Ingersoll, Jared, 1749-1822

Jared Ingersoll (October 24, 1749 – October 31, 1822) was an American Founding Father, lawyer, and statesman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a signer of the United States Constitution. He served as DeWitt Clinton's running mate in the 1812 election, but Clinton and Ingersoll were defeated by James Madison and Elbridge Gerry.

Born in New Haven in the Colony of Connecticut, r Ingersoll completed Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven in 1762, graduated from Yale College in 1766, studied law in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1773. Although by training and inclination a Patriot sympathizer, the young Ingersoll shied away from the cause at the outset because of a strong sense of personal loyalty to his distinguished father. On his father's advice, he sought to escape the growing political controversy at home by retiring to London to continue his study of the law at the Middle Temple School between 1773 and 1776 and to tour extensively through Europe. He spent more than eighteen months in Paris, where he formed an acquaintance with Benjamin Franklin.

In 1778 he arrived in Philadelphia as a confirmed Patriot. With the help of influential friends he quickly established a flourishing law practice, and shortly after he entered the fray as a delegate to the Continental Congress (1780–81). Always a supporter of strong central authority in political affairs, he became a leading agitator for reforming the national government in the postwar years, preaching the need for change to his friends in Congress and to the legal community. At the Convention, Ingersoll was counted among those who favored revision of the existing Articles of Confederation, but in the end he joined with the majority and supported a plan for a new federal government. Despite his national reputation as an attorney, Ingersoll seldom participated in the Convention debates, although he attended all sessions.

Once the new national government was created, Ingersoll returned to the law. Except for a few excursions into politics— he was a member of Philadelphia's Common Council (1789), and, as a stalwart Federalist, he ran unsuccessfully for vice president on the Federalist ticket in 1812— his public career centered on legal affairs. He served as attorney general of Pennsylvania (1790–99 and 1811–17), as Philadelphia's city solicitor (1798–1801), and as U.S. district attorney for Pennsylvania (1800–01). For a brief period (1821–22), he sat as presiding judge of the Philadelphia district court. Ingersoll's major contribution to the cause of constitutional government came not during the Convention but later during a lengthy and distinguished legal career, when he helped define many of the principles enunciated at Philadelphia. He made his contributions to the Constitutional process through several Supreme Court cases that defined various basic points in Constitutional law during the beginning of the new republic.

Ingersoll died in Philadelphia and was interred in the Old Pine Street Church Cemetery there.