Justice Alfred Moore

Justice Alfred Moore joined the U.S. Supreme Court on April 21, 1800, replacing Justice James Iredell. Moore was born on May 21, 1755 in the area around Wilmington, North Carolina. Educated in Boston, he returned to North Carolina and was admitted to the bar there in 1775. When the Revolutionary War began, Moore joined the Continental Army. He lost his brother, father, and uncle during the war, while his plantation was looted by British troops.

Moore joined the North Carolina state legislature in 1782 and soon became the Attorney General of North Carolina. He resigned from this position in early 1791, but he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature in the following year. In 1794, he ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate but lost by a single vote. Moore again lost a Senate race four years later and then became a judge in the state court system. He would not remain there for long.

On December 4, 1799, President John Adams nominated Moore to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed him on December 10, although sources suggest that he did not take the judicial oath until the following spring. Moore stayed on the Court for less than four years, penning only a single opinion. He did not hear the arguments in the 1803 decision of Marbury v. Madison, the most famous case that the Court decided during his short tenure.

Moore left the Supreme Court on January 26, 1804 and was replaced by Justice William Johnson. He died at the age of just 55 on October 15, 1810 in North Carolina.