Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Rutledge established a legal career after studying at Middle Temple in the City of London.

Rutledge served as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, which protested taxes imposed on the Thirteen Colonies by the Parliament of Great Britain.

In 1789, President George Washington appointed Rutledge as one of the inaugural associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.

He returned to the Supreme Court, this time as chief justice, following the resignation of John Jay in June 1795.

The rest of Rutledge's primary education was provided by an Anglican priest and classical scholar David Rhind.

This Congress produced a resolution that stated that it was "the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives."

Rutledge chaired a committee that drew up a petition to the House of Lords attempting to persuade them to reject the Stamp Act.

Because of this, all legal processes in the entire state came to a standstill until news that the Stamp Act had been repealed reached South Carolina in May 1766.

[14] After the Stamp Act conflict ended, Rutledge went back into private life and to his law practice.

Rutledge, by being elected as North Carolina's Governor, gained control of the militia, exercising significant wartime leadership and governance during the American Revolutionary War.

[22] A few months after Rutledge's resignation, the British, having suffered several defeats in the North, decided to try to retake the South.

Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell landed in Georgia with 3,000 men and quickly took control of the entire state.

In spite of Rutledge's efforts, when General Prevost arrived outside Charleston, the British force had been greatly increased by the addition of Loyalists, and the Americans were vastly outnumbered.

They forbade Rutledge from surrendering mainly because General Moultrie believed that the Americans had at least as many troops as the British force, which consisted largely of untrained civilians.

Prevost replied that as he was faced with such a large military force, he would have to take some of them prisoner before he could accept.

Rutledge did his best to raise militia forces, but Charleston was in the midst of a smallpox epidemic, and few dared to enter the city.

In 1787, Rutledge was selected to represent South Carolina in the Philadelphia Convention which was called to revise the Articles of Confederation but instead produced the United States Constitution.

Most of them were uncontroversial and unchallenged, and as such, much of what Rutledge's committee included in this first draft made it into the final version of the Constitution without debate.

Because the president would not be able to defer a decision to another "co-president," Rutledge concluded that a single person would be more likely to make a good choice.

[32] Rutledge argued that if either house of the legislature was to have the sole authority to introduce appropriation bills, it should be the Senate.

Also, since the bills could not become law without the consent of the House of Representatives, he concluded that there would be no danger of the Senate ruling the country.

[33] When the proposal was made that only landowners should have the right to vote, Rutledge opposed it perhaps more strongly than any other motion in the entire convention.

On September 24, 1789, George Washington nominated Rutledge for one of the five associate justice positions on the newly established Supreme Court.

[37] On June 28, 1795, Chief Justice John Jay resigned, having been elected governor of New York.

Can we escape it for ten or twelve years or more we may then meet it without much inquietude, and may advance and support with energy and effect any just pretensions to greater commercial advantages than we may now enjoy.

On July 16, 1795, Rutledge gave a highly controversial speech denouncing the Jay Treaty with Great Britain.

[49] Like the majority of wealthy men who lived in Southern states at the time, Rutledge held slaves.

During the Revolutionary War, Rutledge ordered Continental Army officer Francis Marion to execute all Black people suspected of carrying provisions or gathering intelligence for the British "agreeable to the laws of this State".

[52] Additionally, the Fugitive Slave Clause was added by the South Carolina delegates during the Constitutional Convention to further protect slavery by requiring enslaved people returned to their states of labor.

[55] According to the state library of South Carolina: Although Rutledge claimed that he disliked slavery, as an attorney he twice defended individuals who abused slaves.