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WILLIAM JAY
AND
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MOVEMENT FOR
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
BY
BAYARD TUCKERMAN
WITH A PREFACE BY
JOHN JAY
NEW-YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1893
Copyright by
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY,
1893.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
PREFACE
BY JOHN JAY.
A prolonged illness, added to other causes, has disappointed my hope of
completing an elaborate biography of my father.
This memoir by Mr. Tuckerman is devoted chiefly to the part borne by
Judge Jay in the antislavery work, to which his time and thoughts were
so long given. In this connection the memoir develops his personal
characteristics, with the constitutional principles and national policy
advocated by him in that historic contest; while of necessity it touches
but lightly on his home life, his varied correspondence, and his
judicial charges, one of which assisted to avert the passage of a
pro-slavery legislative act infringing the liberty of speech and of the
press; and the scope of the volume forbids its dwelling on his writings
on other topics, some of which are still subjects of discussion.
Judge Jay's memoir on the formation of a National Bible Society, which
in 1816 so warmly encouraged the hopes of the venerable Boudinot, was
followed by spirited controversial pamphlets with an antagonist as able
and eminent as Bishop Hobart. The correspondence after Jay's first
letter was marked by an unusual sharpness, which happily did not prevent
my cherished and lamented friend, the son and namesake of the Bishop,
from becoming in later years sincerely attached to his father's
antagonist. It was a contest in which Jay vindicated the right of
Churchmen to assist in the distribution of the Bible, and anticipated in
this his similar efforts for a lifetime to secure the united action of
all good citizens, without regard to creed or politics, in practicable
schemes for the elevation and happiness of mankind. Among his earlier
essays were two on "Sunday: Its Value as a Civil Institution, and Its
Sacred Character"; while a third, upon "Duelling as a Relic of
Barbarism," was honoured, when the authorship was still unknown, by a
medal from an anti-duelling association at Savannah.
THE LIFE OF JOHN JAY.
Judge Jay, in the life of his father, which was welcomed as an important
addition to our American biography of the Revolution, vindicated, by a
careful presentation of the historical evidence then available, the
soundness of the judgment of Jay and Adams, as peace commissioners at
Paris in 1782-83, regarding the policy of the French court as unfriendly
to the American claims to the boundaries, the fisheries, and the
Mississippi. That judgment, afterwards acquiesced in by Dr. Franklin in
the joint violation by the commissioners of the instructions of
Congress--a violation that enabled them to obtain from England
boundaries and concessions far greater than either Congress or France
expected--had been roughly criticised and denied, even in volumes of
diplomatic correspondence claiming an official sanction. Its vindication
by Judge Jay has recently been more than confirmed by the ample proofs
published by M. de Circourt in the secret correspondence of the Count de
Vergennes with his able corps of diplomatic agents, as well as by the
interesting revelations in Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice's "Life of Lord
Shelburne"; and these volumes have dissipated a cloud of error which for
half a century travestied the facts and dimmed the glory of the closing
act of the American Revolution.[A]
JAY'S "WAR AND PEACE," AND INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.
Judge Jay's little book on "War and Peace," with a plan of stipulation
by treaty for international arbitration which subsequently led to his
becoming the president of the American Peace Society, and which before
its publication attracted the attention of that sturdy advocate for
peace, Joseph Sturge, during his visit at Bedford, seems entitled to
special notice as one whose scheme is still agitated in the governmental
and national councils of Europe. The plan promptly received the approval
of the Peace Society of London, and of English statesmen like Richard
Cobden and the indefatigable Henry Richard. It exercised a European
influence in the highest quarters when its spirit, under the leadership
of Lord Clarendon, received the sanction of the great powers of Europe
who signed the Treaty at Paris in 1856. Its endorsement, while
cautiously expressed, was recognized as having a new and profound
significance. The Protocol No. 23 declared the wish of the signatory
governments that states between which any serious misunderstanding might
arise should, before appealing to arms, have recourse, as far as
circumstances might allow, to the good offices of a friendly power; it
being understood that the wish expressed by Congress should not in any
case oppose limits to that liberty of appreciation which no power could
alienate in questions that touched its dignity. With that limitation the
recommendation, in advance of a resort to war to have recourse to a
friendly power, was introduced by the Congress to the International Code
of Europe; and among those great diplomatists were the Count Walewski
and Baron Bourgueny, on the part of France; Count de Buol-Schauenstein
and Baron de Hubner, on the part of Austria; Lord Clarendon and Lord
Cowley, on the part of Great Britain; Count Orloff and Baron de Bruno,
on the part of Russia; and Count Cavour and the Marquis de Villamarina,
on the part of Sardinia. The action of the Congress was subsequently
confirmed by that of the lesser states of Europe. Mr. Gladstone
pronounced the protocol "a very great triumph, a powerful engine in
behalf of civilized humanity." The late Earl of Derby referred to it as
"the principle which to its immortal honour was embodied in the
protocols of the Conference at Paris"; and the Earl of Malmesbury
pronounced the act "one important to civilization and to the security of
the peace of Europe." The idea that this scheme is more and more
regarded as widely applicable to international disputes, as easily
practicable and profoundly important to the peace of nations, would seem
probable from the extent to which, as the century approaches its
completion, the scheme has occupied more and more the attention of both
the statesmen and of the masses who are the most interested in
discovering a substitute for war.
For a time after the Geneva award, the moral weight and value of
international arbitration seemed to be more doubted than ever. It was
said that while the scheme had in that case avoided war, it had
suggested the probability of claims so extravagant and inadmissible as
almost to force the opposing party to break the treaty under the cover
of which they were advanced, even at the risk of increased hostility and
a resort to war; and that the escape of both nations from such a
catastrophe by the action of the Genevan Court in dismissing without
argument the American claims for indirect damages was but a happy
accident. But this idea seems to have been succeeded by the happier
thought that an appeal to international arbitration is an appeal to the
fairness of the world, and that the question for the parties, judges,
and spectators is so clearly one of honour, that no nation can afford to
ask what the justice of the world candidly disapproves. In the case of
the Geneva Congress, while the rejected claims were presented in the
name of the President, General Grant himself subsequently denied their
justice and approved their rejection. Sir Lyon (now Lord) Playfair, who
perhaps appreciates the entire subject of arbitration as thoroughly as
any living statesman, gave an interesting sketch of its recent progress,
both in Europe and America, in a paper entitled, "A Topic for
Christmas," in the _North American Review_ for December, 1890. Three
years before, Sir Lyon had headed a deputation of members of the English
Parliament who came to present to the President of the United States a
memorial from 234 members of the House of Commons, with delegates from
English Trades Unions representing 700,000 workingmen. Congress in
response concurrently resolved to invite from time to time, as fit
occasion might arise, negotiations with any government with which the
United States has or may have diplomatic relations, to the end that any
differences or disputes arising between the two governments which cannot
be settled by diplomatic agency may be referred to arbitration and be
peacefully adjusted by such means. Although Europe is supposed by many
to be awaiting a war of gigantic magnitude, Sir Lyon, referring to the
approval of arbitration by the Pan-American Congress by continental
parliaments and international assemblies at Paris and London, said that
the legislatures which had already passed resolutions in favor of
arbitration represented 150,000,000 of people, and remarked that the
extension of that feeling would be a better force than an international
police to secure the observance of treaties. The excess of war
preparation already endangering national credit and threatening national
bankruptcy is quoted as proving that the arbitration idea will be
insisted upon, and in the anticipated movement the United States is
described as fitted to be the leading champion of arbitration. Sheridan
is quoted among others as saying: "I mean what I say when I express the
belief that arbitration will rule the world." The scheme is now
represented as likely to be accepted by thinkers who reject the thought
of Kant, Bentham, and Mills for an international Congress; and Sir Lyon
Playfair, in connection with the idea of arbitration, quotes the remark
of Mazzini that "thought is the action of men and action the thought of
the people."
"THE WAR WITH MEXICO," AND ANTISLAVERY PAPERS.
The "Review of the War with Mexico" stands among Judge Jay's volumes
unexcelled by exactness of congressional, diplomatic, and, to some
extent, military research; and by plainness of speech in regard to
national outrages and perfidy without a name, perpetrated in the cause
of slavery; and his writings generally on this subject show the same
accurate inquiry and outspoken frankness. It was on the varied phases
of our treatment of the coloured people, free and slave, at our own
doors, the cruel wrong so full of injustice to the blacks, of scandal to
Christendom, and of menace to the republic, that Jay wrote with deepest
earnestness, the most exacting research, and a fearless pen. His inquiry
into "The American Colonization and the Antislavery Societies" and "The
Action of the Federal Government in Behalf of Slavery," developed facts
which implicated prominent politicians of both parties, and aroused at
once their surprise and indignation, while the disclosure directly
appealed to the pride and conscience of the American people. The same
judicial, dauntless, and defiant spirit marked the appeals which he
prepared for the Antislavery Society against the calumnies of the press,
and the dignified protest against the libellous charges so unworthily
made by President Jackson in his message to Congress. The same spirit
animated his address on "The Condition of the People of Colour in the
United States"; the "Appeal to the Friends of Constitutional Liberty, on
the Violation by the House of Representatives of the Right of Petition";
his supplement to "The Reproof of the American Church," by Bishop
Wilberforce of Oxford; the exposure in the letter to Bishop Ives of the
clerical efforts to sanctify slavery and caste; and his earnest demand
for the equal admission of the coloured churches to the Diocesan Council
of New York. So, too, with the critical analysis of Mr. Clay's
"Compromise Bill," including the Fugitive Law and Mr. Webster's "Theory
of Physical Geography"; his address to the inhabitants of New Mexico and
California, so timely distributed in English and Spanish, and so happily
followed in California by a free constitution, urging them to resist the
domination of slavery with its ignorance and degradation, and to secure,
by their own manly independence and just statesmanship, a glorious
future of power and happiness; his address to the antislavery
Christians; and his plain reminders to the Protestant Episcopal Church,
and to the Tract and other societies, of the inconsistency and evil
influence of their compromising pro-slavery policy.
CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES--AN HISTORIC PARALLEL.
The part of Jay's life pictured by Mr. Tuckerman not only exhibits these
characteristics, but shows the Antislavery Society to have been founded
by his care, in 1833, on constitutional principles so just and so
clearly defined, that in 1839 sixteen hundred and fifty auxiliary
societies had been established on the same basis, educating the rising
generation, on whom was to rest the destiny of the country in the near
future. It was an education of the quiet and effective influence of
which the pro-slavery leaders seemed unconscious, although to some it
may recall the thought of Dr. Storrs, when he said:--"When I think of a
millennium in our time, in our civilization, my thought rests and
fastens on the promise, 'a little child shall lead them.'" The charge
had already been made against the opponents of slavery of a disregard
of constitutional obligations--of a desire to dissolve the Union and to
encourage slave insurrection. The society declared the exclusive right
of each slave State to legislate in regard to slavery; the
constitutional right of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia, to prohibit it in the Territories and new States, and to
control the domestic as well as the foreign slave trade; and it
disclaimed the idea of countenancing the slaves in vindicating their
rights by resorting to physical force. And here is suggested, by the
action and the anticipation of the Slave Power, an interesting historic
parallel. The formation of the Antislavery Society in December, 1833,
followed closely upon Mr. Calhoun's Nullification in South Carolina in
1832, when, as Mr. Pollard tell us, a medal was struck inscribed, "John
C. Calhoun, First President of the C. S. A." A counterpart of this medal
in gold is said to exist at Richmond, with the name of Jefferson Davis
as the first president of the Southern Confederacy, and "1861" on the
reverse side.
These incidents seem to emphasize the fact that the constitutional
principles adopted by the Antislavery Society in 1833, and so widely
circulated by the press and its auxiliaries before the war, although
often assailed, were, in 1854, made the basis of the Republican party,
which, as Americans of all sections may now with mutual regard and
affection thank God, maintained the Union and abolished slavery. Such a
revolution in public opinion is a forcible reminder of the truth that
every principle contains within itself the germ of a prophecy, and it is
a thought fraught with hope and confidence to reformers even when they
seem to be threatened with disaster and defeat.
THE EARLY SCHEME FOR A SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.
The determination to found a confederacy with slavery as its cornerstone
appears as a fundamental feature in the policy of the Slave Power for
some thirty years before the outbreak of the Civil War. Mr. Calhoun's
idea of secession, apparently suggested by the tariff, General Jackson
predicted would be renewed on the question of slavery. The novel of
Prof. Beverly Tucker in 1835, entitled, "The Partisan Leader; or, Twenty
Years After," foreshadowed the steps at home and abroad which were taken
in forming the new confederacy; and in the South Carolina Convention in
1860, Southern politicians like Rhett, Parker, Keith, and Inglis said
that the matter had nothing to do with Mr. Lincoln or the Fugitive Law,
but had been culminating for a long series of years. The thought of a
Southern Confederacy may have stimulated the policy of using the power
of the Republic, while it lasted, in the interest of the Confederacy
that was to succeed it; supplying a motive for the Texan Rebellion, the
War with Mexico, the effort to secure Cuba, the filibustering
expeditions to Central America, the determination to reopen the African
slave-trade, and the pro-slavery action of the Buchanan administration.
NORTHERN AND EUROPEAN SYMPATHY WITH SLAVERY.
It would be hardly fair to the Southern leaders to assume that they
found no reason for their hope of effecting the dissolution of the Union
in the sympathy and aid promised from the North and from Europe. The
secret conferences with Lord Lyons of Northern sympathizers with slavery
were disclosed by the despatches of that eminent diplomatist. Mayor
Fernando Wood's proposition that New York should become a free city,
independent both of the States and the nation, showed in no slight
degree the temper of the citizens whom he represented; while the later
appeal of so eminent and popular a leader as Governor Horatio Seymour to
the citizens of the State was equally significant when he said, "In the
downfall of the nation, and amid its crumbling ruins, we will cling to
the fortunes of New York." Such utterances enforced by leaders of the
prominence of Franklin Pierce and Vallandingham; the political action of
sympathizers with slavery and the anti-draft riots in New York,
supplemented by the unfriendliness of European governments; and the
escape of the "Alabama"--all these circumstances tended to encourage the
hopes that were doomed to disappointment. Nor in considering the
antislavery movement should we overlook the effect of the antislavery
opinion of our country in ending the danger of European intervention,
which had been unwittingly encouraged by Mr. Seward's too hasty
assurance to our minister in France (April 22, 1861), that "the
revolution was without a cause, without a pretext, and without an
object; and that the condition of slavery in the several States would
remain just the same, whether it should succeed or fail." The
antislavery policy, first of enlistment and then of emancipation, so
earnestly urged upon Mr. Lincoln and adopted by him with conscientious
caution, enlightened Europe as to the true meaning of the contest in our
recognition of the equal right to freedom and the equal dignity of
labour, and forbade its rulers to assist in the establishment of a slave
confederacy; and the historian Lessing, when alluding to the cordial
reception by his holiness the Sovereign Pontiff of the diplomatic agents
of Mr. Jefferson Davis, and the Papal letter recognizing and commending
"the illustrious President of the Southern Confederacy," remarks that
this was "the only official recognition of the chief conspirator by the
head of any government." Nor should the right appreciation by the
abolitionists of the prospect of freedom for the slaves be forgotten.
The fidelity of the negroes during the war, both to the families with
whom they lived, to which Vice-President Stephens bore distinct
testimony, and to the Northern army, from which they expected
emancipation, was no less honourable and conspicuous than the devotion
and gallantry they constantly exhibited in the war, as at Fort Hudson
and Fort Wagner, at Milliken's Bend and Lake Providence, at Newbern and
at Olustee, where their rear-guard saved the army. Their conduct,
whether at home or in the field, justified the conviction of their
steadfast friends in the safety of immediate emancipation, and added
untold force to the sacredness of the pledges so often given during the
war, and still, to the national discredit, unfulfilled--of national aid
to State education, so as to secure to every child of our coloured
citizens the ability to read his Bible and the Constitution, to fulfill
his duties and protect his rights.
As time and reflection impress upon the American mind a clear
comprehension of the changes, national, social, and political, that a
triumph of the Slave Power would have brought to America and its effect
as a set-back to the civilization of the world, an increased interest
will be felt in the beginnings of the contest, and in the men and causes
that shaped its end.
THE LESSON FOR TO-DAY.
I cordially recommend Mr. Tuckerman's memoir to the students of the
antislavery contest, as throwing light on that interesting and but
partially written chapter of American history, in which my father bore a
part; and on the character and policy of the sturdy band with whom he
was associated, including Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Joshua Leavitt, James
G. Birney, Gerrit Smith, and their true-hearted compatriots; while a
wider view would include a group of noble women, who, if differing as to
means, were united in devotion, headed by the honoured names of Maria
Weston Chapman and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria
Child, and the sisters Grimke.
Among our citizens who will be long remembered as early and fearless
opponents of slavery, leading and acting with energy and independence,
according to their personal convictions and occasionally in differing
ways, were the venerable Isaac T. Hopper, William Lloyd Garrison, whose
life has been so faithfully recorded by his sons, John Greenleaf
Whittier, whose old Huguenot spirit lives in his verse as in his name,
Ellis Gray Loring, Lovejoy, the martyr of the west, Wendell Phillips,
with his matchless eloquence, Theodore D. Weld, with his trenchant pen,
Elizur Wright, Jr., Samuel R. Ward, William Goodell, S. S. Jocelyn,
Gamaliel Bailey, Jr., Edmund Quincey, S. H. Gay, Oliver Johnston, James
S. Gibbons, and others, who opened the way--sometimes by devious and
diverging paths--for the party of the Union and Emancipation.
As the contest advanced from the field of politics to that of war, came
Union men from different points whose names will live in our history
with those of John A. Andrew, John C. Fremont, John P. Hale, Chase,
Sumner, Seward, Preston and John A. King, Wilmot, Giddings, Wade, Holt,
and Edwin D. Stanton. In New York, where mob law had prevailed, the
Union League Club upheld the loyalty of the city, the credit of the
nation, and the sanitary commission; raised troops for Hancock in
addition to its own coloured regiments; stimulated the ardour of our
soldiers and the patriotism of the country; welcomed, of the army, Grant
and Sherman, Mead and Sheridan, Hancock and Hooker, Warren and Burnside,
and of the navy, Farragut, Dupont and Rogers, Winslow and the youthful
Cushing; verifying in its spirit and action the remark of Vice-President
Colfax that on the Union League Club Lincoln had leaned in the darkest
hours.
The Club did not forget, neither will the truthful historian forget,
that amid the European plots and intrigues in the interest of slavery,
we had friends high and low, from Alexander of Russia, the emancipator
of twenty millions of serfs--who, like Lincoln, fell by
assassination--to the humble peasants, who instinctively recognised the
hostility to the rights of labor inherent in the slavery system, whose
vicious features had been exposed by John Bright with such masterly
effect.
Goldwin Smith, the historic scholar of Oxford, who at home had denounced
those who would have made England an accomplice in "the creation of a
great slave empire, and in its future extension from the grave of
Washington to the Halls of Montezuma," in his reply to the greetings of
the eminent citizens who had asked him to the club and who assembled to
meet him,[B] said, "Your cause is ours; it is the cause of the whole
human race." The same idea, in almost the same words, was expressed by
the Count de Cavour a few days before his death, in a despatch to the
Italian Minister at Washington, when he said "that ours was the cause
not only of constitutional liberty, but of all humanity."
The antislavery story from the Calhoun medal, struck to commemorate the
supposed birth of a slave empire to the constitutional abolition of
slavery, concerned humanity, and has lessons of warning and
encouragement for the men and women of to-day, on whom rest the hopes of
the country, and who, against odds that seem as formidable as those
presented by the Slave Power at its culmination, are bravely striving
for the advance of humanity, the purification of our politics, and the
preservation of American institutions. They may well adopt the
inspiriting legend of Geneva to which the antislavery contest of America
has given a new radiance, "Post tenebras lux." Our institutions, no
longer endangered by slavery, are assailed with skilful intrigue in
their own strongholds, the public school and the polls, especially of
our great cities, where a corrupt, irresponsible, secret rule recalls
the Council of Ten and the Lion of Saint Mark, and now it is charged
that our very legislation at times is not simply partisan but
fraudulent. The incompatibility of such proceedings with American
principles and American rights recalls with emphatic force the warning
so distinctly and repeatedly given us by Dr. Orestes A. Brownson, that
eminent and philosophic representative of our citizens of the Roman
Catholic faith who stand squarely by the American constitution and
American institutions, of the danger of allowing foreigners to meddle
with our public schools when he said that American civilization was "the
farthest point in advance yet reached by any age or nation, and that
foreigners who come to educate according to their civilization
necessarily educate for a civilization behind the times and below that
of this country."
The enlightening effect of an impartial study of the antislavery contest
on an independent and philosophic critic can be read in the interesting
and instructive pages of Von Holst; and a review of that contest, from
the first presentment of the principles of the Antislavery Society to
the parting scene of Grant and Lee at Appomatox, and the adoption of the
constitutional amendment of emancipation, affords, step by step, amid
whatever mistakes and blunders, evidence which becomes the more striking
and conclusive, as time passes, of what was accomplished in the
antislavery struggle for humanity and the world in shaping the future of
the Republic, by calm resolve, a faithful adhesion to truth and
principle, patient perseverance, unflinching courage, faith in the
triumph of right, American manliness, and far-sighted Christian
statesmanship.
BEDFORD HOUSE, Katonah,
New York, May, 1893.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Birth and Education of William Jay.--His Early Philanthropic
Interests.--Appointed Judge of Westchester County. 1
CHAPTER II.
Early Opposition to Slavery.--Growth of the Slave Power.--The
Missouri Compromise.--Jay begins Political Agitation for the
Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia. 18
CHAPTER III.
Development of the Antislavery Movement.--Organization of
Antislavery Societies.--Anti-Abolition Riots.--Jay publishes his
"Inquiry." 39
CHAPTER IV.
Continued Efforts to suppress the Antislavery Movement by Force and
Intimidation.--Favourable Effect upon the Public Mind produced by
Jay's Writings. 63
CHAPTER V.
Gradual Decline of Riotous Demonstrations against the
Abolitionists.--Changes occur in the Doctrines and Methods of the
American Antislavery Society.--Judge Jay resigns his Membership,
while continuing his Efforts on Behalf of Emancipation. 82
CHAPTER VI.
Judge Jay continues to support the Antislavery Cause by his Advice
and Writings.--In Consequence of his Opinions he is deprived of his
Seat on the Bench.--His Visit to Europe.--His Views on the Liberty
Party.--On the Annexation of Texas.--His "Review of the Mexican
War."--His Advocacy of International Arbitration as a Remedy for
War.--His Work in the Episcopal Church. 112
CHAPTER VII.
Unpopularity of the Abolitionists.--The Compromises of 1850 and the
Fugitive-Slave Law.--Jay's Reply to Webster's 7th of March
Speech.--The Attitude of the Episcopal Church.--The Abrogation of
the Missouri Compromise.--Disunion. 135
CHAPTER VIII.
Death of Judge Jay.--His Position among Antislavery Men.--His other
Public and Philanthropic Interests.--His Private Life.--His
Character. 156
Bibliography 171
Index 175
Appendix 184
ILLUSTRATIONS.
William Jay, from a crayon by Martin _Frontispiece._
View of Bedford House, the home of Judge Jay 9
Chief-Justice Jay, from a painting by Gilbert Stuart 39
William Jay, from a painting by Vanderlyn 81
William Jay, from a painting by Wenzler 135
Mrs. William Jay, from a painting by W. E. West 164
WILLIAM JAY.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF WILLIAM JAY.--HIS EARLY PHILANTHROPIC
INTERESTS.--APPOINTED JUDGE OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
William Jay, the second son of John Jay, the first Chief-Justice of the
United States, and his wife, Sarah Van Brugh Livingston, was born in the
city of New York the 16th of June, 1789. New York was then the seat of
the Federal Government, and the year is memorable as that in which the
National Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation, while
the inauguration of Washington marked a new era in American history.
During the absence of John Jay in England, while negotiating the "Jay
treaty," he was elected Governor of New York, and returned home to
assume that office in 1795.
William, then eight years old, was placed at school with the Rev. Thomas
Ellison, the rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany. There he received an
old-fashioned training. In 1801 he wrote to his father: "Mr. Ellison
put me in Virgil, and I can now say the first two eclogues by heart, and
construe and parse and scan them." And later on: "I learn nothing but
Latin." Among his schoolmates was J. Fenimore Cooper, who afterwards
drew a portrait of their old instructor in one of his "Sketches of
England," addressed to Jay:
"Thirty-six years ago you and I were schoolfellows and classmates in the
house of a clergyman of the true English school. This man was an epitome
of the national prejudices and in some respects of the national
character. He was the son of a beneficed clergyman in England, had been
regularly graduated at Oxford and admitted to orders; entertained a most
profound reverence for the King and the nobility; was not backward in
expressing his contempt for all classes of dissenters and all
ungentlemanly sects; was particularly severe on the immoralities of the
French Revolution, and though eating our bread, was not especially
lenient to our own; compelled you and me to begin Virgil with the
eclogues, and Cicero with the knotty phrase that opens the oration in
favour of the poet Archias, 'because these writers would not have placed
them first in the books if they did not intend people to read them
first'; spent his money freely and sometimes that of other people; was
particularly tenacious of the ritual and of all the decencies of the
Church; detested a democrat as he did the devil; cracked his jokes daily
about Mr. Jefferson, never failing to place his libertinism in strong
relief against the approved morals of George III., of several passages
in whose history it is charitable to suppose he was ignorant; prayed
fervently on Sunday, and decried all morals, institutions, churches,
manners, and laws but those of England from Monday to Saturday."
Still, Jay and Cooper were indebted to Ellison's thoroughness in the
classics for much of the mental training, the correct taste, and the
pure English which marked their subsequent intellectual efforts.
Jay was prepared for college by Henry Davis, afterwards president of
Hamilton College. The boy as he appeared at this time was thus described
by his cousin, Susan Sedgwick: "As I look back to that fresh spring-time
of life, there rises clearly before me a vigorous, sturdy boy, full of
health and animation, with laughing eyes, cheeks glowing and dimpled,
and exhibiting already marked traits: with a strong will, yet easily
reduced by rightful authority; in temper quick, even to passion, but
never vindictive; the storm easily raised as soon appeased, thus
foreshadowing him at that later period, when, however capable of
self-control, his fearless resistance to wrong and uncompromising
advocacy of right partook of the same vehement character, happily
expressed by his friend, Mr. Fenimore Cooper, who, in reference to his
then recently published denunciation of the evils of war, addressed him
playfully, 'Thou most pugnacious man of peace.'"
William entered Yale College in January, 1804, in his fifteenth year.
Upon the college roll during his four years were names afterwards well
known in our history. There were trained side by side boys who were soon
to be arrayed against each other in religion, politics, and in the
momentous conflict of slavery with freedom, which, passing from the
senate to the field, their sons and grandsons were to terminate by the
sword. From the State of South Carolina came John C. Calhoun, who
significantly chose for the subject of his graduating oration, "The
Qualifications Necessary for a Perfect Statesman;" Christopher Edward
Gadsden, afterwards bishop of his native State; and Thomas Smith Grimke,
eminent at the bar, in scholarship and philanthropy. Among the Northern
students was the Rev. John Pierpont, known as the reformer and poet, who
at the age of seventy-six went to the front during the Civil War as
chaplain of a Massachusetts regiment; Hon. Henry Randolph Storrs, of New
York, the jurist; Rev. Dr. Nathaniel William Taylor, of the Calvinistic
school of Edwards and Dwight; Dr. Thomas H. Gallaudet, of Huguenot
descent, who devoted himself to the education of deaf-mutes; Dr.
Alexander H. Stevens, of New York; Rev. Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, the
learned professor of oriental literature; Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring, of
New York, the famous Presbyterian divine; the Hon. William Huntington,
of Connecticut; Jacob Sutherland, of New York; and James A. Hillhouse,
of New Haven, one of the most scholarly of our poets, whose generous
hospitality at his beautiful home, Sachem's Wood, with its avenue of
stately elms planted by his father and himself, was for many years the
delight of his friends. At Yale Jay met Cooper again, and strengthened a
friendship which lasted through life. It was during a visit at Bedford,
about 1825, while sitting on the piazza with Chief-Justice Jay, smoking
and talking of the incidents of the Revolution, that Fenimore Cooper
learned the adventures of a patriotic American, who was apparently
attached to the royal cause, but who constantly warned of danger the
Continental Army in Westchester and was especially useful during the
sitting of the State convention at White Plains. The services and
escapes of this man were reproduced in "Harvey Birch, the Spy of the
Neutral Ground," which achieved so great a success at home and in
Europe, where it still holds its place, having been honoured by more
translations, including the Persian and Arabic, than any similar work
written in English until the appearance of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
In a letter to his grandson, William Jay, in 1852, Judge Jay gave some
particulars of his college course, which show the simplicity of life in
those days and the still lingering influence of English habits: "Through
the influence of a professor with whom I had previously lived, I was
placed in the room of a resident graduate. The resident graduates were
denominated 'Sirs'; they had a pew in the chapel called the Sirs' pew;
and when spoken of in college always had Sir prefixed to their names.
My room-mate was Sir Holly (Dr. Horace Holly). As a mere freshman I
looked up to my room-mate with great respect and treated him
accordingly. We had no servants to wait on us, except that a man came
every morning to make our beds and sweep the room, and once a week to
scatter clean white sand on the floor. I rose early--generally before
six in winter--made the fire, and then went, pitcher in hand, often
wading through snow, for water for Sir Holly and myself. At that time
the freshmen occupied in part the place of sizers in the English
universities, and they were required to run errands for the seniors. Our
meals were taken in a large hall with a kitchen opening into it. The
students were arranged at tables according to their classes. All sat on
wooden benches, not excepting the tutors; the latter had a table to
themselves on an elevated platform whence they had a view of the whole
company. But it was rather difficult for them to attend to their plates
and to watch two hundred boys at the same time. Salt beef once a day and
dry cod were perhaps the most usual dishes. On Sunday mornings during
the winter our breakfast-tables were graced with large tin milk-cans
filled with stewed oysters; at the proper season we were occasionally
treated at dinner with green peas. As you may suppose, a goodly number
of waiters were needed in the hall. These were all students, and many of
them among the best and most esteemed scholars. About half-past five in
winter the bell summoned us from our beds, and at six it called us to
prayers in the chapel. We next repaired to the recitation-rooms and
recited by candle-light the lessons we had studied the preceding
evening. At eight we had breakfast, and at nine the bell warned us to
our rooms. At twelve it called us to a recitation or a lecture. After
dinner we recommenced our studies and recited for the third time at four
o'clock. During study hours the tutors would frequently go the rounds,
looking into our rooms to see that we were not playing truant. Before
supper, we all attended evening prayers in the chapel."
The presidency of the college was then occupied by Dr. Timothy Dwight,
who also gave instruction in _belles-lettres_, oratory, and theology. To
him Jay wrote in 1818: "I retain a grateful recollection of your kind
attention to me, and I have, and trust will ever have, reason to
acknowledge the goodness of Providence in placing me under your care,
when many of my opinions were to be formed and my principles
established." Still later, he wrote to a college friend: "Your remarks
on Dr. Dwight are grateful to my heart. I cherish his memory as one of
the best friends I ever had."
In his senior year Jay took part in debates among the students, presided
over by Dr. Dwight. Some of the subjects discussed were: "Ought infidels
to be excluded from office?" "Ought religion to be supported by law?"
"Would a division of the Union be politic?" "Would it be politic to
encourage manufactures in the United States?" On the last question Dr.
Dwight remarked: "We shall always buy things where we can get them the
cheapest; we will never make our commodities so long as we can buy them
better and cheaper elsewhere." Jay displayed his natural inclination for
the law by contributing a series of articles on legal subjects, over the
signature of "Coke," to the _Literary Cabinet_, the students' paper. He
took his degree in September, 1807, having injured his eyesight in his
efforts to attain a high standing in his class. "During the winter of my
junior year," he wrote in warning to his grandson William, "I was
struggling hard for honours, and trying to make up for lost time; I used
to rise about four o'clock, light my fire, and sit down to the study of
conic sections. I brought on a weakness in my eyes which lasted several
years. Be sure you never rise before the sun and study your Latin and
Greek by candle-light or gas-light."
After graduation Jay went to Albany and began the study of the law in
the office of John B. Henry. On the 3d of September, 1812, he married
Augusta, daughter of John McVickar, a merchant of New York, and
vestryman of Trinity Church. The difficulty with his eyesight, which had
seriously interfered with his legal studies, became so pronounced as to
compel him to abandon his profession for some years. During this period
he retired with his wife to his father's country seat, "Bedford," in
Westchester County, and there devoted himself with energy to
agricultural pursuits. The farm included about eight hundred acres, part
of a tract purchased by Jacobus van Cortlandt from Katonah Sagamore and
other Indian chieftains in 1700, and confirmed by patent of Queen Anne
in 1704. It had come to Chief-Justice Jay partly through his mother,
Mary van Cortlandt, the wife of Peter Jay, and partly through her
sister, Eve van Cortlandt, the wife of Judge John Chambers.
[Illustration: The Jay House at Bedford.]
Of the forty fields into which the farm was divided, Jay kept a separate
account: showing the tillage and produce, the drainage and fencing, the
dates of planting and reaping. A volume of this kind, begun in 1816,
contained entries as late as 1857, the year before his death. He
perfected himself in grafting and budding, and was particularly
successful with peaches, with cherries, pears and plums, some of them
with Huguenot names and memories, and with muskmelons from Persian seed,
brought to him from the East by a friend. He raised horses from imported
stock, Merino sheep, and superintended the curing of hams from a
Westphalian recipe, furnished by an old Hessian farm hand--one of the
hirelings who had come to conquer and remained to cultivate the country.
In 1818 Jay and Fenimore Cooper drafted the constitution for an
agricultural society of which Governor Jay was the first president and
General Pierre van Cortlandt the second--an institution of great use in
the development of Westchester County.
In 1815, when twenty-six years of age, Jay entered upon that course of
active philanthropy which for the next forty years employed his thoughts
and pen. His first effort was directed to the improvement of his native
town of Bedford in the organization of the Society for the Suppression
of Vice. By means of this society, of which he was the secretary, he did
much to restrain the liquor traffic and to diminish intemperance. Later
on, as a judge, he used all the power of the law to the same end; and it
was he who suggested the law, still in force, which forbids a
tavern-keeper to supply drink on credit.
An interesting incident in this early period of his life was the part
which he bore in founding the American Bible Society, in organizing its
machinery for the immense work it had to perform, and in vindicating the
principles of the society against the attacks of the opposing party in
his own church. In this struggle Jay proved the independence of
character and courage of conviction which afterwards distinguished him
through the seemingly hopeless years of antislavery effort. The general
distribution of Bibles in our day makes it difficult to appreciate the
limited supply, the high cost, and the consequent rarity of the Bible
when this society began its work. The High-Church party in New York were
opposed to the association of Episcopalians with other Christians to
circulate the Bible, and opposed even to the distribution of the Bible,
unless accompanied by the Prayer-book as an interpreter. In these views
they were vigorously supported by their distinguished leader, Bishop
John Henry Hobart. Jay, who had inherited with his Huguenot blood a
faith in the Bible not to be restrained by ecclesiastical assumption,
was an officer of the Westchester Bible Society and deeply interested in
the work. On the appearance of a pastoral letter from Bishop Hobart in
which the High-Church views were expressed, he published a pamphlet
showing that it was "the interest and duty of Episcopalians to unite
with their fellow-Christians of all denominations in spreading the
knowledge of the Word of God." This pamphlet brought him into an active
conflict with the eminent bishop which lasted for several years, and
taught him that a philanthropic cause, even so plainly meritorious, was
not to be carried on without the opposition of powerful conservative
interests.
Convinced that a national society could accomplish more than the local
and scattered State Bible societies, Jay published a pamphlet in 1816
which showed the imperative importance of the work, and urged united
action. At the same time the venerable Elias Boudinot of New Jersey was
exerting himself to the same end. When he received a letter from Jay
enclosing the pamphlet, he thus welcomed his youthful ally: "These
precious moments I have devoted to a full consideration of one of the
greatest and most interesting subjects that has ever concerned the
children of men. Weak and feeble and scarcely able to think or write,
my efforts promised but little in the cause, when your welcome and
unexpected letter was brought in. My drooping spirits were raised and my
mind greatly revived. I could not help giving glory to God for the great
encouragement afforded me to press on in this glorious cause, when I
thus beheld His special mercy in raising up so powerful a support in
this joyous work and labour of love." In the same year the American
Bible Society was formed with the assistance of the best names in the
country. Elias Boudinot was chosen president, with John Jay and Matthew
Clarkson, a gallant officer of the Revolution, as vice-presidents.
Others on the roll were: John Langdon, the statesman of New Hampshire;
William Gray, the eminent merchant of Boston; the scholarly John Cotton
Smith, of Connecticut, with the blood of the Cottons and the Mathers of
colonial history; William Tighlman, the jurist of Pennsylvania; William
Wirt and Bushrod Washington, of Virginia; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,
of South Carolina; Governor Worthington, of Ohio; John Bolton, of
Georgia; Felix Grundy, of Tennessee; and of New York: Dr. John B.
Romeyne; Colonel Richard Varick, Washington's aide; Daniel D. Tompkins,
the Governor who obtained the abolition of slavery in the State; John
Pintard, John Aspinwall, Jeremiah Evarts, Frederic de Peyster, George
Griffin, De Witt Clinton, the Patroon Stephen van Rensselaer, and
Colonel Henry Rutgers.
Notwithstanding the honourable support given to the society, it had to
resist a carefully organized assault on the part of Bishop Hobart and an
influential portion of his clergy aimed at the vital principle on which
the success of the movement depended--the cordial union of all
Christians. Jay's previous training in the same field of controversy,
his staunch devotion at once to his cause and to his church, designated
him as the proper person to carry on, in behalf of the society, the war
of letters and pamphlets which ensued. Although pitted against an
adversary to whom age, experience, and station gave great advantages, he
acquitted himself with credit, displaying literary and reasoning powers
which were soon to exert a potent effect upon the great moral issue of
our time.
Other questions of a philanthropic character occupied his pen. The Synod
of Albany having offered a prize for the best essay on the observance of
the Sabbath, Jay competed for it with success. A more notable incident
of the same sort occurred in 1828. The Savannah Anti-duelling
Association offered a medal for the best argument against duelling. The
committee appointed to judge the essays were: John Cummings; James M.
Wayne, subsequently appointed by President Jackson a justice of the
Supreme Court; R. W. Habersham, afterwards Governor of Georgia; William
Law; and Matthew Hall McAllister, mayor of Savannah and an opponent of
Nullification in 1832. That in 1828 these Southern men were seeking to
root out the habit of duelling, and that the prize should have been
awarded by them to William Jay, is a curious commentary on the
connection between slavery and duelling. At this time both practices had
their opponents at the South who were allowed to express their opinions.
As the grip of slavery increased in strength and closed the mouth of
every objector, anti-duelling sentiment was simultaneously extinguished.
Both barbarous practices were to increase and to perish together. Jay's
essay could then find praise among men who a few years later would not
tolerate in their homes any product of his pen.
In May, 1818, Jay was appointed one of the judges of Westchester County.
The mention of the fact in his diary closed with the words, "May I have
grace to discharge with fidelity the duties of the station." Two years
later a commission from Governor Clinton made him the first judge of the
county, an office which he held until 1823, when the adoption of the new
constitution terminated all offices under the old one. Fenimore Cooper
then wrote to him, "I see that you are unhorsed with other clever
fellows." But in response to a general demand, Governor Clinton
reappointed him under the new constitution, and he continued to hold
office under successive governors of different parties until 1843, when
he was displaced by Governor Bouck at the demand of the pro-slavery wing
of the democracy. A decision of Jay's, rejecting a witness who declared
his un-belief in God, occurred when De Tocqueville was in the United
States, and was commented upon by the distinguished Frenchman as having
been accepted by the press without comment, and as showing that the
American people combined the notions of Christianity and of liberty so
intimately that it was impossible to make them conceive of the one
without the other, and that they held religion to be indispensable to
the maintenance of republican institutions. In 1862, soon after Jay's
death, when an attempt was made by a pro-slavery faction in the county
to remove his portrait from the court-house at White Plains, it was
defeated by a protest of the members of the bar. "Many of us," they
said, "were well acquainted with Judge Jay, and can speak from personal
knowledge of those high qualities which have given him an historic
celebrity. Whilst he entertained and vigorously vindicated decided
opinions on certain questions which have much divided society and
produced much acrimony of feeling--in which many of us did not
sympathize with him--yet we can all bear testimony to the noble
frankness and sincerity of his nature, to his deep interest in all
questions tending to advance the interest of the race, and to the
extraordinary intellectual strength displayed by him on all occasions in
giving expression to his convictions."
In the early years of Jay's life, it appears that his mind turned
naturally toward philanthropic subjects. His moral sense was largely
developed, his conscience active, his humanity aggressive. His own
comfortable circumstances did not close his heart to the sufferings of
others. His generous nature longed to replace evil by good. And in the
cause which his conscience approved, no obloquy nor social unpopularity
could impede his progress. At the same time, there was about him nothing
of the intemperate agitator. He was a judge and brought to his
philanthropic labours a judicial habit of mind. Indeed, it was this
habit of mind which distinguished him among his fellow-workers in the
antislavery cause. It was his mission to urge emancipation with the
Constitution in his hand; to meet in conflict that portion of society
which silenced its uneasy conscience by a repetition of constitutional
provisions, and at the same time to combat those who were inclined to
seek emancipation by unconstitutional means.
His quiet country life, in which healthful out-of-door pursuits were
mingled with the study and reflection of his library, particularly
fitted him to look at this all-important question with calmness, with
consideration for both sides, and yet with the vigour of a mind free to
work exhaustively on a subject involving many conflicting theories and
duties. He brought to his task real talents, literary and polemic; a
style ready and concise; a reasoning enlivened by an effective vein of
irony. He had a refined and benevolent countenance, a pleasing manner,
a temper even, but easily roused to indignation at the sight of
injustice. Before considering his first connection with the antislavery
movement, we may glance at its situation in the early manhood of William
Jay.