3.3: John Jay, and the failure of American Foreign Policy

John Jay was a member of both Continental Congresses, served as ambassador to Spain during the later years of the American Revolution, helped negotiate the Peace of Paris that ended that war, authored a series of essays that became collectively known as The Federalist Papers, was appointed the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and resigned upon his election as Governor of New York…but not before negotiating an economic treaty with our former foes, Great Britain.  The man led an accomplished life, but why isn’t his name mentioned with other political titans of the era?  This episode looks at how the United States failed to successfully negotiate with European powers, specifically Spain, using this man as our conduit: John Jay and the Failings of American Foreign Policy.

Key People
John Jay
Don Diego de Gardoqui
Sarah Jay

Key Events
American Revolution
Articles of Confederation
Jay-Gardoqui Treaty
Chisolm v. Georgia

The third season of History: Beyond the Textbook focuses on the stories of individuals who shaped "America's Crucial Years" of 1783-1790, and runs from October 8-December 24. Catch up on Season One, "America's Colonial Era," and Season Two, "America's Revolution," wherever you listen to your podcasts!

Feel free to contact us with feedback or questions by clicking the "Send Us a Text" link or email us at: hbttpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

He’s America’s Forgotten Founding Father…alright, let’s stop right there.  As we’ve already seen this season, John Dickinson and Robert Morris could lay claim to that title.  Dr. Joseph Warren, whom we covered last season in episode 2.4, might fit this bill.  Even Common Sense author Thomas Paine could fall under this banner, although he might better be classified as an “unofficial Founding Father.”  Yet out of all potential candidates for this moniker, including ones that we won’t have time to cover on the podcast, today’s subject appears to most aptly fit the bill.  John Jay was a member of both Continental Congresses, served as ambassador to Spain during the later years of the American Revolution, helped negotiate the Peace of Paris that ended that war, authored a series of essays that became collectively known as The Federalist Papers, was appointed the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and resigned upon his election as Governor of New York…but not before negotiating an economic treaty with our former foes, Great Britain.  The man led an accomplished life, but why isn’t his name mentioned with other political titans of the era…and how do his actions typify struggles that the fledgling United States had to contend with following the American Revolution?  In this episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, we’ll take a look at how the United States failed to successfully negotiate with European powers, specifically Spain, using this man as our conduit: John Jay and the Failings of American Foreign Policy.

Act I: Help Us Out!

We’ll absolutely focus on our relations with England and France in the coming seasons, but Spain sometimes gets left behind in foreign policy analyses of early American history.  A bit of context in this act will help set the stage.

Going back to the very first episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, the one that focused on Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Spain was the first European nation that dove headfirst into exploration, colonization, and subjugation of the Western Hemisphere.  Conquistadors followed in the wake of Columbus and the Spanish Crown moved to consolidate their power on these landholdings that were expensive to maintain and often difficult to administer.  The Great Southwest Revolt masterminded by Po’Pay, as we learned about in episode 1.9 back in season one, is one illustrative example of the declining power of Spain in North America.  It’s not as if their grip on power remained ironfisted in South and Central America, but as our focus is on the United States, we’ll keep our attention there.  They claimed a presence in parts of modern-day Florida, Texas, and the American West and Southwest, but it largely belonged to them in name only.  Sure, look at a map and this land would be labeled “Spanish Territory,” but the reality was that their grasp on the land was tenuous at best and the residents were often open to raids from the highly mobile Comanche and Apache.  Yet the Spanish still viewed the world as if it was the 1500 and 1600’s, when their maritime empire reigned supreme and the Spanish piece of eight, a silver coin, was the equivalent of the world’s first global currency.  However, they were in decline by the mid-1700’s, and it didn’t help matters much that they selected the losing side in the Seven Years’ War.   This meant that they, along with their French allies, sought ways to recover from this disastrous defeat and knock the upstart British from their high horse.  It was this rationale that convinced American politicians to attempt to bring Spain, along with France, into the fold as allies against the British during the Revolution.  France, of course, would ally with the United States following the former’s victory at Saratoga in upstate New York, with Spain entering the war against the British in 1779.  Note the careful choice of wording: “entering the war against the British.”  Not as American allies, but more in line with honoring their alliance with France.  Spanish recognition of the United States as a nation would have to wait, and this hesitation would spill over into the post-war period when Spain flexed what little muscle they had remaining in North America.  The recipient of this knockout, and the individual who tried to deal with Spain during the war, was none other than the subject of today’s episode: John Jay.

Act II: Getting Diplomatic

Today’s subject, John Jay, was born into a well-to-do New York family in 1745; “well-to-do” because his mother was descendent of a prominent Dutch family.  His parents could afford to send him to school, and then hire a private tutor, prior to his enrollment at King’s College in New York CIty in 1760, a transformative year that has frequently been mentioned in previous episodes.  Like so many who have been bestowed the moniker “Founding Father,” Jay entered the legal profession and would remain employed in this field into the 1770’s.  Jay’s political career more or less began in the wake of the Boston Tea Party when a lesser known “New York Tea Party” occurred, and New York City convened a committee to consider the Intolerable Acts that were starting to filter across the Atlantic.  One result of his membership would be his selection as one of New York’s representatives to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where his reputation as a conservative began to shift when reports of British troops in Boston reached the Congress, along with the radical Suffolk Resolves that were authored by Dr. Joseph Warren.  Jay would support these measures, but men like Dr. Benjamin Franklin still would suspect that his loyalties lay with Great Britain, and his endorsement and alleged draft of the Olive Branch Petition didn’t allay these concerns.  John Jay would be in New York as a member of the Provincial Congress when the Declaration of Independence was voted on, but as a member of that Congress, he would take the lead in encouraging adoption of this measure.

Jay would remain primarily involved in state government in the early years of the war, and when he was elected to serve in the Continental Congress, he was appointed its president, which basically meant that he would preside over the proceedings.  It also meant that he had a firsthand view of how difficult it was to accomplish anything, as our previous episodes this season have demonstrated.  Jay presided, Jay wrote letters on behalf of the Congress, and Jay became frustrated with the lack of action.  In 1779, John would be appointed Minister to Spain and attempt to convince the Spanish to enter the Revolution on the American side; France had already endorsed the Americans, so why not persuade their occasional ally?  His wife Sarah, whom he wed in 1774, would join him on this journey that included a stopover on the Caribbean island of Martinique before landing in Cadiz.  Jay was eventually welcomed in Madrid by King Charles III, but attempts at negotiating an alliance went nowhere.  It was also during his time in Spain that Jay would learn the importance that the Spanish placed on the Mississippi River, having experienced its grandeur for some time.  He would also meet Don Diego de Gardoqui for the first time, and Gardoqui even suggested that America relinquish all claims to the Mississippi River in exchange for a sizable portion of financial aid: Jay said no.  Spain would ultimately officially ally with France, but not with the Americans, although Jay’s experience gave him valuable diplomatic experience, and this, combined with his geographic proximity to Paris, made him an ideal candidate to form the American diplomatic team in Paris to negotiate the end of the war.

Act III: Struggles with Europe

John Jay and his wife Sarah returned from Europe in 1784, with the former having successfully played a role in negotiating the Peace of Paris and ending the American Revolution.  Of the American trio that negotiated the deal with England, John Adams would remain in Europe as envoy to England, and Ben Franklin wouldn’t return for another year, so John Jay had the aura of successfully ending the war.  He had rock solid revolutionary credentials, experience with foreign nations, and was an established politician: the Confederation Congress believed that he was the perfect choice to take on the role of Foreign Secretary, meaning that he would be responsible for negotiating with foreign countries on behalf of the United States.  This Congress was so eager for him to accept the position that they agreed to all of his requests, including allowing Jay to appoint his own staff and for the Congress to move their entire operation to New York City so Jay could more easily conduct his business.  In hindsight, we know that the nation;’s working capital had already moved multiple times up to this point, so what’s one more move…but it still is a testament to the respect that Jay commanded in early America…or perhaps the weakness of the Congress as a whole at this time.  Granted, this was the United States under the Articles of Confederation, and this document didn’t exactly spell out what Congress was allowed to do regarding foreign powers.  Rather, it specified what states were and were not allowed to do with regard to treaties and alliances, and it stated that at least nine of the thirteen states needed to sign off on any treaty or alliance to make them official.  Other than that, ambiguity ruled the day when it came to foreign negotiations.

It was this ambiguous nature that hindered John Jay when it came time for him to negotiate with Spain regarding the nature of their border with the United States.  He was audacious enough to request that all governors forward their correspondence related to foreign policy to him, although none of them actually did this.  He had hoped that his role as Foreign Secretary would give him sweeping powers to pursue actions that would lead to a more cohesive and more United States.  He was out of the country when the Articles of Confederation laid bare that the real power lay with the states, and any sense of unity was due to a common desire to defeat England; this was gone with the signing of the Peace of Paris.  Each state had their own agenda and their lack of cohesion flew in the face of Jay’s nationalistic leanings.  This led to a frustrated John Jay, who couldn’t even conduct business with England because individual states wouldn’t honor the terms of the peace.  It also didn’t help that the British weren’t keeping up their end of the bargain by continuing to garrison their western forts in anticipation of the collapse of the young nation, but despite their wartime defeat, the British were acting from a position of strength, whereas Jay’s hands were tied.   

This all leads to our main event, and our final failure of the Articles of Confederation: the inability to negotiate a treaty with Spain regarding the use of the Mississippi River.  Keep in mind that John Jay was the primary driver behind the clause in the Peace of Paris that set the western boundary of the United States at the Mississippi River, and he also insisted on this border the previous year when he was awaiting Spanish recognition of the United States while stationed in Madrid.  The terms of the peace would allow the United States access to the river for commercial reasons, which was critical for frontier farmers, among others.  Anyone west of the mountains, be they the Appalachians or Allegheny, would have a tough time attempting to transport their goods through said mountains to the markets in the east.  It was much faster, and cheaper, to use natural waterways that connected to the mighty Mississippi River, send the goods on barges down the River through the Gulf of Mexico, and sail them up to the East Coast.  As historian Joseph J. Ellis stated, “On the North American continent, the Mississippi was the Nile, the Amazon, and the Danube all rolled into one,” so procuring the use of this highway was everything…and John Jay was the man who was to make it happen.  However, the lack of national government in which he was forced to operate would significantly hinder his efforts.

Act IV: Failed Treaty, Successful Legacy

In June 1785, six months following Jay’s assumption of his post as Foreign Secretary, Spain sent their ambassador to the United States: Don Diego de Gardoqui, whom we met back in Act II.  Keep in mind that pretty much everything west of the Mississippi River was claimed by Spain, along with the vital port city of New Orleans, which more or less provided access to the Mississippi River.  Girdoqui informed Secretary Jay that Spain would be restricting the Americans from using the southern portion of the Mississippi River, thus denying western farmers access to New Orleans, and thus, the easiest market for their goods.  This was because Spain was officially forced to cede the land south of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi…but they had never agreed to it, so they didn’t recognize it.  In his negotiations, some of which had begun in secret, Jay was explicitly instructed by Congress that he was not to give up any navigation rights on the Mississippi River, rights he fought hard for in his end-of-war discussions with the British.  However, Jay was pragmatic enough to understand that his nation was in no position to attempt to strong-arm any nation into acquiescing to their demands…even if that nation was one that was lingering to the image of their mighty imperial past.  Therefore, Jay decided to agree to this demand, which he believed would only be temporary, in exchange for what was called “most favored nation” status with Spain.  This economic agreement meant that when it came to American imports, Spain would offer the Americans the best possible price for all incoming goods with the exception of tobacco.  Robert Morris was no longer in his role of Superintendent of Finance by this time, so Jay had no problem dealing in economic matters as well as political ones.  Acting for the good of the nation as a whole is exactly the type of behavior one could expect from John Jay, who had demonstrated sound judgment on such issues in the past.

This, however, was not how it was viewed in Congress, which bear in mind, required nine of the thirteen states to sign off on any treaty for ratification.  The short version is that this threshold was not achieved and Foreign Secretary Jay had to inform Ambassador Girdoqui that their treaty was dead on arrival.  The slightly longer version is that many of America’s merchants were concentrated in the North, along with industries that supported such enterprises.  They stood to gain much from America’s “most favored nation” status with Spain and thus greeted the prospect of the Jay-Girdoqui Treaty with glee.  The Southerners, on the other hand, stood in opposition to this treaty.  They were aghast at the rumors that Spanish officials were attempting to secure citizenship from western Americans in exchange for the ability to use New Orleans, and additionally believed that giving up the Mississippi, even for the 25 years that Jay was proposing, would lead to the long-term inability to harness the West as a viable instrument of American control of North America.  It was certainly true that John Jay, nationalist as he was, was like many easterners who feared that the West would one day overpower the older, more established eastern cities and states; kind of like “old money” resenting and turning up their noses at “new money” upstarts.  However, he was wholly unprepared for the stiff and fierce resistance of the Southern Congressmen, led by Virginian James Monroe, to his proposed treaty.  With Delaware unable to vote due to lack of quorum, seven states voted in favor of the treaty, five voted against it…a majority, but two short of the nine required under the Articles of Confederation.  Brilliant politician that he was, even John Jay was unable to overcome the barriers that this document placed in the way of his ability to act in the nation’s best interest.

As for the rest of Jay’s story?  Well, it seems unfair to sum the rest of his life and accomplishments up so quickly, but here we go!

John Jay would not be present in Philadelphia for the pivotal convention that resulted in the drafting of the Constitution because his nomination wasn’t approved.  The governor of New York, George Clinton, was Jay’s political opposite, so he attempted to stack the New York delegation with those who shared his opinion.  Despite these efforts, the Constitution would carry a significant nationalist bent, shaped in large part by New York delegate Alexander Hamilton, and Jay would attempt to convince New Yorkers at the ratification convention that the Constitution should be adopted.  He wrote five of the essays that would comprise the Federalist Papers before he was bedridden with illness, but his pen makes it clear that he was fervently on the side of national unity, even arguing that rejecting the Constitution would lead to increased factionalism.  Once the new government was in place, John Jay became the trendy pick for a number of positions.  James Madison felt that his character qualified Jay to become Secretary of the Treasury, but Jay flat out rejected such a notion.  As Secretary for Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation, it seemed natural for him to assume the same role, but Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was his preferred position, and he made this clear in a sit-down meeting with President George Washington.  Little has been made of Jay’s time as Chief Justice, mainly because the primary duties of the Supreme Court consisted of “riding the circuit,” or riding from town-to-town to decide cases.  Interestingly enough, one of his most impactful decisions was overturned: in Chisolm v. Georgia, a merchant who sold cloth to the state during the war wasn’t compensated, and the executor of his estate sued.  The state claimed that they held sovereign status and could not legally be sued, so the Supreme Court was to decide this case.  In these days, each justice wrote and presented their own opinion, and Jay’s opinion was that individuals did have a right to sue the states in federal court, even though it was commonly agreed upon prior to the Constitution that this was not the case.  What is interesting about this is that it was overturned less than two years later: the Eleventh Amendment would limit that ability of individuals to sue states in federal court.  His career concluded with the negotiation of a significant treaty with England, and the passage of a gradual emancipation law as New York Governor, a position which he resigned as Chief Justice to accept.  John Jay may have suffered from the failings of foreign policy in the years following the Revolution, but his efforts under the new national government would allow it to eventually flourish.

Next week, we continue our story of America’s Crucial years by transitioning from the failures of the Articles of Confederation to a position way out west; we’re talking Pacific Coast, west.  We’ll deal with the west in our next three episode arc and start by exploring Fray Junipero Serra and the complicated colonization of California.