John Jay - First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

John Jay is remembered, along with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, as one of the authors of The Federalist Papers. They wrote under the pseudonym Plubius.

Jay had a long government career. After being appointed Chief Justice of New York (1777), he resigned to become President of the Continental Congress (1778). Later, he acted as a diplomat to France and Great Britain. He was appointed Secretary of Foreign Affairs (1784-89), and contributed to The Federalist Papers during that time. He became the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1789-1795), and during that period he negotiated what became known as "Jay's Treaty" with Great Britain (1794). He left the Court to become Governor of New York (1795-1801).

It is somewhat ironic that of five Federalist Papers that he wrote, four were on the Dangers of Foreign Force and the other was about the Senate. Jay had served as Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court and would later serve as the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but he did not comment on the judiciary. His selection of writing topics is perhaps explained by his work at the time of the writing of the Federalist Papers: He was the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and he had been a diplomat to both France and Great Britain.

Jay was adamant about property rights. According to Jay, "No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent." Whether tax seizures of the modern era are consistent with this philosophy is questionable. He demonstrated his preference for the philosophy of John Locke: "Those who own the country ought to govern it."

As a Federalist, Jay wrote of the importance of unity: "It has until lately been a received and uncontradicted opinion that the prosperity of the people of America depended on their continuing firmly united, and the wishes, prayers, and efforts of our best and wisest citizens have been constantly directed to that object. But politicians now appear, who insist that this opinion is erroneous... Whatever may be the arguments or inducements which have wrought this change in the sentiments and declarations of these gentlemen, it certainly would not be wise in the people at large to adopt these new political tenets without being fully convinced that they are founded in truth and sound policy." This excerpt from Federalist No. 2 demonstrates the cool, reasoned debating style of the founders. The language - detached and logical - is not full of hyperbole and personal attacks.

Jay was a slaveholder himself, but he attempted to include language in the New York Constitution (1777) that would have abolished it. He wrote: "I should also have been for a clause against the continuation of domestic slavery." As Governor of New York, he signed a law entitled "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery" (1799).

Jay retired from government in 1801 and died in 1829, age 84.