In 1795, Rutlege was unsuccessfully nominated to the court to serve as
chief justice, after having been first given a
recess appointment by President Washington to the position in August 1795. On December 10, 1795, Washington nominated Rutlege to serve as chief justice permanently. The nomination ran into opposition due to speculation about his
mental health and
alcohol use. The nomination was rejected by the Senate in a 14–10 vote, the first instance in which the Senate rejected a Supreme Court nomination, and the only instance in the court's history in which a recess appointee was not permanently confirmed after the recess.
Recess appointment On June 28, 1795, Chief Justice John Jay resigned after having been elected
governor of New York. Rutlege wrote Washington that month offering to replace Jay as chief justice. President Washington selected Rutledge to succeed Jay as chief justice, and, as the Senate would not be meeting again until December, gave Rutledge a recess appointment so that he could serve as chief justice during the upcoming August session. He was commissioned as the second Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on June 30, 1795, and took the judicial oath on August 12.
Nomination President Washington formally nominated Rutledge on December 10, 1795, to a lifetime appointment as chief justice. However, by this time, Rutledge's reputation was in tatters, and support for his nomination had faded. Rumors of
mental illness and
alcohol abuse swirled around him, concocted largely by the
Federalist press. His words and actions in response to the
Jay Treaty (including an immensely controversial speech he delivered against the treaty on July 16, 1795) were used as evidence of his continued mental decline. A lot of the opposition to Rutledge spurred from his opposition to the Jay Treaty, meaning that his political views influenced opposition to his appointment. The Senate rejected the nomination on December 15, 1795, by a vote of 14–10. This was the first time that the Senate had voted down a Supreme Court nomination. As of ; it remains the only U.S. Supreme Court recess appointment to be subsequently rejected by the Senate. All nine
Democratic Republican Senators that cast a vote voted to confirm Rutledge, while all but one of the fifteen
Federalist Senators that cast a vote voted against his confirmation. This came despite the fact that the Federalist Party was the party more aligned with Washington's administration.
Aftermath Soon after the Senate's rejection of his nomination to the Supreme Court, on December 26, 1795, Rutledge attempted
suicide by jumping off a
wharf into
Charleston Harbor. He was rescued by two slaves who saw him drowning. Though the Senate remained in session through June 1, 1796, which would have been the automatic end of Rutledge's commission following the rejection, Rutledge resigned from the Court two days later, on December 28, 1795, having served the briefest tenure of any chief justice of the United States (). Afterward, he largely withdrew from public life and returned to live in
Charleston, South Carolina. Regarding the Senate's rejection of Rutledge's nomination, Vice President
John Adams wrote to his wife
Abigail that it "gave me pain for an old friend, though I could not but think he deserved it. Chief Justices must not go to illegal Meetings and become popular orators in favor of Sedition, nor inflame the popular discontents which are ill founded, nor propagate Disunion, Division, Contention and delusion among the people." ==See also==