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