James Iredell was born in Lewes, England in 1751. When his father's business collapsed, the family dispatched seventeen-year-old James to America — to Edenton, North Carolina, where relatives had arranged a post as comptroller of customs for King George III. He arrived in 1768 knowing no one and nothing of the continent. He would never leave it.
While collecting customs duties he read law under Samuel Johnston — future brother-in-law, mentor, and closest friend — and entered practice in 1771. As the colonies moved toward revolution, Iredell found himself in a peculiar position: a King's servant with a King's paycheck who believed the King was wrong. He resigned his customs post in 1776 and emerged as one of the region's most lucid essayist-voices for independence. His essay To the Public (1786) — articulating the doctrine that courts could void acts of the legislature inconsistent with a higher law — is considered one of the clearest pre-constitutional defenses of judicial review ever written.
He did not attend the Constitutional Convention. But when North Carolina proved stubbornly resistant to ratification, Iredell served as floor leader of the Federalists at both ratification conventions, arguing until the state finally joined the union in November 1789. Washington noticed. Three months later, Iredell was on the Supreme Court — at 38, its youngest member.