From George Washington to the United States Senate, 4 March 1793
To the United States Senate
United States [Philadelphia],
March the 4th 1793.
Gentlemen of the Senate,
I nominate William Paterson, at present Governor of the State of New Jersey, to be one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States; vice, Thomas Johnson, resigned.1
Melancthon Lloyd Woolsey, to be Collector of the District of Champlain, in the State of New York.2 and
William Thompson, to be Collector of the Port of Hardwick, in the District of Hardwick and State of Georgia.3
Go: Washington
LS, in Tobias Lear’s writing, DNA: RG 46, Third Congress, 1793–95, Senate Records of Executive Proceedings, President’s Messages—Executive Nominations; LB, DLC:GW.
This letter was presented on Monday, 4 Mar., at a special session of the Senate, during which the Senate approved all three nominations (, 2d Cong., 2d sess., 666–68; 137–38).
1. For GW’s decision to nominate William Paterson, see Edmund Randolph to GW, 18 Feb., and note 5, and GW to Paterson, 20 Feb. 1793, and note 4. For the difficulties GW encountered when he first submitted Paterson’s nomination to the Senate on 27 Feb., see GW to U.S. Senate, 28 Feb. 1793, and note 1. GW signed Paterson’s commission on 6 Mar. (Tobias Lear to Thomas Jefferson, 6 Mar.).
2. For letters recommending Woolsey for this position, see James Hillhouse to GW, 2 Mar., and note 3.
3. The port of Hardwick (Hardwicke) was located in Liberty County (now Bryan County) on the west bank of the Ogeechee River, approximately fourteen miles from the mouth of the river, on what was commonly called the elbow of the river. No longer in existence, Hardwick in 1793 was the site of one of Georgia’s public warehouses for inspecting and shipping tobacco (Charles C. Jones, Jr., Dead Towns of Georgia [Savannah, 1878] 226–28).