Walter Stahr - John Jay: Founding Father

Diversion Books
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Copyright 2012 by Walter Stahr
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com.
First Diversion Books edition August 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-938120-51-0

Stahr has succeeded splendidly in his aim of recovering the reputation of John Jay as a major founder. His biography is a reliable and clearly written account [and] makes a persuasive case for including Jay among the first rank of Revolutionary leaders.
Gordon S. Wood in The New York Review of Books
Walter Stahrs even-handed account, the first big biography of Jay in decades, is riveting on the matter of negotiating tactics, as practiced by Adams, Jay and Franklin.
The Economist
Stahrs Jay is a welcome and worthy biography.
The Sunday Times (London)
Walter Stahr, an independent scholar, has written a fascinating, learned and beautifully written biography of a major figure of the American Revolution, one who has been too long overlooked. Mr. Stahr deserves consideration for the Pulitzer Prize for biography.
Washington Times
Mr. Stahr is a superlative biographer, reporting the criticisms made of his subject and then showing why, in most cases, Jay knew better than his contemporary critics or later historians.
New York Sun
Until Walter Stahrs splendid new biography appeared, the most recent biography of Jay was Frank Monaghans John Jay: Defender of Liberty against Kings and Peoples (1935), published some seven decades ago.
Journal of American History
Walter Stahrs excellent new biography should re-establish Jays standing as one of Americas great statesmen. It portrays Jays life with a balance and command of the material worthy of the subject.
Weekly Standard
Stahr... captures both his subjects seriousness and his thoughtful, affectionate side as son, husband, father and friend. In humanizing Jay, Stahr makes him an appealing figure accessible to a large readership and places Jay once again in the company of Americas greatest statesmen, where he unquestionably belongs.
Publishers Weekly
Walter Stahr has not only given us a meticulous study of the life of John Jay, but one very much written in the spirit of the man. It is thorough, fair, consistently intelligent, and presented with the most scrupulous accuracy.
Ron Chernow, author of Alexander Hamilton
Walter Stahr writes with great insight, and this wonderful book should restore Jays place in the pantheon of our great Founding Fathers.
Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

O N A FINE SPRING DAY in April 1789, on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City, George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States. Many of those now known as the Founding Fathers were with Washington on that day, including John Adams, Henry Knox, Robert Livingston, James Madison and Roger Sherman. John Jay was there in his role as the nations Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The crowd on Wall and Broad Streets below was so dense that it seemed one might literally walk on the heads of the people. When Washington stepped out onto the balcony, he was greeted with universal shouts of joy and welcome. He came forward to the edge of the balcony, laid his hand upon his heart, bowed several times, and then retired to an arm chair near the table. The crowd seemed to understand that the scene had overcome him, and were at once hushed into profound silence. Washington then came forward again, placed his hand upon the large Bible, and repeated after Chancellor Livingston the oath prescribed by the Constitution. I solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Washington added so help me God and bent down to kiss the Bible. As he did so, Livingston turned to the crowd and shouted out: Long live George Washington, President of the United States! The crowd responded with equal emotion, with long and repeated cheers. All the bells in the city rang out a peal of joy, and ships in the harbor added their cannon to the din. After a minute or so, Washington and the others turned and went back inside Federal Hall.

John Jay knew all the men on the balcony that day: he was their friend, their colleague, and in some cases their mentor. Jay and Livingston had attended school together at nearby Kings College and had worked as law partners in New York before the Revolution. Jay, Washington, Adams and Sherman had met in the fall of 1774, when they had all gathered in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. Jay and Livingston had drafted the first constitution for New York State and then served in the first state government. Jay and Washington had worked side by side in 1779, when one was President of the Continental Congress and the other head of the Continental Army. Jay, Adams and Franklin had negotiated the treaty that ended the Revolutionary War and secured Americas boundaries. During the past few years, Jay as Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Knox as Secretary of War had shared offices in New York City. Jay, Madison and Alexander Hamilton had collaborated on The Federalist, the most thorough explanation and defense of the Constitution. Indeed, the very balcony on which they were standing was in some sense Jays work, since he had been one of those who advanced funds to turn New Yorks City Hall into the nations Federal Hall.

Many hoped and expected at this time that Jay would continue to handle the nations foreign affairs. Instead, Washington appointed him later that year the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and in this role he helped organize the federal court system and decided some of its key early cases. In 1794, when faced with imminent war with Britain, Washington again turned to Jay, sending him to Britain, where he negotiated and signed Jays Treaty. Elected Governor of New York in 1795, while he was on his way back from England, Jay resigned his position as Chief Justice to guide and shape the rapidly growing and changing state. In 1801, he retired to his farm in Bedford, New York, where he lived as a respected elder statesman until his death in 1829.

Jays personal life, while less dramatic than that of some of his friends, was equally interesting. He was a leader of various social and religious causes, most notably the effort to encourage the gradual end of slavery and to improve the lives of free blacks. His wife, Sarah Livingston Jay, was an educated, accomplished and adventurous woman. Among other things, she was Americas first diplomatic spouse, accompanying her husband on his wartime voyage to Spain, and almost paying with her life when their ship was dismasted in the North Atlantic. Her letters show that Sarah was almost as expert in politics as she was in fashion. She has recently been recognized as one of the Founding Mothers and fully deserves the compliment.

John Jays contemporaries recognized his remarkable skills and contributions. George Washington knew Jay had the talents, knowledge, and integrity which are so necessary to serve as the nations first Chief Justice. John Adams believed that, in the process of developing and adopting the federal Constitution, Jay was of more importance than the rest, indeed of almost as much weight as the rest. John Marshall admired his predecessors sound judgment and unyielding firmness and inflexible integrity. A French diplomat, while Jay was Secretary for Foreign Affairs, complained that it is as difficult to obtain anything [from Congress] without the cooperation of that minister, as to bring about the rejection of a measure proposed by him.