Beschreibung:

JEFFERSON, Thomas (1743-1826), President, Author of Declaration of Independence . Document signed ("Th: Jefferson"), as Secretary of State, Philadelphia, 10 November 1791. 1 page, 4to, creases discreetly reinforced on verso . JEFFERSON TRANSMITS THE COMMISSION TO A CLOSE WASHINGTON ALLY. An official commission from Secretary of State Jefferson, officially notifying Thomas Johnson (1732-1819) of his appointment as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. All such commissions had to be transmitted by the Secretary of State in order to take effect (and James Madison's failure to do so for Mr. William Marbury in 1800 would provoke the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison [1803]). An active and effective leader in the Chesapeake political and legal scenes, Johnson had come to George Washington's notice as an outspoken advocate of Independence in the 1770s. He served in both the First and Second Continental Congresses, and made the motion to name Washington commander of the Continental Army. Fundraising for that force in Maryland kept him from being present to sign the Declaration. In the 1780s, he teamed with Washington to form the Potomac River Company, and the same year that he received this Supreme Court appointment, the President also tapped him to be one of the three commissioners for overseeing the creation of the District of Columbia. Johnson resigned from the high court in 1793 and refused Washington's offer to replace Edmund Randolph as Secretary of State in 1795.