John Jay is a Founding Father of the United States who served the new nation in both law and diplomacy. He was a true patriot and was among the American commissioners who negotiated with Great Britain during the United States’ struggle for independence from British colonial rule.
Background
John Jay was born on December 12, 1745 in New York, United States. He was born into a wealthy family, being the son of Peter Jay, a prominent businessman, and Mary Van Cortlandt. They had ten children together, seven of whom survived into adulthood.
Education
To the privileges of his birth, John Jay’s parents added the privileges of a superior education, having him instructed first by a private teacher. After his graduation from King's College, he worked for two years in the office of the noted New York lawyer Benjamin Kissam. When a strike by New York lawyers in response to the Stamp Act crisis deprived him of this work for a time, he supplemented his education by obtaining a Master of Arts from King’s College (now Columbia University) in 1764.
In 1764 Mr. Jay worked for two years in the office of the noted New York lawyer Benjamin Kissam. In 1767 he returned to serve as Mr. Kissam’s chief clerk until he was admitted to the New York bar in 1768 and established his own practice. For the next seven years he built a thriving practice, won his first public office as a commissioner appointed to resolve a boundary dispute between New York and New Jersey in 1769.
He served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, though he was absent from the signing of the Declaration of Independence because of his service as a delegate to the New York Provincial Congress, where he played an important role in the drafting of the New York state constitution. By 1777 John Jay had been appointed chief justice of the New York Supreme Court, a position he held until he was elected president of the Continental Congress in 1778. Within a year he traded this position for an appointment as minister to Spain, in which capacity he sought to secure Spanish support for the cause of independence. From this post he traveled to France in 1782 to assist in the negotiations with Great Britain for the Treaty of Paris (signed in September 1783), which ended the war for independence on favorable terms to the colonies. After he returned from this successful mission, in 1784 Congress appointed him secretary of foreign affairs, a position he occupied for the next five years.
On September 24, 1789, George Washington, the first president of the United States, nominated John Jay to be the first chief justice of the republic’s Supreme Court. In the days following Washington’s election as chief executive, Mr. Jay had proved to be an invaluable adviser and an ally trusted by the president to bring their shared vision to the new nation’s highest judicial post.
By 1794 Mr. Jay’s formidable political talents had begun to chafe within the narrow opportunities for their use presented by his role as chief justice. While still occupying this position, John Jay accepted responsibility for traveling to England as an envoy to negotiate the resolution of lingering hostilities between England and the United States. This mission produced the 1794 Treaty of Amity, also known informally as Mr. Jay’s Treaty. Upon his return, he received news of his nomination for governor of the state of New York. He had been similarly nominated for this position two years earlier in 1792, and though he did not campaign from his perch on the nation’s highest court, he had nevertheless only narrowly lost the election. This time, however, he was elected, and he promptly resigned from his post on the Supreme Court on June 29, 1795.
John Jay left his post as governor and retired to his estate in Westchester County, New York, in 1801. This retirement would last for almost 30 years, a period which, though ultimately filled with productive activity, would begin with loss, through the death of his wife in 1802. He spent his remaining years pursuing agricultural interests and being active in the affairs of the Episcopal Church. He aided in the formation of the American Bible Society, serving as its president in 1821. After that he retired for a couple of years.
Mr. Jay was a member of the Church of England, and later of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America after the American Revolution. Since 1785, John Jay had been a warden of Trinity Church, New York. As Congress's Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he supported the proposal after the Revolution that the Archbishop of Canterbury approve the ordination of bishops for the Episcopal Church in the United States. He argued unsuccessfully in the provincial convention for a prohibition against Catholics holding office.
He believed that the most effective way of ensuring world peace was through propagation of the Christian gospel. He also expressed a belief that the moral precepts of Christianity were necessary for good government, saying, "No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom, both cohesiveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian Religion. Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance, we will then, be surely doomed."
Politics
John Jay’s diplomatic experience fostered in him a pessimistic regard for the future of the unruly confederation of states created in the wake of the American Revolution. Increasingly, he saw the need for a strong national government to replace the fractious state sovereignties, with legislative, executive, and judicial powers broad enough to allow the nation to take its place among the community of nations with which Mr. Jay was now on familiar terms.
Although John Jay did not initially favor separation from Britain, he was nonetheless among the American commissioners who negotiated the peace with Great Britain that secured independence for the former colonies. Initially a slave holder himself, Mr. Jay also gained considerable fame as a tireless crusader for the abolition of slavery and he helped enact a law that provided for the gradual emancipation of slaves, and the institution of slavery was abolished in New York in his lifetime.
Views
Quotations:
"Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers."
"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."
"The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts."
"I consider knowledge to be the soul of a republic, and as the weak and wicked are generally in alliance, as much care should be taken to diminish the number of the former as of that latter. Education is the way to do this, and nothing should be left undone to afford all ranks of people that means of obtaining a proper degree of it at a cheap and easy rate."
"My affections are deeply rooted in American, and are of too long standing to admit of transplantation. In short, my friend, I can never become so far a citizen of the world as to view every part of it with equal regard; and perhaps nature is wiser in tying our hearts to our native soil, than they are who think they divest themselves of foibles in proportion as they wear away those bonds."
Membership
American Antiquarian Society
,
United States
1814
New York Manumission Society
,
United States
1785
Connections
In 1774 Mr. Jay married Sarah Van Brugh Livingston, whose father would subsequently become governor of New Jersey.