OVER DUE:

Forgotten Founder: Patriot, jurist, diplomat--John Jay gets his due.: a review of John Jay Founding Father by Walter Stahr (Robert J. Kaufman, 03/14/2005, Weekly Standard)

JOHN JAY CONTRIBUTED MIGHTILY TO achieving American independence and creating the new nation. In the pantheon of Founding Fathers, only George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison deserve unequivocally to rank higher. Jay's peers esteemed him. Yet subsequent generations have tended to slight his importance. Walter Stahr's excellent new biography should reestablish Jay's standing as one of America's great statesmen. It portrays Jay's life with a balance and command of the material worthy of the subject. [...]

[J]ay staked out a position of moderation, striving to reach compromise and build consensus. He agreed with John Adams and those who defined American rights broadly by reference to the laws of nature as well as Britain's unwritten constitution. But he hoped that the colonies could induce the British to recognize these rights short of declaring American independence. Even while pursuing reconciliation with Great Britain, Jay was also working to develop relations with Britain's enemy, France. In November 1775 the Continental Congress named Jay and Franklin to a committee to correspond "with Britain . . . and other parts of the world." Jay viewed the committee's contacts with Britain and France as complementary endeavors: "Though we desire reconciliation, we are well prepared for contrary measures," he wrote to his brother the following year. "God only knows why the British Empire will be torn to pieces by unjust attempts to subjugate us." By July 1776, Jay concluded that the British had given the Americans no choice but to declare, and fight, for independence. Thereafter, he was an indomitable advocate of the revolutionary cause. [...]

In 1779 the Continental Congress appointed Jay as minister to Spain, where he endured three frustrating years vainly seeking financial assistance and formal diplomatic recognition. But Jay's Spanish mission was not all for nought: Spain remained in its own war with Britain, draining resources that the British could have otherwise brought to bear on the Americans. His rough treatment at the hands of the Spanish government also taught him valuable lessons in European diplomacy that served him well in his next assignment: as one of three members of the American delegation in Paris, along with Franklin and Adams, that negotiated the peace terms ending the War of Independence.

Most historians agree that the Treaty of Paris (1783) was a great triumph for the United States, securing an immense territory that virtually ensured our eventual emergence as a vast continental republic. John Adams hailed Jay as the "Washington of the negotiations, a very flattering comment indeed, to which I have not right, but sincerely belongs to Mr. Jay." The record supports Adams's assessment. Rightly skeptical of a French ally intent on imposing a peace less generous than what the British would offer, Jay persuaded a reluctant Franklin to negotiate independently with Britain and not subordinate American interests to those of France. Jay inspired the admiration and trust of the British negotiators, sowing the seed for the Anglo-American peace and friendship that he saw in the long-term interests of both nations. He did much of the drafting of the treaty, and mediated effectively between Adams and Franklin. [...]

Jay collaborated with Hamilton and James Madison to write the Federalist Papers. He contributed only five of the essays--in part because of illness, but largely because of Madison's and Hamilton's greater gift for the enterprise. Jay focused on the inextricable linkage between the national union and national security. In Federalist 3 he argued why a strong union with an efficient national government would more likely avoid war than a weak one. In Federalist 4 he elaborated on this theme, warning that danger arose not merely from the weakness of separate states, but from the ability of foreign nations to play states off against each other. In Federalist 5 Jay drew parallels between the British and the American unions. He deplored the possible division of the union, in particular warning that, as separate nations, north and south would find more reasons for conflict than cooperation. In Jay's last essay, Federalist 64, he defended investing the prerogative of presidents making treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Jay also was the leader of, and the most persuasive advocate for, ratifying the Constitution at the New York state convention. If the ratification of the Constitution hinged ultimately on the decisions of large states such as New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, New York's ratification largely hinged on the deftness with which Jay mustered a narrow majority of 30 to 27 in support of ratification. His "Address to the People of New York" was the single most important document published in New York during the debate about the Constitution. His arguments carried more weight with the formidable anti-Federalist opposition, and other skeptics, than those of the more brilliant, but more polarizing, Alexander Hamilton.