resigned, but Sumner never actually took the seat. In August 1782 Governor John Hancock nominated him as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to replace James Sullivan. He accepted this position instead of the senate seat, and served from 1782 to 1797. Details on his judicial record are sparse, in part because few official court records survive from the time, and decisions were usually oral (the court did not begin formal record keeping with written decisions until 1805). Sumner did take detailed notes of many of the cases he heard; these notes, preserved at the Massachusetts Historical Society, now form a valuable repository of early Massachusetts judicial history. The period when he served in the Supreme Judicial Court included a time of great turmoil in Massachusetts. Following the American Revolutionary War the value of the paper currency then in circulation fell significantly leaving many citizens in financial difficulties. The administration of James Bowdoin in 1786 raised taxes to pay the public debt which had run up during the war, and stepped up collection of back taxes. These economic pressures led to outbreaks of civil unrest which culminated in Shays' Rebellion, an uprising in central and western Massachusetts lasting from 1786 to 1787. Sumner sat on the criminal cases in which participants of the rebellion were tried. Many participants were pardoned, but eighteen were convicted and sentenced to death. Most of these sentences were commuted; two men were hanged. Sumner sat on the court when it heard the appeals in the Quock Walker cases in 1783, concerning a former slave who was seeking confirmation of his freedom. A ruling in one of these cases confirmed that the state constitution had effectively abolished slavery. In 1785 he was chosen by the legislature to sit on a committee which revised the laws of the state, to modernize them and remove references to British authority. In 1789 he was a member of the state convention that met to ratify the United States Constitution, in which he explained to the convention the meaning and importance of habeas corpus. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1791. Governor of Massachusetts In 1795 some factions of the Federalist Party sought to promote Sumner as a candidate for governor, but he was not formally nominated, and Governor Samuel Adams was reelected. The following year Sumner was actively promoted