Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Jay, John

John Jay was a politician, statesman, and the first chief justice of the Supreme Court. He was one

of the authors of The Federalist, a collection of influential papers written with JAMES MADISON and ALEXANDER HAMILTON prior to the ratification of the Constitution.

Jay was born in New York City on December 12, 1745. Unlike most of the colonists in the New World, who were English, Jay traced his ancestry to the French Huguenots, His grandfather, August Jay, immigrated to New York in the late seventeenth century to escape the persecution of non-Catholics under Louis XIV. Jay graduated from King's College, now known as Columbia University, in 1764. He was admitted to the bar in New York City in 1768.

One of Jay's earliest achievements was his participation in the settlement of the...