John Jay

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John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat and jurist. Considered one of the "founding fathers" of the United States, Jay served in the Continental Congress, and was elected President of that body in 1778. During and after of the American Revolution, he was an ambassador to Spain and France, helping to fashion American foreign policy and to secure favorable peace terms from the British and French. He co-wrote the Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Jay also served on the U.S. Supreme Court as the first, as well as the youngest, Chief Justice of the United States from 1789 to 1794. Jay was a leading abolitionist, elected in 1786 as President of New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves.

Contents

1 Prominent Family
2 Early life
3 Roles in the American Revolution
4 Diplomat
5 Abolition of Slavery
6 Secretary of Foreign Affairs
7 Chief Justice
8 Jay's Treaty
9 Governor of New York
10 Quotes
11 Trivia
12 References
13 External links

Prominent Family

His family, descended from French Huguenot stock, was prominent in New York City. His maternal grandfather was Jacobus Van Cortlandt who was mayor of New York City. Jacobus was a brother of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, while a sister of his maternal grandfather was married to director Jeremias Van Jacobus Rensselaer.

Early life

John Jay was born on December 12, 1745 to a wealthy family of merchants in New York City in the Province of New York. Jay attended King's College, which later evolved into Columbia University, and then he began the practice of law in 1768, as one of early New York City's first few licensed lawyers, with his relative by marriage, Robert Livingston. Building up a successful and profitable law practice, Jay also engaged in land speculation with his profits, until the law practice was virtually shut down by the British Stamp Act and the colonial boycott. Jay's first public role came as secretary to the New York committee of correspondence, where Jay represented the conservative faction that was interested in protecting property rights and in preserving the rule of law and that feared the growing prospect of “mob rule” during the increasingly turbulent and agitated colonial period which led up to the Revolutionary War. However, in the next two years Jay became first a moderate, and then an ardent patriot, once he realized that all the colony's efforts at reconciliation with the “home-country” of Britain were fruitless, and that the American Revolution and independence were inevitable and necessary.

Roles in the American Revolution

Having established a reputation as a “reasonable moderate” in New York, Jay was elected to serve as delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses which debated whether the colonies should declare independence from Britain. He attempted to reconcile America with Britain, up until the Declaration of Independence. Jay's views became more radical as events unfolded; he became an ardent patriot and was influential in moving New York towards independence.

Jay did not attend the Continental Congress as it debated the Declaration of Independence. He felt more badly needed back in New York. There he was quite busy:

He served in the New York Provincial Congress and drafted the first state constitution.
He served on the committee of correspondence which was attempting to coordinate the rebellious activities of the various colonial states with the actual fighting in Massachusetts.
He served on the committee to detect and defeat conspiracies. This committee was active in gathering intelligence on British actions and in counter-intelligence about “loyalist” activities.
He served as the first chief justice of the New York Supreme Court from April 1777 to December 1778.

Diplomat

Once he returned to the Continental Congress, Jay was chosen its President from December 10, 1778 to September 27, 1779. Jay then became one of the most important diplomats of the Revolutionary crisis as minister plenipotentiary to Spain, and as peace commissioner (in which he negotiated treaties with Spain and France). In many ways, John Jay played an indispensable role as an American patriot during the Revolutionary War and afterwards. As one of the most scholarly and dedicated of the “founders” of the United States, he was perhaps as instrumental in “winning the peace” as George Washington was in winning the War.

Abolition of Slavery

The most important abolitionist society in America was founded by Jay in 1785, the New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been, or May be Liberated. Together with Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr --powerful men who controlled politics in New York--he organized boycotts against New York merchants and newspaper owners involved in the slave trade. The Society had a special committee of antislavery militants who visited newspaper offices to warn publishers against accepting advertisements for the purchase or sale of slaves. Another committee kept a list of persons who either participated in or invested in the slave trade and urged members to boycott anyone listed. The Society triumphed in securing the gradual abolition of slavery in the entire state of New York in 1799. [Littlefield 2000]

Secretary of Foreign Affairs

In 1784, Jay was named by Congress as the first Secretary of Foreign Affairs, an office which would later become known as the Secretary of State. Jay ably filled this role until the Constitution went into effect on March 4, 1789. Jay sought to establish a strong and durable American foreign policy: to seek the recognition of the young independent nation by powerful and established foreign European powers; to establish a stable American currency and credit supported at first by financial loans from European banks; to pay back America's creditors and to quickly pay off the country's heavy War-debt; to secure the infant nation's territorial boundaries under the most-advantageous terms possible and against possible incursions by the Indians, Spanish, the French and the English; to solve regional difficulties among the colonies themselves; to secure Newfoundland fishing rights; to establish a robust maritime trade for American goods with new economic trading partners; to protect American trading vessels against piracy; to preserve America's reputation at home and abroad; and to “hold the country together” politically under the fledgling Articles of Confederation. In short, Jay had a large area of responsibility.

Jay's heavy responsibility was not, however, matched by a commensurate level of authority, which helped to convince Jay that the national government under the Articles of Confederation was unworkable. Thus, Jay joined Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in attacking the Articles. Jay argued in his [Address to the People of the State of New-York, on the Subject of the Federal Constitution] that the Articles of Confederation were too weak and ineffective a form of government. He contended that:

[The Congress under the Articles of Confederation] may make war, but are not empowered to raise men or money to carry it on—they may make peace, but without power to see the terms of it observed—they may form alliances, but without ability to comply with the stipulations on their part—they may enter into treaties of commerce, but without power to inforce them at home or abroad…—In short, they may consult, and deliberate, and recommend, and make requisitions, and they who please may regard them.

Jay did not attend the Constitutional Convention, but he joined Hamilton and Madison in aggressively arguing in favor of the creation of a new and more powerful, centralized, but nonetheless balanced system of government. Writing under the shared pseudonym of “Publius”, they articulated this vision in the Federalist Papers, a series of eighty-five articles, written to persuade the citizenry to ratify the proposed Constitution of the United States. Jay wrote five of these articles:

Chief Justice

In 1789, George Washington nominated Jay as the first Chief Justice of the United States. Jay's most notable case was Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), in which Jay and the court affirmed that some of the state's sovereignty were subordinate to the United States Constitution. Unfavorable reaction to the decision led to adoption of the Eleventh Amendment which denied federal courts authority in suits by citizens against a state.

Jay's Treaty

In 1794, Washington sent Jay as a special envoy to Great Britain to negotiate a new treaty and thereby avert war. The treaty he returned with was known as Jay's Treaty. Jay thought, and Washington agreed, that it was the best treaty he could negotiate, and it was signed by Washington and ratified by the Senate (albeit with reservations and amendments). Nonetheless, unfavorable Jeffersonian reaction to the treaty made Jay so unpopular that he once commented that he could travel from Boston to Philadelphia solely by the light of his burning effigies. However the new Federalist party strongly backed him and Washington.

Governor of New York

While in Britain, he was elected governor of New York State as a Federalist. He resigned from the Court, and served as governor of New York until 1800. President John Adams then renominated him to the US Supreme Court; the Senate quickly confirmed him, but he declined, citing his own poor health and the court's lack of “the energy, weight, and dignity which are essential to its affording due support to the national government.”

Despite Federalist nomination as Governor in 1802, Jay declined and retired to the life of a gentleman farmer in Westchester County, New York. His home and part of his farm is operated as the John Jay Homestead [link] by the New York Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, and is located on NY state route 22 in Katonah, near Bedford.

John Jay died at home on May 15, 1829. He was buried in a family plot on his son Peter's farm in Rye, New York. This home today is a part of the Jay Heritage Center, located at 210 Boston Post Road in Rye. It is also open as a museum.

Quotes

“The people who own the country ought to govern it.” (reportedly “one of his favorite maxims”)[link]
“No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.”
“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
“Only one adequate plan has ever appeared in the world, and that is the Christian dispensation.”
“Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs…. This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.”

Trivia

Starting with Thomas McKean in 1781, the presiding officer of Congress was sometimes referred to as “President of the United States” in official documents. Since Jay was the youngest presiding officer of the Continental Congress, he could therefore be said to be the youngest “President of the United States” in American history, although Jay himself was never referred to by that title.
The Towns of Jay, New York and Jay, Vermont, and Jay County, Indiana are named after him. In 1964, the City University of New York's College of Police Science was officially renamed the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Spy was based on the author's conversations with Jay about his service on the committee on conspiracies during the Revolution. The main character is based on Enoch Crosby who helped arrest Loyalists attempting to form militia regiments.
Jay was named first among Columbia University's [250 Greatest Alumni] by the Columbia Spectator. A large [residence hall] for undergraduates at Columbia is named for him, as well as the John Jay Award for alumni of Columbia College, and the John Jay Scholars program for exceptional students in the College. Columbia also has a John Jay professorship in classics.
Columbia's most selective undergraduate merit scholarship (winners are designated John Jay Scholars) is named after him.

References

Bemis, Samuel F. Jay's Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy (1923)
Frank W. Brecher. Securing American Independence: John Jay and the French Alliance Praeger. 2003.
Littlefield, Daniel C. "John Jay, the Revolutionary Generation, and Slavery" New York History 2000 81(1): 91-132. Issn: 0146-437x
Monaghan, Frank. John Jay: Defender of Liberty 1972. on abolitionism
Morris, Richard B. The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence 1965.
Morris, Richard B. Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries 1973. chapter on Jay
Morris, Richard B. Witness at the Creation; Hamilton, Madison, Jay and the Constitution 1985.
Morris, Richard B. ed. John Jay: The Making of a Revolutionary; Unpublished Papers, 1745-1780 1975. * Morris, * Morris, Richard B. ed. John Jay: The Winning of the Peace 1980.

External links

[Richard Morris, "John Jay and the Constitution"]
[The John Jay School of Diplomacy and International Affairs at Euclid University extension]
[Columbia University's Jay Papers Project]
Parts of this article were incorporated from the public domain source [Today in History: December 12] on the Library of Congress's American Memory website.
[D/Documents/17771819.JOH.pdf Jay documents on anti-slavery]
[John Jay Homestead State Historic Site web page]
[John Jay Homestead, Friends of]
[John Jay at Find-A-Grave]

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