John Jay Research Paper

John Jay was born in New York City on December 12, 1745. John’s parents were Peter Jay and Mary Anna Van Courtland. His maternal family was of solid Dutch American background. They were the Van Cortlandts. Jay’s grandfather was Jacobus Van Cortlandt that served New York City twice as its mayor. Jay attended King’s College, which after independence became Columbia College and eventually Columbia University. As college graduation getting closer, he clerked as a law clerk, passed the New York Bar exam, and began practicing law in 1768. As a young lawyer in New York in 1768, John was very much in demand to serve his country. He graduated from King's College in 1764.

Early in the American Revolution, Jay was appointed to the New York Committee of Correspondence, the Continental Congress, and the New York Provincial Congress. He helped draft a construction for New York and served as the state's chief justice until 1779. He was President of the Continental Congress in 1778-79. Jay's agreement between countries was a controversial political episode in 1795. Despite the Treaty of Paris, signed with Britain in September of 1783, the British were causing problems. Washington sent Jay to London in 1794 to try to negotiate a solution to these …show more content…
This was a surprise to him since he had not even been asked if he would serve. In fact, he was not even in the country when the voting began. Alexander Hamilton was in charge of Federalist Party politics in New York and he had a firm thought that Jay should be elected Governor on the Federalist ticket. Jay was in London at the time negotiating with the British. When he returned on May 28th, 1795, the voting process was well under way. On June 5 the official result was that he had been elected by a majority of 1,589 votes. Jay was forced to retire from the Supreme Court, though he would not have chosen to do so, because his friends in New York had called him to