eerie thing to take a risky action that without consulting

the others and this is not the only time this sort of thing happened. i mean, i don't have time to go into the all the other examples, but sometimes they functioned as if they like the inner court and the others were something of the outer court, whether was with consent or understanding, i can't quite say. but astonishing either way. okay. so what have we kind of learned? not this point. right. so first we learned. okay, marshall didn't do everything on the marshall court. and look, no chief justice can run the court by himself. and indeed, i think the myth of john marshall as a super person has been a great burden to his who are all expected somehow now to just sort of control what the court does. and second, the basic of the marshall court were all in firmly in place before just a

story joined. the court 1811. justice story was john marshall's partner after bush rod died in 1829 for the remaining years of the marshall court. but he he didn't replace and he could not replace the role that bush rudd played in john marshall's life and work. when news of washington's death reached richmond marshall was actually at the virginia constitutional convention, virginia was rewriting its constitution. and marshall was a delegate. and james madison was a delegate. and james monroe was delegate. lot of luminaries and marshall wrote madison kind of poignant note where says jim says, look, i'm i can't come out of my room like, you know, from grief. he said, you know, i need not say how much i regret his loss.

kind of like almost like, you know. right. he meant to me to the court are when i was a law student, i asked one of my professors who who's the greatest american lawyer, in your opinion? and his answer was, there's no such thing law as a collective prize. and i've come to see the wisdom of and that's especially telling when you look at it through ironically the life of the person. right. but a person who of embodied the spirit that the law be impersonal and i closed the book by saying that bushrod washington was washington's heir. but in a sense, we are all george washington's heirs because we are all trying to carry forward project that is america. he was the first that sort of had to of think hard about those

things. but but we all have to do so as well. so i thank you for your for listening i'm happy to take questions either here or out in the reception afterwards. thank you very much. can we take questions? we can take a few. okay. questions questions. the first one, it's always shy. no, this was after had left the presidency. so it was more of a little more of reminiscence of what the court had been like in some

years before. hmm. you talked. with mr. so the interest was first from the fact that there had not been a book about him before a published book six and that he was kind of this person who kept coming up in the lives of other people. so you'd read about george washington, you'd see him. you read about john marshall, you'd see him you read about other founders mean bush. right. also did legal work for. jefferson at one point. and, you know, he knew everybody, of course, because of his family connections. so that was where the interest from in terms of sources. his papers are much more scattered or at were until earlier today. right. among archives now it must said

that a book this to try to write it say 30 years ago would have been almost because you would have had to visit many places in person and go through boxes of. it would have taken an amount of time now with things being digitized in the way that they are. i mean, you can just go and get people to give you scans, right? so that's that's much easier. now, the main thing, though, that i found, which was, i think the most helpful source. was one of the justices workbooks. so one of his workbooks with opinions with his notes on cases, including some is most famous opinion, which is core versus coryell, which is one of his circle opinions is in the chicago history museum and. i didn't know that. i mean no one else had, i guess noticed this before. someone brought it out to me. i can remember was sitting at a desk and someone said oh well here's something we have, you know, and i started leafing through it and eyes got bigger, bigger as i went through and

saw, especially when i got to the page it said garfield versus corio underline then you know, you start seeing various notes. so it's interesting because look it's very hard with someone from ago to reconstruct thought process. you can't talk to them you can't talk to anybody who knew them. letters are only partly revealing, right? but when you can see someone talking themselves as did in his notes on cases? well that tells you quite a bit more about things, especially when you can then compare it, say, to the final version and see what differences there were. so so that was the that was really the breakthrough because without that, i think the book would been a lot less illuminating about his work as a judge, his style down to the similarities similarities.

yeah, the question was are there stylistic similar these between say corfield or some of washington's other circuit court opinions and some of the marshall courts opinions? okay. so the answer to is yes with probable two caveats. one is justice. washington was very keen to, always cite authority for things and chief justice marshall didn't about that so much. you know, opinions, if you read them often have, no citations at all, very few. they're written a little more like an essay, which in some ways them more persuasive because they seem to just the truth. right. i don't even need to cite anything. right. but washington was more concerned about finding authority for things. okay. however, a couple of circuit opinions that he wrote you can

find passages that rather well to that others wrote on the marshall court later. actually, martin versus hunter's will see is one example in that there is a part of stories opinion that tracks very closely to one of washington circuit opinions that was also about the fact that state authorities could not defy federal courts. so, you know, suggests a certain input there or there. but yeah, that that that's kind of the most i say about that. comment on whether george washington refused to endorse an appointment of his nephew to the supreme court when his nephew that his uncle provide an endorsement. yes. okay. no, that's so i said, you know,

earlier, bush rod generally had judgment, but so in after george washington elected, bushra does write a letter in which he essentially says, like you know i'm available for service as a u.s. attorney if if and he gets a strong rebuke. right. and then bush writes of what is, i think, a sort of funny sort of response where he tries to say something almost like a child getting caught in trouble, says something like, oh, i didn't understand that the president that you would appoint that i thought that you'd just be sort of referring, you know, i mean, kind of a nonsense explanation because he knew he had made a big mistake. now, the interesting thing then is when he's named to the supreme court. of course, george had wanted to run for congress. george was unaware bush rod was under consideration for the court and justice.

then justice. washington writes this very defensive letter to, his uncle saying, i it. i hope you're not mad, more or less that i've decided accept this appointment. right. to which george replied, generals. no, no, that's. that's wonderful. actually, one little detail is know back then, as i mentioned, justices to travel around a lot to write circuit. and george's main comment about bush. right joining the court was i wished you have safe travels because it dangerous to traveling by road. and a lot of justices got hurt in stagecoach accidents basically now fortunately that that didn't happen but was like the main concern not oh you are taking this position. you're not running for congress as you might get hurt in a stagecoach accident. yes. all over washington and the controversy there. no no.

yeah. the question was, did did bush have any role in the aaron burr hamilton? i assume you mean the hamilton duel or do you mean the the alleged treason? yeah. no. one more, maybe more. so, yeah. there was a question there. thank you for. a great column. and especially the personal relationships and personal fortune. there was a third member of the law school class there of william sent around, who then became the chief in virginia. that's marshall, i guess, which brought battle with a lot which was their personal that lasted for or was it obviously other forces. so yeah so the third notable in the nat law school group was spencer rhone, who later did become the head of virginia court of appeals and was a very

strong states rights judge. personal amity. yeah, they didn't like each other that much, but i don't think that had anything to do with what happened when they were students. i think only developed later when they had fundamentally different views. the role of the states and the federal government. i think you will join me when i say that tonight's lecture was both informative and entertaining and we are very grateful. thank you. thank you. really. you've heard a bit this about the partnership between the sorry. the mt. vernon and the society.

and i hope you'll be happy. learn that there will both be moving in october and we'll move the venue to. i'm i'm sorry. i'm hoarse here that it be i think, a terrific lecture and a authoritative. professor lindsay shervin. she will share her third authoritative account of second president and tell how his leadership and legacy define the office for. those who followed and ensure the survival of the american republic. we want to thank our host once again and we appreciate his

gracious honesty and being here and allowing now to have this lecture, you hear now it's like we should be pretty much on time and we hope that you will stay and join us in the reception which will take this evening in the great hall, which you can find just the rear doors in the back of this chamber. ladies and gentlemen, we are adjourned adjourned.