Answer: John Rutledge. One of Washington’s original 1789 appointees, Rutledge had presided over the Court’s very first session before resigning in 1791 to lead South Carolina’s highest court. When John Jay stepped down as chief justice in 1795 to become governor of New York, Washington tapped Rutledge for the center chair as a recess appointment, and he was sworn in that August. But weeks earlier, Rutledge had given a blistering speech in Charleston attacking the Jay Treaty as a giveaway to Britain, and the Federalist-controlled Senate that had just ratified it was not inclined to forgive. On December 15, 1795, it rejected him 14–10, the first time the Senate ever voted down a Supreme Court nominee. Read more here.
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