(Updated May 28, 2025)
John Jay (1745-1829) was an American Founder who served as the United States’ first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was one of the co-authors of the Federalist Papers, a classic American political text that argued in favor of ratifying the Constitution.
Writings
John Jay, Federalist No. 4 (November 7, 1787)
But whatever may be our situation, whether firmly united under one national Government, or split into a number of confederacies, certain it is, that foreign nations will know and view it exactly as it is; and they will act towards us accordingly. If they see that our national Government is efficient and well administered—our trade prudently regulated—our militia properly organized and disciplined—our resources and finances discreetly managed—our credit re-established—our people free, contented, and united, they will be much more disposed to cultivate our friendship, than provoke our resentment. If on the other hand they find us either destitute of an effectual Government, (each State doing right or wrong as to its rulers may seem convenient), or split into three or four independent and probably discordant republics or confederacies, one inclining to Britain, another to France, and a third to Spain, and perhaps played off against each other by the three, what a poor pitiful figure will America make in their eyes! How liable would she become not only to their contempt, but to their outrage; and how soon would dear bought experience proclaim, that when a people or family so divide, it never fails to be against themselves [Matt. 15:25; Mark 3:25].
Speeches
John Jay, Address as President of the American Bible Society (1834)1
We know that a great proportion of mankind are ignorant of the revealed will of God, and that they have strong claims to the sympathy and compassion which we, who have favored with it, feel, and are manifesting for them. To the most sagacious among the heathen, it must appear wonderful and inexplicable that such a vicious, suffering being as man should have proceeded in such a condition from the hands of his Creator.
Letters
John Jay, To Elias Boudinot (November 17, 1819)2
Slavery and the Declaration of Independence
It will, I presume, be admitted that Slaves were the Persons intended—The words Slaves was avoided, probably on account of the existing toleration of Slavery, and its discordancy with the principles of the Revolution; and from a consciousness of its being repugnant to the following positions in the Declaration of Independence—“We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created Equal—that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights—that among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Footnotes
- John Jay, Address as President of the American Bible Society (1834); Testimony of Distinguished Laymen to the Value of the Sacred Scriptures (New York: American Bible Society Press, 1854), 12. ↩︎
- James G. Basker, ed., American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation (New York: Library of America, 2012), 224. ↩︎
