Brearley, << BREHR lih, >> David (1745-1790), a lawyer and judge from New Jersey, was a signer of the Constitution of the United States. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Brearley helped New Jersey delegate William Paterson present a plan that would have given each state an equal number of representatives in the national legislature. But the plan was rejected. Brearley was president of the New Jersey state convention that ratified (approved) the Constitution in 1788.
Brearley was born on June 11, 1745, in Spring Grove, New Jersey. After attending the College of New Jersey, he practiced law in Allentown, New Jersey. During the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783), Brearley served as a lieutenant colonel. From 1779 to 1789, he was chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. In the Holmes v. Walton case of 1780, Brearley ruled that the judiciary has the right to decide whether laws are constitutional. This right, known as judicial review, became a key principle of American constitutional thought. In 1789, President George Washington appointed Brearley a United States district court judge. Brearley died on Aug. 16, 1790.
