James Wilson (Founding Father)

James Wilson (September 14, 1742 – August 21, 1798) was a Scottish American Founding Father, legal scholar, jurist, and statesman who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1789 to 1798. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, and was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. In 1787 he was a major participant in drafting the U.S. Constitution, and became one of only six people to sign both documents. A leading legal theorist, he was one of the first four Associate Justices appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington.

In his capacity as the first professor of law at the College of Philadelphia (a year after he was appointed as a professor at the College of Philadelphia, the college merged with University of the State of Pennsylvania to become the University of Pennsylvania), he taught the first course on the new Constitution to President Washington and his Cabinet in 1789 and 1790 and continued as a professor of law at Penn until his death in 1798.

Born near Leven, Fife, Scotland, Wilson immigrated to Philadelphia in 1766 and became a teacher at the College of Philadelphia. After studying law under John Dickinson, he was admitted to the bar and set up legal practice in Reading, Pennsylvania. He wrote a well-received pamphlet arguing that the British Parliament's taxation of the Thirteen Colonies was illegitimate because the colonies lacked representation in Parliament. In 1775, he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he signed the Declaration of Independence the next year. In addition to his roles in public service, Wilson served as president of the Illinois-Wabash Company, a land speculation venture.