James Wilson—His Scottish Background: Corrections and Additions

James Wilson before America: New Insights into the Scottish Years

James Wilson was one of the most vocal and earliest advocates for a separation from Britain, a member of the Second Continental Congress, a contributor to and signer of the Declaration of Independence, an ardent supporter for the passage of the Constitution and a strong central government, one of six individuals who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a justice of the first Supreme Court, and one of the original Founders. The events of his life, his actions, his political stands, his character, and his economic motivations are all in dispute among historians: "Indeed, he appears to have provoked more conflict than consensus among scholarly specialists."¹ An area of particular importance and specific neglect has been Wilson's family background, early economic and religious influences, and education.

A reliable narrative of James Wilson's life before America has been difficult to come by, and the literature available is often inaccurate. In the past, for information concerning the early years of Wilson's life scholars have relied either on Charles Page Smith's James Wilson: Founding Father, 1742-1798 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), or Geoffrey Seed's James Wilson (Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1978). Seed's analysis of Wilson's early years and education was succinct, Smith's expansive. Smith seems to have taken two letters found in the Montgomery Collection at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania—the first a letter from Wilson's mother and the second an account written in 1805 by Wilson's cousin, Robert Annan—as the foundation for an early history of Wilson's early life. Much of Smith's story is more romantic fiction than fact. Several other works have dealt primarily with Wilson's philosophical and political perspectives, with only fleeting or suppositional accounts of his early history. Among those are The Works of James Wilson, edited by Robert Green McCloskey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967); Randolph Greenfield Adams, "James Wilson and St Andrews," The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle (1931); Andrew Bennett, James Wilson of St Andrews (St Andrews: J. and G. Innes, 1928); Burton Konkle, James Wilson and the Constitution (Philadelphia: Law Academy, 1907); and Collected Works of James Wilson, edited by Kermit Hall and Mark David Hall (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2007).

In April 2009 an important article by Professor William Ewald suggested that the final draft of the Constitution was far more a result of Wilson's philosophical viewpoints and considered convictions than it was of Madison's original design. Ewald maintains that the reason for the Madison predominance in the story of the Constitution is the centrality of the Virginia plan, the accessibility of his Notes of the Philadelphia convention (which focused on circumstances important to Madison), and to Wilson's diminished status at the end of his life. Ewald's reconstruction of the convention and the role played by the Committee of Detail speaks to Wilson's crucial contributions to the final draft of the Constitution that was presented to the delegates for ratification. The Committee of Detail was a group of five led by Wilson, Edmund Randolph and John Rutledge and "contrary to its instructions, significantly rewrote the Constitution, adding provisions that had never been discussed by the Convention and were ultimately to be of greater importance to constitutional law than the issue of equal State representation in the Senate."²

Ewald also demonstrated that the "internal workings of the Committee of Detail are not recorded in Madison's Notes, and its contribution is generally treated only sketchily in histories of the Convention."³ This new perspective will no doubt enhance Wilson's diminished reputation and increase the interest in the circumstances of his life. Specifically this study will shed light on his early influences and training and also illustrate the importance of the connections between the virtuosi of the Scottish Enlightenment and certain of the Founders.

For half a century Charles Page Smith's version of James Wilson's life has been the foundation of many other studies, but the...