Founder's Quotes - John Jay

John Jay authored Federalist Papers #2, #3, #4, #5 and #64. The first four concerned the dangers of foreign influence in U.S. politics and 64 concerned the powers of the Senate.

John Jay's long and eventful life, from 1745 to 1829, encompassed the movement for American independence and the creation of a new nation — both processes in which he played a full part. His achievements were many, varied and of key importance in the birth and early years of the fledgling nation. Although he did not initially favor separation from Britain, he was nonetheless among the American commissioners who negotiated the peace with Great Britain that secured independence for the former colonies. Serving the new republic he was Secretary for Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation, a contributor to the Federalist, the first Chief Justice of the United States, negotiator of the 1794 "Jay Treaty" with Great Britain, and a two-term Governor of the State of New York. In his personal life, Jay embraced a wide range of social and cultural concerns.

His paternal grandfather, Augustus (1665-1751), established the Jay family's presence in America. Unable to remain in France when the rights of Protestants were abolished by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Augustus eventually settled in New York where, with an advantageous marriage and a thriving mercantile business, he established a strong foundation for his descendants. His son Peter, like Augustus a merchant, had ten children with his wife Mary Van Cortlandt, seven of them surviving into adulthood. John was the sixth of these seven. Shortly after John's birth, his family moved from Manhattan to Rye in order to provide a more salubrious environment for the raising of John's elder siblings, two of whom had been struck by blindness following the smallpox epidemic of 1739 and two others of whom suffered from mental handicaps.

Educated in his early years by private tutors, Jay entered the newly-founded King's College, the future Columbia University, in the late summer of 1760. There, he underwent the conventional classical education, graduating in 1764, when he became a law clerk in the office of Benjamin Kissam. On admission to the bar in 1768 Jay established a legal practice with Robert R. Livingston, Jr., scion of the "Lower Manor" branch of the Livingston family, before operating his own law office from 1771. Among other tasks during these years, Jay served as clerk of the New York-New Jersey Boundary Commission.

This is an excerpt. There is more at Columbia University’s Website. CLICK HERE for more information.

“As the select assemblies for choosing the President, as well as the State legislatures who appoint the senators, will in general be composed of the most enlightened and respectable citizens, there is reason to presume that their attention and their votes will be directed to those men only who have become the most distinguished by their abilities and virtue, and in whom the people perceive just grounds for confidence.”
John Jay, Federalist 64

Obviously, the 17th Amendment, which caused the Senators to be elected and represent the people instead of the States,
changed the entry requirements for the Senate. I would say that this was not an improvement.

“As to the position that "the people always mean well," that they always mean to say and do what they believe to be right and just - it may be popular, but it can not be true. The word people applies to all the individual inhabitants of a country. . . . That portion of them who individually mean well never was, nor until the millennium will be, considerable. Pure democracy, like pure rum, easily produces intoxication and with it a thousand pranks and fooleries. I do not expect mankind will, before the millennium, be what they ought to be and therefore, in my opinion, every political theory which does not regard them as being what they are, will prove abortive. Yet I wish to see all unjust and unnecessary discriminations everywhere abolished, and that the time may come when all our inhabitants of every color and discrimination shall be free and equal partakers of our political liberties.”
John Jay

“"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
John Jay to Jedidiah Morse February 28, 1797

"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
John Jay Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794

“I saw one excellency was within my reach - it was brevity and I determined to obtain it.”
John Jay

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
John Jay, Source: October 12, 1816. The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay

“Whether our religion permits Christians to vote for infidel rulers is a question which merits more consideration than it seems yet to have generally received either from the clergy or the laity. It appears to me that what the prophet said to Jehoshaphat about his attachment to Ahab ["Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?" 2 Chronicles 19:2] affords a salutary lesson.”
John Jay [The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, 1794-1826, Henry P. Johnston, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1893), Vol. IV, p.365]
Web source

The only way to be loved is to be and to appear lovely; to possess and display kindness, benevolence, tenderness; to be free from selfishness and to be alive to the welfare of others.
John Jay

The constitution of the United States is to receive a reasonable interpretation of its language, and its powers, keeping in view the objects and purposes, for which those powers were conferred. By a reasonable interpretation, we mean, that in case the words are susceptible of two different senses, the one strict, the other more enlarged, that should be adopted, which is most consonant with the apparent objects and intent of the Constitution."
Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue."
John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776

"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders."
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, November 4, 1775
Thanks, Bigun!

Here's to the red of it,
There's not a thread of it,
No, not a shred of it,
In all the spread of it,
From foot to head,
But heroes bled for it,
Faced steel and lead for it,
Precious blood shed for it,
Bathing in red.
A Toast to the Flag – unknown

You need to read both the "Federalist Papers" and "Anti-Federalist Papers" at the same time and in an interleaved manner.

The papers were published simultaneously in the form of a debate with each side stating an issue and defending it from the other side. The papeback Mentor edition edited by Ralph Ketchum has a chronology of publication in the appendix. If you read both sets of papers interleaved in strict order of publication, you can watch the ebb and flow, the point and counterpoint, of the debate over ratification of the Constitution in New York. For example, Hamilton will make a point in a "Federalist Paper" that is answered by "Brutus" in an "Anti-Federalist Paper", which in turn receives a riposte from Madison in yet another "Federalist Paper". Reading them this way clarifies the scope of the debate.

Eighteenth Century English is quite a trial for today's readers who are used to a shorter sentence structure. I've found that one has to read a given paragraph 3 to 5 times to distill all the meaning the writer has poured into it. But it's worth the effort. Just don't rush it.

Thank you for posting this. I wasn't aware of Jay's connection to the wealthy and famous Dutch patroon family of the Van Cortlandts. I knew about his closeness to the Federalist patroon family of the Livingstons, but not about the partnership.

When you read the "Federalist Papers", pay close attention to the prose style. Hamilton comes across as a brilliant highly paid corporate lawyer -- which he had become by that time -- and dazzles you with his intellect. Madison comes across as the earnest student of history he was, one who had ready everything written by the ancients. (I'd ask Hamilton over to entertain a dinner party full of brilliant people, but if I wanted a friend over for a beer, I'd pick Madison.)

Jay comes across as the comic of the group with a puckish sense of humor. He likes to needle his opponents, not dazzle them or convince them with historic analogies. It's easy to spot a Jay essay.

I’ve read the Anti-Federalist papers about ten years ago and enjoyed them. They did have their points.

Jay sounds like he was a good attorney who ran a light courtroom in life and press. I imagine that when your life involves deep study it’s hard to stop thinking of it (When I studied chess I avoided Italian restaurants because of their checkered tablecloths - if the olive oil bottle were a knight it could take the pepper mill).

My plan is to keep Monday’s threads focused on one founder, then Thursday/Friday’s on a good mix of quotes. Working on Jay was from a point of curiosity; I knew little about the man and now know a little more.

I’ve noted the more personal style of Madison, he’s easier to read than Hamilton. Sometimes I find myself putting my hands over my ears and reading the sentences out loud so I fully understand them. Hey, if singers do the same in the studio.... Anyway, I gather that Madison could appear today for a chat at the pub he would like a draw of Sam Adams.... ;)

I may miss one of these threads because my Aunt is 99 and hospitalized....she’s not doing well. Since my father has dimensia I’m the next in line for the legal stuff.

In 1988, in U.S. v. Krzyske, the jury asked the judge about jury nullification. The judge responded “There is no such thing as valid jury nullification.” The jury convicted the defendant, and the judge’s answer was upheld on appeal.

In 1997, in U.S. v. Thomas[20], the Second Circuit ruled that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the law, under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 23(b).

We categorically reject the idea that, in a society committed to the rule of law, jury nullification is desirable or that courts may permit it to occur when it is within their authority to prevent. Accordingly, we conclude that a juror who intends to nullify the applicable law is no less subject to dismissal than is a juror who disregards the court’s instructions due to an event or relationship that renders him biased or otherwise unable to render a fair and impartial verdict.

We categorically reject the idea that, in a society committed to the rule of law, jury nullification is desirable or that courts may permit it to occur when it is within their authority to prevent.

LOL!

Hundreds of years of jurisprudence says differently:

U.S. vs. DOUGHERTY (1972) [D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals]:
The jury has...."unreviewable and irreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge."

Justice OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (Horning v. District of Columbia, 249 U.S. 596 (1920)):
"The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact."

U.S. SUPREME COURT (State of Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 DALL. 1,4):
"...it is presumed, that the juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that the courts are the best judges of law. But still, both objects are within your power of decision. You have a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy."

------

Jury nullification is what gave the People the ability to judge the government and to prevent it from usurping any power that it did not legitimately possess:

LYSANDER SPOONER (An Essay on the Trial by Jury, 1852):
"The authority to judge what are the powers of the government, and what are the liberties of the people, must necessarily be vested in one or the other of the parties themselves--the government, or the people; because there is no third party to whom it can be entrusted. If the authority be vested in the government, the government is absolute, and the people have no liberties except such as the government sees fit to indulge them with."
"This preposterous doctrine, that "ignorance of the law excuses no one," is asserted by courts because it is an indispensable one to the maintenance of absolute power in the government."
"For more than six hundred years--that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215, there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws."

4TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS (United States v. Moylan, 417F.2d1006, 1969):
"If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence...If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision."

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