In 1777, Jay, from a committee appointed the year before, drafted a State Constitution, which received the sanction of the legislature. There were certain provisions which he desired to introduce in that instrument, and which he thought more likely to be adopted when proposed in the form of amendments than if they should be incorporated into the first draft; but a summons to the side of his dying mother prevented the realization of his wishes. One of the amendments which he intended to urge, was a provision for the gradual abolition of slavery within the limits of the State. Under the new constitution, having been appointed to the office of Chief Justice, he was ineligible by that instrument to any other post, except on a "special occasion," but, in consequence of a difficulty arising between his own, and the neighboring State of Vermont, the legislature took advantage of the exception, and elected him delegate to Congress. Without vacating, therefore, his judicial seat, he complied with their appointment, and soon after his entrance in Congress became its presiding officer. The impossibility, however, of doing full justice to both his judicial and legislative duties, induced him to resign his seat on the bench. Congress now employed his pen in writing the circular letter to the States, urging them to furnish additional funds for the war. This statesmanlike exposition of the government's financial condition closes with a noble appeal to the national honor.
"Rouse, therefore, strive who shall do most for his country; rekindle that flame of patriotism, which, at the mention of disgrace and slavery, blazed throughout America and animated all her citizens. Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent, or that her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith, in the very hour when all the nations of the earth were admiring and almost adoring the splendor of her rising."
In 1779, accompanied by his wife, he sailed for Spain, as minister plenipotentiary, in order to secure the concurrence of that kingdom in the treaty with France, recognizing the independence of the United States; and though his diplomatic negotiations were conducted in the most honorable spirit, and with consummate prudence and ability, the object of his mission was finally frustrated by the selfish policy of the Spanish government, in requiring America to surrender the right of navigating on the Mississippi. It was during his residence at the Spanish court, that the desperate financial embarrassments of Congress prompted a measure equally unjust to their representative abroad and hazardous to the national credit. Presuming upon the success of his mission, they had empowered their treasurer to draw on Mr. Jay bills payable at six months, for half a million of dollars. As these bills came in, the minister was placed in a situation of extreme perplexity, but his regard for his country's reputation overcame all private considerations; he adopted the patriotic but desperate expedient of making himself personally responsible for their payment, and his acceptances had exceeded one hundred thousand dollars before any relief came to hand. Mr. Jay's residence in Spain also subjected him to other trials, only less severe than the one just mentioned; the vexatious obstacles placed in way of his negotiations by the Spanish government; the insufficiency of his salary at the most expensive court in Europe; the frequent removal of the court from place to place, at the royal pleasure, involving the absence of his wife, whom, for pecuniary reasons, he was unable to take with him; the death of his young child, and his anxiety for the family whom he had left at home, exposed to the dangers of war, and from whom, for more than a year, not a line had been received, might well have harassed a less sensitive nature than his. The fortitude with which he sustained these annoyances may be seen in a letter written by him about this time to his friend, Egbert Benson, of New-York. It commences thus:
"Dear Benson:
"When shall we again, by a cheerful fire, or under a shady tree, recapitulate our juvenile pursuits or pleasures, or look back on the extensive field of politics we once have trodden? Our plans of life have, within these few years past, been strangely changed. Our country, I hope, will be the better for the alterations. How far we individually may be benefited is more questionable. Personal considerations, however, must give way to public ones, and the consciousness of having done our duty to our country and posterity, must recompense us for all the evils we experience in their cause."
From Spain, by order of Congress, Jay proceeded to Paris to arrange, in conjunction with Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Laurens, the Definitive Treaty of Peace with England,—the most important diplomatic act of the eighteenth century; and we have the testimony of Mr. Fitzherbert, then the English minister resident in Paris, that "it was not only chiefly but solely through his means that the negotiations of that period between England and the United States were brought to a successful conclusion." Mr. Oswald had arrived in Paris with a commission, in which the United States were mentioned under the designation of "colonies," but Jay, although his associates did not participate in his scruples, refused to begin negotiations without a preliminary recognition on the part of England of the Independence of the United States; and owing to his firmness a new commission was obtained from the king, in which that most essential point (as the sequel proved) was gained. Declining the appointment now tendered him by Congress of commissioner to negotiate a commercial treaty with England, Jay returned to his country. On arriving at New-York he was welcomed by a most enthusiastic public reception, and was presented by the corporation of New-York with the freedom of the city in a gold box. The office of Secretary for foreign affairs, which, for the want of a suitable incumbent, had been vacant for two years, was at this time urged by Congress upon his acceptance, and he did not feel at liberty to refuse his services. He was now virtually at the head of public affairs. The whole foreign correspondence of the government, the proposal of plans of treaties, instructions to ministers abroad, and the submission of reports on all matters to which Congress might call his attention, came within the scope of his new duties.
Mr. Jay was among the first of our statesmen to perceive the defects of the confederation, and to urge the necessity of a new and more efficient system of government. Besides his contributions to the Federalist, he wrote an address to the people of New-York, then the very citadel of the opposition to the proposed Constitution, which had no unimportant effect in securing its adoption. In the State Convention, which had assembled with only eleven out of fifty-seven members in its favor, Jay took a most influential part, and mainly owing to his exertions was it finally ratified. At the commencement of the administration of Washington, he was invited by that great man to select his own post in the newly-formed government. He was accordingly appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and well did he justify, in his new capacity, the glowing eulogium of Webster, that "when the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay it touched nothing less spotless than itself." In the performance of his duties as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, much was accomplished by him in organizing the business of the court, expounding the principles of its decisions, and in commending them to a confederacy of sovereign States, already sufficiently jealous of its extensive but beneficent jurisdiction. His decision in the novel case of a suit instituted against the State of Georgia by a citizen of another State, is a memorable instance of his firmness and judicial ability.
The year 1794 opened with every prospect of a disastrous war between Great Britain and the United States. The Revolution did not terminate without leaving in the minds of Americans a strong and perhaps an unreasonable antipathy to the mother country, which was stimulated by the unwise interference of Genet, the French minister, in our politics, and by the exertions of a large class of British refugees, who had escaped to our country still smarting under the oppressions which they had experienced at home, and who were extremely desirous of plunging the American government into the contest which was then raging between France and England. There were also certain substantial grievances universally admitted by our citizens, which would give some countenance to such a measure on the part of America. Among these were enumerated the detention in violation of the treaty of the posts on our western frontier by British garrisons, thereby excluding the navigation by Americans of the great lakes, the refusal to make compensation for the negroes carried away during the war by the British fleet, the exclusion and capture of American vessels carrying supplies to French ports, and the seizure of our ships in the exercise of the pretended right of search. These, and other outrages, were justified by Great Britain, on the ground of certain equivalent infractions of the treaty by the American nation. Washington however could not be induced to consent to hazard the national interests, by transgressing that neutrality so necessary to a young republic only just recovering from the severe experience of a seven years' war, and he saw no other honorable means of averting the impending danger than the appointment of a special envoy, empowered to adjust the matters in dispute. For this purpose, on his nomination, Mr. Jay was confirmed on the 20th of April, 1794, by the Senate, as Minister to England, at which country he arrived in June of that year. The treaty was signed in November following, and the negotiations of the two ministers, Lord Grenville and Mr. Jay, were greatly facilitated by their mutual esteem and the good understanding existing between them; and their correspondence, which was characterized by signal ability on both sides, affords an instance of diplomatic straightforwardness and candor almost without a parallel in history. It as not consistent with the plan of our sketch to speak of the provisions of the treaty thus secured: it was not, in all respects, what Jay, or the country desired; but in view of the immense advantages to our commerce obtained by it, the complicated and delicate questions adjusted, and the disasters which would have befallen the nation had it been defeated, it will challenge comparison with any subsequent international arrangement to which the United States have been a party. Yet, incredible as would seem, the abuse and scurrility with which both it and its author were loaded, discloses one of the most disgraceful chapters in the records of political fanaticism. By an eminent member of the opposing party, he was declared to have perpetrated "an infamous act," an act "stamped with avarice and corruption." He himself was termed "a damned arch-traitor," "sold to Great Britain," and the treaty burned before his door. Enjoying the confidence of the illustrious Washington, and of the wisest and best men of his country, in his course, and above all, the inward assurance of his unswerving rectitude, Jay might well forgive these ebullitions of party spleen and await the sanction which has been conferred on his actions by the impartial voice of posterity.
But no statesman of that time had, on the whole, less reason to complain of popular ingratitude than Jay; before he reached his native shore, a large majority of the people of New-York had expressed their approbation of his conduct by electing him to the office of Governor. While in this office, the appropriate close of his public career, besides suggesting many useful measures in regard to education and internal improvements, the benefits of which are experienced to this day, he had the happiness of promoting and witnessing the passage by the Legislature of the act for the gradual abolition of slavery in his native State. Of this measure he was one of the earliest advocates, having served as the first President of the Society of Manumission, which had been organized in 1786 by a number of the most respectable gentlemen in New-York, and to whose disinterested exertions the success of the anti-slavery cause was mainly due. On accepting the seat tendered to him in the Supreme Court, Jay, fearing that the presidency of the society might prove an embarrassment in the decision of some questions which might come before him, resigned the office and was succeeded by Hamilton, who continued to discharge its duties till the year 1793.
At the expiration of his second gubernatorial term in 1801, Jay, contrary to the importunities of his friends, retired from public life, having, for twenty-seven years, faithfully served his country in every department of legislative, diplomatic, and judicial trust. Declining the office of Chief Justice, which was again pressed by the President upon his acceptance, he prepared to enjoy that congenial seclusion under the shade of his patrimonial trees, which, through all the varied and agitating scenes of political life, had been the object of his most ardent desires. In accordance with this design, he had built a substantial house at Bedford, about forty-four miles from New-York, on an estate embracing some eight hundred acres, which had come to him by inheritance. Here, in one of the most delightful localities in the fertile county of Westchester, in the care of his family and estates, in the society of his friends and his books, in the discharge of the duties of neighborly benevolence, and in the preparation for those immortal scenes which he had reason to suppose would soon open upon him, he passed the tranquil remainder of his days. But his enjoyments were not destined to exempt him from those bitter but universal visitations, which, at times, overthrow the happiness and frustrate the most pleasing anticipations of our race. In less than twelve months after his retirement, the partner of his joys and sorrows, who, by her accomplishments, her unobtrusive virtues and solicitous affection, had been at once his delight and support, was taken from him. At the final hour, Jay, as the biographer tells us, stood by the bedside "calm and collected," and when the spirit had taken its departure, led his children to an adjoining room, and with "a firm voice but glistening eye" read that inspiring and wonderful chapter in which Paul has discussed the mystery of our future resurrection.