Papers of James Iredell

North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History

Additional information at http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/ref/collection/p249901coll22/id/406623​

James Iredell (1751 –1799) was one of the first Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President George Washington and served from 1790 until his death in 1799. His son, James Iredell, Jr., became governor of North Carolina. Iredell was a strong supporter of independence and the revolution. In 1774 he wrote To the Inhabitants of Great Britain in which he laid out arguments opposing the concept of Parliamentary supremacy over America. This essay established Iredell, at the age of 23, as the most influential political essayist in North Carolina at that time. His treatise Principles of an American Whig predates and echoes themes and ideas of the Declaration of Independence. The Iredell Papers cast light on political developments during the American Revolution and the Federal period.

Three complete volumes of a planned four-volume series