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JOHN JAY

John Jay was an American politician. He was born in 1745 at New York and died in 1829. The son of a rich merchant he graduated at King's (Columbia) College in 1766 and became a lawyer, and in the American War of Independence was prominent on the patriotic side as a member of the Committee of Correspondence. As delegate to the first Continental Congress of 1774 he was an author of the 'Address to the People of Great Britain'. He was a member of the
Second Congress, and as delegate to the New York Convention he helped in
drawing the State Constitution. In 1777 he was Chief Justice of the State. In 1780 he became Minister to Spain, and was soon associated with Adams and Franklin in negotiating the peace; Jay's services in this treaty were conspicuous. During the years 1784-1789 he was Secretary of Foreign Affairs. With Hamilton and Madison he wrote the Federalist of which five essays are indisputably by Jay. He was a member of the New York Convention of 1788 which ratified the Constitution, and in 1789 George Washington appointed him first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In 1792 he was the unsuccessful Federalist candidate for Governor of New York. In 1794 Jay was sent as special envoy to England to negotiate the treaty which, under the name of the Jay's Treaty, became an object of such fierce abuse. His last public service was as Governor of New York, 1795-1801.

John Jay was an American statesman and anti-slavery campaigner. He was born in 1817 and died in 1894. He was Minister to Austria from 1869 to 1875. From 1883 to 1887 he was a member of the New York Civil Service Commission. He published many influential anti-slavery, legal, political and historical pamphlets.
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