Make 'em bobble!

The Annotated Bobblehead Justice William Cushing

As the story goes, he set out to walk to the Court's first sitting in New York in 1790, wearing a large traditional English wig, but returned to his lodgings for a change of headgear after drawing stares and comments in the street.

The third volume (3 Dallas) of the U.S. Reports contains Ware v. Hilton, 3 U.S. 199 (1796), in which Cushing and his colleagues issued opinions seriatim exercising for the first time the Court's authority to pass judgment on the constitutionality of state laws.

He was the first member of the Court appointed from Massachusetts. Between his long tenure on the Supreme Court and similar previous service on courts of last resort in his home state, Cushing spent 38 years as a supreme court judge.

Justice William Cushing, 1790-1810

Like several noted contemporaries, William Cushing was originally a loyalist. A risk of impeachment, however, forced him to renounce his loyalty in 1772. He was able to keep the royal courts open until 1775, at which point all royal commissions ended.

As chief justice of the highest court in Massachusetts, Cushing sentenced the men found guilty in Shay's Rebellion, the uprising among farmers in 1786 and 1787. Many were to be hanged, but almost all were eventually pardoned. Cushing's experience with the rebellion was the impetus behind his support for a strong federal government and national constitution. In fact, he had so little interest in state constitutions that he allegedly spent part of his time at the Massachusetts constitutional convention making a list of materials for a new suit.

Cushing wrote nineteen opinions during his twenty-one years on the Court.

When Chief Justice John Jay retired, Cushing was appointed to replace him. His health declined, however, and he remained an associate justice.