Other questions of a philanthropic character occupied his pen. The Synod of Albany having offered a prize for the best essay on the observance of the Sabbath, Jay competed for it with success. A more notable incident of the same sort occurred in 1828. The Savannah Anti-duelling Association offered a medal for the best argument against duelling. The committee appointed to judge the essays were: John Cummings; James M. Wayne, subsequently appointed by President Jackson a justice of the Supreme Court; R. W. Habersham, afterwards Governor of Georgia; William Law; and Matthew Hall McAllister, mayor of Savannah and an opponent of Nullification in 1832. That in 1828 these Southern men were seeking to root out the habit of duelling, and that the prize should have been awarded by them to William Jay, is a curious commentary on the connection between slavery and duelling. At this time both practices had their opponents at the South who were allowed to express their opinions. As the grip of slavery increased in strength and closed the mouth of every objector, anti-duelling sentiment was simultaneously extinguished. Both barbarous practices were to increase and to perish together. Jay's essay could then find praise among men who a few years later would not tolerate in their homes any product of his pen.
In May, 1818, Jay was appointed one of the judges of Westchester County. The mention of the fact in his diary closed with the words, "May I have grace to discharge with fidelity the duties of the station." Two years later a commission from Governor Clinton made him the first judge of the county, an office which he held until 1823, when the adoption of the new constitution terminated all offices under the old one. Fenimore Cooper then wrote to him, "I see that you are unhorsed with other clever fellows." But in response to a general demand, Governor Clinton reappointed him under the new constitution, and he continued to hold office under successive governors of different parties until 1843, when he was displaced by Governor Bouck at the demand of the pro-slavery wing of the democracy. A decision of Jay's, rejecting a witness who declared his un-belief in God, occurred when De Tocqueville was in the United States, and was commented upon by the distinguished Frenchman as having been accepted by the press without comment, and as showing that the American people combined the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately that it was impossible to make them conceive of the one without the other, and that they held religion to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. In 1862, soon after Jay's death, when an attempt was made by a pro-slavery faction in the county to remove his portrait from the court-house at White Plains, it was defeated by a protest of the members of the bar. "Many of us," they said, "were well acquainted with Judge Jay, and can speak from personal knowledge of those high qualities which have given him an historic celebrity. Whilst he entertained and vigorously vindicated decided opinions on certain questions which have much divided society and produced much acrimony of feeling—in which many of us did not sympathize with him—yet we can all bear testimony to the noble frankness and sincerity of his nature, to his deep interest in all questions tending to advance the interest of the race, and to the extraordinary intellectual strength displayed by him on all occasions in giving expression to his convictions."
In the early years of Jay's life, it appears that his mind turned naturally toward philanthropic subjects. His moral sense was largely developed, his conscience active, his humanity aggressive. His own comfortable circumstances did not close his heart to the sufferings of others. His generous nature longed to replace evil by good. And in the cause which his conscience approved, no obloquy nor social unpopularity could impede his progress. At the same time, there was about him nothing of the intemperate agitator. He was a judge and brought to his philanthropic labours a judicial habit of mind. Indeed, it was this habit of mind which distinguished him among his fellow-workers in the antislavery cause. It was his mission to urge emancipation with the Constitution in his hand; to meet in conflict that portion of society which silenced its uneasy conscience by a repetition of constitutional provisions, and at the same time to combat those who were inclined to seek emancipation by unconstitutional means.
His quiet country life, in which healthful out-of-door pursuits were mingled with the study and reflection of his library, particularly fitted him to look at this all-important question with calmness, with consideration for both sides, and yet with the vigour of a mind free to work exhaustively on a subject involving many conflicting theories and duties. He brought to his task real talents, literary and polemic; a style ready and concise; a reasoning enlivened by an effective vein of irony. He had a refined and benevolent countenance, a pleasing manner, a temper even, but easily roused to indignation at the sight of injustice. Before considering his first connection with the antislavery movement, we may glance at its situation in the early manhood of William Jay.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY OPPOSITION TO SLAVERY.—GROWTH OF THE SLAVE POWER.—THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.—JAY BEGINS POLITICAL AGITATION FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
The movement which culminated in the Civil War and the total abolition of slavery in the United States was first humanitarian, and subsequently political. Philanthropists prepared the way for the statesman and the soldier.
The humanitarian movement had begun before the time of William Jay and his fellow-workers. To find its beginnings, we must look back into the colonial days of the eighteenth century. There, among the first, was George Keith, of Pennsylvania, denouncing the system on grounds of both Christianity and public policy. And Samuel Sewall, Chief-Justice of Massachusetts, who, in his pamphlet, "The Selling of Joseph," quaintly testified to the truth. "These Ethiopians," he said, "as black as they are, seeing they are the sons and daughters of the first Adam and the offspring of God, they ought to be treated with respect agreeable." Ralph Sandiford, Benjamin Lay, William Burling, Anthony Benezet, the Huguenot, were men who spoke as sincerely as later abolitionists and whose words were heard. There was John Woolman, of New Jersey, who pointed out "the dark gloominess overhanging the land, the spirit of fierceness and love of dominion," resulting from this iniquity; and Dr. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, R. I., whose eloquent exhortations banished the slave trade from a congregation growing rich on its spoils; and Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, who foretold that "future ages will be at a loss which to condemn most, our folly or our guilt in abetting this direct violation of nature and religion." The legislatures of Virginia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts in turn attempted to restrict the slave-trade; but their efforts were annulled in England, where the slave interest, through its champion, Lord Sandwich, forbade any interference with "a traffic so beneficial to the nation."