Johnson, William (1771–1834)

• Author: Donald G. Morgan
• Pages: 1432-1433

Page 1432

Justice William Johnson of Charleston, South Carolina, was THOMAS JEFFERSON'S first appointee to the Supreme Court. Johnson was the son of a blacksmith and revolutionary patriot. After attending Princeton and reading law with CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY, Johnson was elected to serve three terms in the state legislature as a member of the new Republican party. During his third term he became speaker of the House. In 1799, he was elected to the state's highest court, and on March 22, 1804, he was

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appointed to the Supreme Court, where he served until his death. Of all the fifteen Justices who sat on the MARSHALL COURT, Johnson was, at least to 1830, the most independent and vocal in advancing opinions different from those of Chief Justice JOHN MARSHALL. In treating the accountability of the members of the Court, the distribution of the national power among the three branches, the powers reserved to the states, and VESTED RIGHTS, Johnson often found himself in disagreement with the majority of the Marshall Court. At the time of his appointment, Johnson objected to Marshall's practice of rendering unaminous opinions. He felt that the judicial role required freedom of expression, and he fought to revive the practice of SERIATIM OPINIONS. "Few minds," he protested in a separate opinion in 1816, "are accustomed to the same habit of thinking.?" From his advent until 1822, Johnson wrote twelve of twenty-four CONCURRING OPINIONS and sixteen of thirty-two DISSENTING OPINIONS. Toward the end of his career, new Justices joined the Court who agreed with Johnson and frequently spoke out separately with him. Johnson succeeded in establishing the right to dissent, so important in later years.

Johnson also ran into conflict with other members of the Court concerning the allocation of power among the branches of the national government. Like the rest of the Marshall Court, he believed that a strong national government was vital to national unity, and he was willing to delegate broad powers to the government. However, he believed that Congress should be the chief recipient of these powers, and he was willing to construe more narrowly the powers of the judiciary and the President, as he did, for example, in United States v. Hudson and Goodwin. In relation to Congress, Johnson made assertions of broad power that surpassed even those of Marshall. For a unanimous Court, in Anderson v. Dunn, Johnson upheld Congress's...