Everything about Alfred Moore totally explained
Alfred Moore (
May 21,
1755 –
October 15,
1810) was a distinguished
North Carolina judge who became a justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States. Moore Square, a park located in the
Moore Square Historic District in
Raleigh, North Carolina was named in his honor. Moore was buried at the
St. Philip's Church near
Wilmington.
Family and early education
His father,
Maurice, preceded him in the practice of law and served as a colonial judge in North Carolina. Alfred was sent to
Boston to complete his education, but he returned to North Carolina and
apprenticed at the
law with his father before being
admitted to the bar at the age of twenty.
Political career
In 1775 the
American Revolutionary War broke out and Alfred served as a
captain in the First
Regiment, North Carolina Line, of which his uncle, James Moore, was colonel, and took part in the defense of
Charleston, S.C. in June 1776. He resigned in 1777, but served in the militia against
Cornwallis after the
battle of Guilford Court House. The war was costly to the Moore family.
British troops captured the Moore
plantation and burned the family home, and Alfred’s father, brother, and an uncle were among those who served and died.
At the end of the war Moore was elected to the
North Carolina General Assembly, which eventually elected him to serve as
Attorney General; a position he held from 1782 to 1791. As Atttorney General in 1787 he argued the State's case in Bayard v. Singleton [INC (Mart) 5], which as decided (against the State) became an important early instance of the application of
judicial review. Moore was an ardent
Federalist favoring a strong national government and he took a leading role in securing North Carolina’s ratification of the
United States Constitution after the state had initially rejected it in
1788. After North Carolina’s admission to the
Union as the 12th state, Moore worked as a lawyer, was active in political affairs, and served as a judge of the
superior court in 1798 and 1799.
(External Link
) He served in the North Carolina State legislature, but lost by a single vote in his run for the
United States Senate.
Supreme Court Justice
In 1799, Associate Justice
James Iredell died suddenly.
President John Adams responded to the vacancy by nominating Alfred Moore. At 4 feet 5 inches tall he's the shortest justice ever to sit on the Supreme Court and, due to poor health, Moore’s contribution to the court was nearly as abbreviated as he was. In his five years of service he wrote only one opinion, upholding a conclusion that
France was an enemy in the undeclared
Quasi-War of 1798-1799.
In the early 1780s, he married Suzanne Eagles. After leaving the Supreme Court in 1804, he helped found the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His summer home, Moorefields, built around 1785 in
Orange County, North Carolina near
Hillsborough, still stands, and is listed in the
National Register of Historic Places.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Alfred Moore'.
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