address to the King. It soon became apparent, however, that their superiority consisted in powers of eloquence alone. The address of Lee fell far short of the high expectations that had been raised. Its reading disappointed the whole assembly. "After all," remarked Mr. Chase, with that quick perception and ready boldness which so strongly characterized his mind, "they are but men, and very common men, too After some faint and equivocal compliments, the address was laid on the table, and Gov. Livingston, and John Jay were appointed upon the committee. The result was, as we have seen, the production of an address which the Congress adopted-an address worthy of the men and of the occasion, and fully equal to the crisis which called it forth.

Mr. Jay was now actively and warmly enlisted in the cause of the Colonies. A full review of his career from the time when he first took his seat as a delegate in Congress to the period when he accepted the Spanish mission, would comprise a record of the history of the Colonial struggle. The limits of the present sketch will not permit a detail, much less a discussion of these stirring events, and all that can be admitted here, is to indicate generally and briefly, the part taken in them by the subject of this memoir.

The first Revolutionary Congress, after a brief session, adjourned to meet again on the 10th of May in the following year. Accordingly, at that time, the Congress assembled at Philadelphia. It continued its session, with the exception of a brief recess in the month of August, during the remainder of the year. The decisive action which attended the deliberations of this Congress is well-known. The crisis was now at hand-the battle of Lexington had been fought-the alternative presented was armed resistance, or abject submission and slavery. A new set of ideas seemed to have been developed. The reyolutionary mind had been ripened and matured in a

* Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry.

day. A profound lesson of experience had been learned, and a vast stride taken in the direction of Colonial independence. It was no longer, as at the opening of the first Congress, a question of non-importation-of peaceable remonstrance. The aspect of affairs had changed, and it had become a question, which might well have made the boldest hesitate, of armed, open, determined, and manly resistance. But the men of the Continental Congress did not falter. The crisis was met, boldly and manfully; an army was organized; Washington appointed commander-in-chief; subordinate officers nominated, among whom, on motion of Mr. Jay, John Sullivan, a modest and unobtrusive delegate from New Hampshire, was commissioned a Brigadier-General in the American army.

The important part taken by Mr. Jay in the deliberations of this Congress must be passed hastily over, and I can barely allude to a few prominent public acts in which he was engaged. His active and vigorous pen was almost ceaselessly at work, and his voice was frequently heard in the deliberations of the assembly. He was a member of the committee which prepared the Declaration setting forth the causes and necessity of the Colonies taking up arms. * He was also upon the committee appointed to carry out the measure originated by himself, of presenting a petition to the sovereign to redress the grievances of the Colonies, the rejection of which left no alternative but armed resistance. By direction of Congress he prepared an address to the people of Canada. He also wrote the celebrated address to the people of Jamaica and Ireland, in which he depicted in vivid colors the injuries which the Colonies had suffered, and traced the origin of their rights and the grounds of their resistance.

* Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Dickinson were subsequently added to this committee. The address of the committee was drawn by Jefferson, but being considered “too bold," it was remodelled by Mr. Dickinson. It is a remarkable fact that this address, though reported only a year before the Declaration of Independence, disclaims all design to dissolve the union between Great Britain and the Colonies.

Though a less prominent member of this Congress than some of his distinguished compatriots-though neither a Henry, a Rutledge, nor an Adams, in the rare gifts of an impassioned eloquence--still it is not claiming too high a distinction for the zeal, patriotism, ability, and modest worth of John Jay, to place him in the very front rank of those illustrious men who laid the foundations of the Republic.

The Continental Congress, it is well known, was a mere convention of delegates, a body, organized, it is true, but without specific objects, real authority, or definite powers. The Congress was of itself neither a sovereignty nor the representative of a sovereignty. The union of the colonies was little more than a league, and even after the declaration of independence it was a league scarcely of independent States, for though social institutions remained, yet the political fabric had been swept away by revolution, and the labor of organization and reconstruction was yet to be done. This was the work of some of the best and wisest men in the respective States of the confederacy. In the State of New York it was eminently the work of John Jay.

While yet a delegate in Congress, Mr. Jay had been elected, in the month of April, 1776, to the New York Colonial Convention. He took his seat in that body on the 25th of May, without resigning his commission as a member of Congress. It seems to have been his intention to return, but the New York Convention required his attendance, and, as he informs his colleague, Mr. Duane, "directed me not to leave them till further orders." And thus he was deprived of the honor of affixing his signature to the Declaration of Independence. But while his name is not attached to that noble instrument, the records of the New York Provincial Convention attest the warmth and ardor of his approval of the act. From the committee to which it was referred in the Convention, Mr. Jay as chairman reported immediately the following resolution, which was unanimously . adopted:

"Resolved, unanimously, That the reasons assigned by the Continental Congress for declaring these united Colonies free and independent States, are cogent and conclusive, and that while we lament the cruel necessity which has rendered that measure unavoidable, we approve the same, and will at the risk of our lives and fortunes, join with the other colonies in supporting it."

This resolution was adopted on the day of the opening of the Convention, July 9th, 1776. It is somewhat remarkable that though Chancellor Livingston was a member of the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence, of which Jefferson was chairman, yet his name is not found attached to that instrument. The fact is, that though the declaration purports to be "the unanimous declaration," etc., yet the Chancellor and some other members of Congress thought it premature. Indeed the whole New York delegation asked and obtained leave to retire, on the ground, that having been appointed when a reconciliation with Great Britain was possible, they did not regard themselves as empowered to sign this important manifesto. None of the New York members signed it until after it was approved by the New York Convention; and it was not until the 15th of July that their signatures were actually placed to the Declaration. To John Jay, therefore, though his name does not appear attached to that celebrated instrument, is justly due the credit of having promptly and boldly taken the first official step toward the recognition by the State of New York of American Independence.

The new State Convention was called in pursuance of a resolution of the Continental Congress, recommending to the respective Colonies the adoption of independent governments. The former Assembly, to which Mr. Jay had been summoned from his seat in Congress, having been convened while the Colony was yet under the government of the Crown, had been established for the sole purpose of opposing the encroachments of the British parliament, and not with a view of declaring the Colony independent and establishing a new form of government.

To remove all doubts whether the Assembly was invested with authority to deliberate and act upon these important questions, the Colonial assembly, on the 31st of May, had, on motion of Mr. Jay, called a Convention to constitute and establish a new government. This body met at White Plains on the 9th of July, 1776, and, as has been noticed, immediately ratified and confirmed unanimously the Declaration of the Independence of the Colonies. This first decisive step having been taken, nothing remained but to establish a constitution and organize the new government.

The Convention comprised a large share of the best intellect and worth of the Colony. Mr. Jay found himself associated with such men as Philip Livingston and James Duane of New York, Robert R. Livingston of Dutchess, the future Chancellor, Leonard Gansevoort and Robert Van Rensselaer of Albany, Gouverneur Morris, Pierre Van Cortlandt and Lewis Morris of Westchester. It is certainly no small compliment to the ability and character of Mr. Jay, still a young man, but little more than thirty years of age, that in a Convention numbering among its members such men as the Livingstons, the Morrisses, and their illustrious associates, he should have been selected as the delegate to be charged with the responsible and arduous duty of drafting a Constitution for the new Commonwealth. Being assigned this duty and placed at the head of the committee created for that purpose during the first month of the Convention, he at once directed the whole power of his mind, and the resources of his political experience and judicial learning to attain the great end in view, namely the drafting of a Constitution fit to be established as the fundamental law of a free people.

It may here be remarked, that the idea of a written Constitution, emanating from and sanctioned by the people, as the basis of government and political and social rights, if not entirely a novel idea, was at least, practically, an untried experiment, prior to the formation of the State Constitutions. It had been hinted at