By Leonard B. Rosenberg. Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Political Science
William Paterson was undoubtedly New Jersey’s
leading national figure during the early years of the Republic. Yet
little is known about his family background or pre-college years. However,
it is now generally accepted that he was born in Northern Ireland, probably
Antrim, on December 24, 1745 and that two years later he was brought
to British America by his father, Richard Paterson. By 1750 the elder
Paterson had established a successful general store on the main thoroughfare
of "Princetown," directly opposite the future Nassau Hall,
the main building of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).
Although Paterson’s formative years
are a matter of conjecture, his later services to nation and state are
well documented. As state attorney-general during the American Revolution,
constitution-maker, U.S. Senator, New Jersey Governor, and Supreme Court
Justice, Paterson played a significant and respected role in the events
that brought the United States into existence and that early work gave
shape to its institutions. At times he was a serious candidate for Secretary
of State and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Valuable and lasting
contributions were made to the basic American concepts of constitutionalism,
federalism and judicial review.
Paterson was very definitely a product of his class and times. Educated
at Princeton along the same lines as Jefferson, Madison and John Adams,
he shared with them a firm conviction in God’s laws of nature and
the inalienable rights of man. He accepted as working principles the
validity of the social contract and the sovereignty of the people. Although
his ideas were typical of those held by men of property and position,
his conservatism was balanced by a liberal respect for liberty and justice.
When the revolutionary struggle reached New Jersey, he unhesitatingly
supported the cause of independence. However, once the war for independence
had been won and the principles of popular sovereignty and limited government
had been achieved, his efforts, along with other leading Federalists,
concentrated on establishing and maintaining a government that would
at the same time secure the rights of man and the rights of property.
For Paterson the post war factionalism and apparent disrespect for tradition
and law would lead to unchecked liberty, legislative tyranny, and a
threat to property. Liberty for him meant "rational liberty"
- liberty within the confines of law, order, and peaceful progress.
"Order is Heaven’s first Law" is the single, most constant
theme in his political thinking.
William Paterson’s most important contributions to the development
of American political institutions were made at the Constitutional Convention
of 1787 and during his service as a member of the nation’s High
Tribunal. Though the New Jersey Plan, which he introduced at the Convention
to counter the more nationalistic Virginia Plan, championed the cause
of state sovereignty, it recognized the need for enlarged and independent
powers for the central government. The insistence on states’ rights
by New Jersey and the other small states made possible - or necessary
- the federalism which became one of the distinctive features of the
American constitutional system. However, once state equality in the
Senate became a fact he gave full support to the finished product of
the Convention, including an independent federal judiciary and the supremacy
of acts of Congress and of treaties. Thus the new national government
was given the means of self-preservation and, in the long run, the power
of political dominance.
With the ratification of the Federal Constitution, Paterson became one
of the strongest supporters of constitutional and national supremacy.
The Judiciary Act of 1789, which as New Jersey’s first U.S. Senator
he helped frame, laid the foundations for the authority of the federal
courts, and in its appellate provisions, implied judicial power over
state legislation. In effect, the national government was empowered
to define its own scope of constitutional authority.
But it was as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice for thirteen years that he
arguably made his greatest impact on the nation’s political institutions.
In the VanHorne case (1795) Paterson insisted that the new constitution
"is the form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the
people, in which certain first principles of fundamental laws are established.
. . .it contains the permanent will of the people and is the supreme
law of the land." Thus the Constitution was paramount to legislative
acts and amendable or revokable only by the sovereign power that created
it (the people). All acts not in harmony with this permanent and fixed
fundamental law were consequently unconstitutional and void. Here eight
years before John Marshall’s famous Marbury v. Madison opinion
was a clear and unequivocal enunciation of the doctrine of judicial
review. In other opinions Justice Paterson upheld the Hamilton view
of federal taxing powers and the idea of national supremacy in the area
of foreign affairs.
Paterson always maintained strong ties with New Jersey and the college
at Princeton. Even while sitting on the nation’s highest tribunal,
he accepted the challenge of codifying the state’s entire legal
system, including provisions that made it easier for masters to free
their slaves (however, it must be mentioned that Paterson was no fiery
or even enthusiastic abolitionist). His was always a voice for tradition
and continuity, respect for government and its leaders, and law.
What may be said of William Paterson as a political leader? Although
not an especially original thinker, he was still an able and conscientious
representative of his class and party. If on occasion he displayed a
fear of unchecked popular government, he, nevertheless, gave full and
constant support - and in times of danger - to those ideals on which
the American republic is founded: that government emanates from the
hands of the people and remains continually responsible to and limited
by the constitution as established by the people. His sometimes distrust
of democracy came from a fear of the potential tyranny of the majority
and the resultant threat to those cherished conservative concepts of
stability, order, and property rights. To Paterson these ideals were
intertwined with those essential liberties that formed the foundation
on which the American nation had been erected.
For Paterson the struggle was not for liberty or law, but, rather, for
liberty under law. As his state’s leading political figure, William
Paterson was indeed New Jersey’s nation-maker.
