Rutledge was the shortest-serving Chief Justice in Supreme Court history, by a wide margin. He was also the first Supreme Court nominee to be rejected by the Senate and the only Justice appointed during a recess who was ultimately rejected by the Senate.

John Rutledge of South Carolina, a founding era titan who held virtually every important political office and judicial post from the pre-Revolutionary years through the Constitutional Convention, was one of George Washington’s favorites and easily fulfilled the first President’s seven criteria for an appointment to the first U.S. Supreme Court.