John Jay

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John Jay, painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1794 Jay's signature

John Jay (born December 12, 1745 in New York City , Province of New York , † May 17, 1829 in Bedford , New York ) was a politician , lawyer and one of the founding fathers of the United States . During the War of Independence he worked as a diplomat and then held the post of Secretary of State of the United States from May 1784 to March 1790 as the second . From October 1789 to June 1795 he served as the United States' first chief justice . He was then from July 1795 to June 1801 second governor of New York .

School time and training

Mary and Peter Jay moved to the countryside in Rye, Westchester County, in 1746 following a measles epidemic that resulted in one of the children dying and two children, Peter and Anna, going blind . John was only 3 months old when he moved. Of his 10 siblings, 3 brothers and 3 sisters survived to adulthood. His mother, Mary b. Van Cortlandt, John taught at home until the age of 8. He then went to boarding school in New Rochelle for 3 years , where he was tutored by a French Huguenot pastor, Pierre Stouppe. In 1756 he returned to Rye, where he was again tutored by his mother and a tutor, George Murray.

On August 29, 1760 he began his studies at Kings College (today: Columbia University ), where he continued his studies in Latin, Greek and philosophy. He graduated in 1764 and began legal training with Benjamin Kissam's law firm. The Stamp Act forced John and many other lawyers to go on strike, expressing their opposition to British law. John lived again in Rye from 1765 and 1766, where he read the classics again.

Life

Jay played a major role during the United States' Revolutionary War . He was the fifth president of the Continental Congress, and from December 10, 1778 to September 27, 1779, the leader of the community from which the United States would emerge. His predecessor in office was Henry Laurens , and was succeeded by Samuel Huntington .

In the fall of 1779, Jay was sent as the first ambassador of the United States to Spain to Madrid to negotiate military and financial support for the American War of Independence , which was unsuccessful. In 1782 he went to Paris and helped John Adams and Benjamin Franklin in the peace negotiations with the Kingdom of Great Britain , which he led in phases directly with London, as he mistrusted France. In 1783, John Jay signed the Paris Peace Treaty with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin , which ended the War of Independence.

At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia Jay did not attend, but he carried five essays on the Federalist Papers with. On May 7, 1784 he was appointed second Secretary of State of the United States by the Continental Congress . Since his successor Thomas Jefferson was still in France , he stayed in the government of George Washington until March 22, 1790 .

The main focus of his tenure was the negotiations with the Spanish ambassador Diego de Gardoqui , which involved the border dispute with the Spanish colony of Florida and New Orleans , to whose port Spain allowed American trade only restrictive access. Madrid did this to put pressure on America over the borders of west and east Florida . Eventually an agreement was reached in which Spain accepted the 31st parallel as Florida's northern border and opened its market to American products, while the United States relied on the opening of the port of New Orleans and free navigation for the next 25 to 30 years renounced the Mississippi . Although the agreement received a majority in the Confederation Congress , this was not enough for it to come into force.

After Washington's election as President in 1789, Jay had been named the first Chief Justice of the United States on October 19 . In 1780 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society and in 1790 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

In 1792 President Washington sent him to London to negotiate a new state treaty with the British. The treaty he came home with, also known as Jay's Treaty , disappointed many Americans. Jay became so unpopular that he once remarked he could drive from Boston to Philadelphia only under the lights of burning dolls with his likeness. However, since no other text of the treaty could be negotiated, it was decided that Jay's treaty was acceptable, and so it was signed by Washington.

Another diplomatic mission took Jay abroad in 1794, this time to France. While there, he was elected Governor of New York State. Jay resigned his judicial office on June 29, 1795 and remained governor from July 1, 1795 to June 30, 1801. As such, in 1799 he achieved his goal of abolishing slavery in New York. President John Adams nominated him again to the Supreme Court in 1800 towards the end of his term; the Senate swiftly upheld the appointment, but Jay declined, citing poor health and the fact that the court lacked "the energy, weight, and dignity essential to its proper support for national government."

family

On April 28, 1774, John married Sarah Van Brugh Livingston, daughter of William Livingston , first governor of New Jersey, and Susannah French Livingston. At the time of their wedding, Sarah was 17 years old and John 28 years old. Together they had six children, one of whom died 3 weeks after birth:

  • Peter Augustus Jay (January 24, 1776 - February 20, 1843) ∞ Mary Rutherford Clarkson, 1794 was private secretary to his father in London in negotiating the Jay Treaty (Jay Treaty)
  • Susan Jay * 9. July 1780, † at the age of 3 weeks in Madrid
  • Maria Jay * 2o. February 1782 ∞ Goldsborough Banyard
  • Anne Jay * 3. September 1783 in Passy (France) in the house of Benjamin Franklin
  • Sarah Louisa Jay, * 1792
  • William Jay * 1789-1858 studied law and became a judge

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Benjamin Kissam Biographical Information
  2. ↑ John Jay at Jay's Heritage Center
  3. ↑ Tim J. Watts: Jay, John. In Spencer C. Tucker (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783-1812: A Political, Social, and Military History . Volume 1: A – K. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2014, ISBN 978-1-59884-157-2 , pp. 336f.
  4. ↑ Tim J. Watts: Jay, John. In Spencer C. Tucker (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783-1812: A Political, Social, and Military History . Volume 1: A – K. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2014, ISBN 978-1-59884-157-2 , p. 337 .
  5. ^ Member History: John Jay. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 13, 2018 .

literature

Web links

Commons : John Jay  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Jay, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1745
PLACE OF BIRTH New York , Province of New York , Kingdom of Great Britain
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1829
Place of death Bedford , New York