1. Joseph Hopkinson was a United States representative from Pennsylvania and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
22 Facts About Joseph Hopkinson
1. 2.
Joseph Hopkinson was admitted to the bar and entered private practice in Philadelphia and Easton, Pennsylvania from 1791 to 1814.
3.
In 1795, Joseph Hopkinson defended the men charged with treason in their rebellion against a federal whiskey tax.
4.
Joseph Hopkinson was counsel for Justice Samuel Chase in his impeachment trial before the United States Senate in 1804 and 1805.
5.
Joseph Hopkinson was elected as a Federalist from Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district to the United States House of Representatives of the 14th United States Congress.
6.
Joseph Hopkinson was reelected to the succeeding Congress and served from March 4,1815, to March 3,1819.
7.
Joseph Hopkinson was not a candidate for reelection in 1818.
8.
Joseph Hopkinson was a member of the New Jersey General Assembly from 1821 to 1822.
9.
In 1819, Hopkinson argued several landmark constitutional cases before the United States Supreme Court, including Dartmouth College v Woodward, Sturges v Crowninshield and McCulloch v Maryland.
10.
Joseph Hopkinson was associated with Daniel Webster during the Dartmouth College case.
11.
Joseph Hopkinson received a recess appointment from President John Quincy Adams on October 23,1828, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania vacated by Judge Richard Peters.
12.
Joseph Hopkinson was nominated to the same position by President Adams on December 11,1828.
13.
Joseph Hopkinson was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 23,1829, and received his commission the same day.
14.
Joseph Hopkinson's service terminated on January 15,1842, due to his death in Philadelphia.
15.
Joseph Hopkinson was interred in the old Borden-Hopkinson Burial Ground in Bordentown.
16.
Joseph Hopkinson was Chairman of the Pennsylvania constitutional convention in 1837.
17.
Joseph Hopkinson was secretary of the board of trustees of the University of Pennsylvania in 1790 and 1791, and a trustee from 1806 to 1819, and from 1822 to 1842.
18.
Joseph Hopkinson edited the first American edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, published in Philadelphia in 1795.
19.
Joseph Hopkinson penned the edition's preface and "The Life of the Author," marking the first instance of published American literary criticism of Shakespeare.
20.
The public quarrels between British editors regarding their analyses, Joseph Hopkinson believed, stemmed from a desire for self-aggrandizement that detracted from Shakespeare's work itself.
21.
In protest, Joseph Hopkinson offers the American reader an edition of Shakespeare absent many of these so-called superfluous footnotes and encourages the American reader to engage with Shakespeare on their own terms.
22.
Joseph Hopkinson was the son of Francis Joseph Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a member of the Continental Congress and the first United States District Judge for Pennsylvania.