Oliver Ellsworth was a prominent lawyer, legislator, judge, and member of the Federalist Party. Born in 1745 to a prosperous Connecticut family, Ellsworth studied at Yale and then the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), from which he graduated in 1766. He abandoned his study of theology for law and was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1771. With a prospering law practice, he soon became a wealthy and influential member of the community. He was a member of the state general assembly from 1773 to 1776, and in 1777 he was appointed state attorney general for Hartford County.

During the Revolutionary War (1775-83), Ellsworth represented Connecticut in the Second Continental Congress from 1778 to 1783, and he was one of the five members of the committee in Connecticut that managed the state's wartime finances. He oversaw other military affairs of the state as a member of the governor's council from 1780 to 1785. In 1785 he was appointed a judge of the Connecticut Superior Court, a position he held until 1789. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, with his fellow delegates Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson, Ellsworth developed the Connecticut Compromise, which provided for a bicameral legislature with representation based on population in the lower house and equal representation for each state in the Senate. He was also a member of the committee that prepared the first draft of the U.S. Constitution; by his amendment, the name national government was replaced by United States.

Ellsworth's belief in a strong centralized government and his loyalty to the sectional interests of New England drew him to the Federalist Party. As a U.S. senator for Connecticut from 1789 to 1796, he supported Alexander Hamilton's financial plan. One of Ellsworth's most important works as a legislator was the Judiciary Act of 1789. In 1796 he became the third chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, following John Rutledge, and in 1800 he was succeeded by John Marshall. From 1799 to 1800, Ellsworth also worked as commissioner to France. In failing health, he returned to Connecticut, retired from public life, and died seven years later, on November 26, 1807.

Bibliography:

William Garrott Brown, The Life of Oliver Ellsworth (New York: Macmillan Company, 1905).

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