Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/24

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VOL. XIII.

No. i.

BOSTON.

JANUARY, 1901.

JOHN JAY. BY FRANCIS R. JONES.

JOHN ADAMS, President of the United States, under date of December 19, 1800, wrote to John Jay, at that time governor of the State of New York, in reference to his unsolicited nomination and confirmation as Chief Justice of the United States for the second time: "I had no permission from you to take this step, but it appeared to me that Providence had thrown in my way an oppor tunity not only of marking to the public the spot, where, in my opinion, the greatest 'mass of worth remained collected in one individ ual, but of furnishing my country with the best security its inhabitants afforded against its increasing dissolution of morals." Some five years earlier, in the midst of the excited public demonstrations against the unpopular commercial treaty with England, which had been negotiated by John Jay, as special envoy to the Court of St. James, there appeared in large letters of white chalk around the enclosure of Mr. Robert Treat Paine the following apostrophe: "Damn fohn Jay! Damn every one that won't damn John Jay!! Damn every one that won't put lights in his windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!!!" The man, who, under any circumstances, could inspire such diametrically opposite opinions, must have been exceptionally virile, and of an inspiring independence of mind and character. It is perhaps not too much to say that in Jay's life of eighty-three years he never courted a public popularity, however welcome, shirked a duty, however unpleasant, or refused to assume a responsi bility, however great. As a member of a

revolutionary committee of New York, he banished Van Schaack, one of his classmates and most intimate friends. As minister to Spain he accepted bills drawn by the Con gress to an amount which he was utterly unable to meet, and which threatened to ruin him, not only in purse, but in reputation as well. As negotiator of peace with England, he did not hesitate to ignore the instructions of his government, when he became con vinced that to follow those instructions would be detrimental to the welfare of his country. As Chief Justice of the United States he protested against the constitution ality of the act of Congress requiring appli cations for pensions to be passed upon by the justices of the supreme court in their re spective circuits, with an appeal from their decisions to an executive officer of the United States. As governor of the State of New York, he refused to follow the advice of Hamilton to call an extra session of the legislature in order to elect presidential electors, the election of which would prop erly be made by an incoming legislature with a hostile majority. Almost from the time of his graduation from the then King's College in 1764. at the age of eighteen, and his entrance upon the study of law in the office of Benjamin Kissam. he was engaged in an influential man ner in the agitation against the encroach ments of the British king and parliament, in association with James Duane, Gouverneur Morris, R. R. Livingston, William Living ston and others of equal reputation. His terse and at the same time exquisite English