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"The Americans are the first people whom heaven has favoured with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing forms of government under which they should live."
-Charge to the Grand Jury of the Supreme Court, held at Kingston, Ulster County (1777).
One of America’s most eminent statesman, John Jay (1745-1829) participated in every branch of government as a Founding Father, congressman, governor, diplomat, abolitionist, and Supreme Court Chief Justice. “We can argue about who can be on top of the list of most important founders until the cows come home, but it’s clear he should be part of the list,” wrote biographer Joseph Ellis, author of the best-selling ‘The Quartet,’ a history of four key figures who made the Constitution what it is. During the American Revolution, John Jay served as a delegate from New York for the First and Second Continental Congress. At first, he sought a peaceful reconciliation with Britain, but eventually came around to viewing independence as the next step. He was not one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence because his duties in the provincial congress of his native New York precluded him. For a year he served as president of the Continental Congress, and then as U.S. Minister to Spain, where he procured financial aid. At the end of the war, he joined John Adams and Benjamin Franklin in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783) that solidified American independence and extended the size of the United States all the way to the Mississippi River.
Although he was not present for the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Jay endorsed it out of disapproval of the Articles of Confederation. Along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, he co-authored the Federalist Papers, a collection of articles published in the wake of the convention that laid out the blueprint for how the new government was to function. Jay was to a play a key role in the new government by serving as the first Chief Justice of the United States (he resigned to run for the New York governorship and was succeeded by John Marshall), and as a cabinet member for President George Washington. One of Jay’s most consequential and controversial acts was a treaty bearing his name, signed in late 1794 while serving as a diplomat for the Washington administration, that struck a deal between the U.S. and Britain to ensure peaceful commerce and amicable relations. The Jay Treaty angered many people at home, and Jay quipped that he could he ride at night from Boston to Philadelphia with the guiding light of his burning effigies. It upset some Southerners because Jay did not include their demand for compensation from the British that freed or confiscated Southern slaves during the war. Others, such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, were upset because they felt the treaty betrayed their liberal ideals and the French, America’s wartime allies, compounded with a partnership struck with their old enemy. However, history has done justice for Jay, thanks to evolving views on slavery, for how the fragile nation temporarily dodged a war with the British Empire, and because France continued to spiral out of control in revolutionary fervor and was eventually usurped by Napoleon. He demonstrated moral courage in other instances, as well, such as in 1800, while serving as governor of New York, when he stood in the way of fellow Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, and a gerrymandering plot to prevent the presidential election of Thomas Jefferson.
Peter Jay, his merchant father, was one of the leading slave owners in New York, but John Jay would become one of the most active proponents in the country to seeing slavery phased out. Jay explained to a British abolitionist in 1788 that “our people had been so long accustomed to the practice and convenience of having slaves, that very few among them even doubted the propriety and rectitude of it.” However, he also acknowledged that he and independent-minded individuals were part of a growing liberal movement to challenge the practice. In 1785, he co-founded and served as president of the New York State Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, an organization that provided legal representation for black clients and boycotted businesses involved in the slave trade. He was also a co-founder of New York’s African Free School, an institution that educated black students that he helped to subsidize. Jay himself owned several slaves, although he eventually had them emancipated “at proper ages and when their faithful services shall have afforded a reasonable retribution.” While serving as governor of New York in 1799, he signed An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, a law containing measures that would end slavery in the state by Independence Day 1827. A religious man who felt the Bible was the prime source of principle and happiness, Jay viewed slavery as sinful, saying that “slaves, though held by the laws of men, are free by the laws of God.” Not long after the act took its full effect, Jay passed away peacefully in his library at the age of 83.

Description

"The Americans are the first people whom heaven has favoured with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing forms of government under which they should live."
-Charge to the Grand Jury of the Supreme Court, held at Kingston, Ulster County (1777).
One of America’s most eminent statesman, John Jay (1745-1829) participated in every branch of government as a Founding Father, congressman, governor, diplomat, abolitionist, and Supreme Court Chief Justice. “We can argue about who can be on top of the list of most important founders until the cows come home, but it’s clear he should be part of the list,” wrote biographer Joseph Ellis, author of the best-selling ‘The Quartet,’ a history of four key figures who made the Constitution what it is. During the American Revolution, John Jay served as a delegate from New York for the First and Second Continental Congress. At first, he sought a peaceful reconciliation with Britain, but eventually came around to viewing independence as the next step. He was not one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence because his duties in the provincial congress of his native New York precluded him. For a year he served as president of the Continental Congress, and then as U.S. Minister to Spain, where he procured financial aid. At the end of the war, he joined John Adams and Benjamin Franklin in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783) that solidified American independence and extended the size of the United States all the way to the Mississippi River.
Although he was not present for the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Jay endorsed it out of disapproval of the Articles of Confederation. Along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, he co-authored the Federalist Papers, a collection of articles published in the wake of the convention that laid out the blueprint for how the new government was to function. Jay was to a play a key role in the new government by serving as the first Chief Justice of the United States (he resigned to run for the New York governorship and was succeeded by John Marshall), and as a cabinet member for President George Washington. One of Jay’s most consequential and controversial acts was a treaty bearing his name, signed in late 1794 while serving as a diplomat for the Washington administration, that struck a deal between the U.S. and Britain to ensure peaceful commerce and amicable relations. The Jay Treaty angered many people at home, and Jay quipped that he could he ride at night from Boston to Philadelphia with the guiding light of his burning effigies. It upset some Southerners because Jay did not include their demand for compensation from the British that freed or confiscated Southern slaves during the war. Others, such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, were upset because they felt the treaty betrayed their liberal ideals and the French, America’s wartime allies, compounded with a partnership struck with their old enemy. However, history has done justice for Jay, thanks to evolving views on slavery, for how the fragile nation temporarily dodged a war with the British Empire, and because France continued to spiral out of control in revolutionary fervor and was eventually usurped by Napoleon. He demonstrated moral courage in other instances, as well, such as in 1800, while serving as governor of New York, when he stood in the way of fellow Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, and a gerrymandering plot to prevent the presidential election of Thomas Jefferson.
Peter Jay, his merchant father, was one of the leading slave owners in New York, but John Jay would become one of the most active proponents in the country to seeing slavery phased out. Jay explained to a British abolitionist in 1788 that “our people had been so long accustomed to the practice and convenience of having slaves, that very few among them even doubted the propriety and rectitude of it.” However, he also acknowledged that he and independent-minded individuals were part of a growing liberal movement to challenge the practice. In 1785, he co-founded and served as president of the New York State Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, an organization that provided legal representation for black clients and boycotted businesses involved in the slave trade. He was also a co-founder of New York’s African Free School, an institution that educated black students that he helped to subsidize. Jay himself owned several slaves, although he eventually had them emancipated “at proper ages and when their faithful services shall have afforded a reasonable retribution.” While serving as governor of New York in 1799, he signed An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, a law containing measures that would end slavery in the state by Independence Day 1827. A religious man who felt the Bible was the prime source of principle and happiness, Jay viewed slavery as sinful, saying that “slaves, though held by the laws of men, are free by the laws of God.” Not long after the act took its full effect, Jay passed away peacefully in his library at the age of 83.