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Hello and thank you for joining the American revolution this week. Episode 387 the Jay Treaty Imagine walking through a major city and seeing crowds of people seething in anger to the point where they are guillotining or burning in effigy. The Chief justice of the United States this is exactly what happened in many towns and cities across America in the summer of 1795. The focus of their wrath was Chief Justice John Jay. This wasn't over any Supreme Court decision. Instead, it was over a treaty that Jay had negotiated with Britain to prevent another war between the two countries. It would become known as the Jay Treaty, perhaps the most hated treaty in all of American history. To understand the reasons for this level of hatred, we need to understand why the US Needed this treaty and why it was so controversial. As we've discussed over the last few episodes, pretty much all of Europe was at war with France in the early 1790s following the French Revolution. The US still struggling under debts from the Revolutionary War, was in no mood to get involved in a new war. President Washington desperately tried to maintain U S neutrality that would prevent the necessity to spend money on a wartime army and navy while still trying to maintain the trade necessary to fund the government through tariffs. It was with this concern that Washington sent John Jay to Britain to negotiate a treaty. The friction between British Britain and the US Never really ended after the Revolutionary War. Many people in Britain thought that the 1783 peace treaty was really just a temporary measure so that they could stop the fighting in America and focus on the war with France and Spain. Over time, these British leaders believed that the former colonies would find themselves in trouble without a large power to protect them and that they would eventually want to return to the British Empire. As a result, these advocates wanted to keep the new United States in as miserable a condition as possible. Until they made that decision to return, the British had never given up their outposts in the Northwest Territory. These outposts continued to supply the Native American population with guns and encourage them to resist encroachment from the American settlers. Britain had also barred American ships from trading with the British West Indies, thus crippling American trade. When Britain went to war with France, it pushed things even further. In June of 1793, the British government ordered its navy to seize any neutral ships carrying food to sell to France. In November, Britain expanded its orders to seize neutral ships that were trading with the French colonies as well. These colonies had become major US Trading partners. As a result, the British seized hundreds of ships in early 1794 on the ships it captured. It also continued to impress American sailors into British service. British aggression was not limited to the high seas. It also increased hostilities on the frontier. In early 1794, Canada's governor, Guy Carleton, now called Lord Dorchester, told a delegation of Indians that he expected a new war to break out between the US And Britain. For several years, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, had been calling for the establishment of a buffer state controlled by the Native Americans in those western lands ceded to America in the peace treaty. British forces still maintained their outpost at Detroit, and they pushed even further by building a new Fort Miamis near modern day Toledo, Ohio. Congress, which still had no navy and not much of an army, could do little about any of this. At the end of March, Congress closed all American ports for 30 days, essentially ending all American trade. The reasoning was that American ships trading with anyone other than Britain would likely be seized, and America wanted to stop trade with Britain in hopes that that might encourage Britain to change its policies. Over the following weeks, the Democratic republicans in Congress, led by James Madison, pushed for a sequestration of debts to Britain. Essentially, if an American business owed money to anyone in Britain, they would have to give that money to the US Government instead so that it could be used to pay for the damages inflicted by the British. The Federalists managed to kill this proposal. America's ambassador to Britain, Thomas Pickney, had no real diplomatic experience before he got there. The South Carolinian had served as a Continental officer during the war. He was elected governor after the war and led South Carolina through ratification of the US Constitution. He had been in London for a little over a year when things really began to heat up. As ambassador, he protested Britain's growing presence in US Frontier territories, the seizure of neutral US Merchant ships, and the impressment of US Sailors. Britain's foreign minister, Lord Grenville, seemed unconcerned by these protests. He pushed back, arguing that the US had failed to live up to the peace treaty and had still not allowed the Collection of British debts in America. Britain had no real need to be concerned, since the US had no military to back up its protests with any sort of force. Pickney's reports back to America made clear that Britain had no intention of changing its policies and that British officials were unconcerned that the US might declare war on Britain. President Washington knew that diplomacy was his only option. War with Britain would be a disaster. He needed to send someone to London who could negotiate some way out of this. The problem was that the US did not have much of a diplomatic corps. Benjamin Franklin was, of course, dead by this time. John Adams had spent years at the court of St. James, but he was already Vice president. Despite his experience, Washington did not really trust Adams as a good negotiator. He floated the idea to several people who argued that Adams would be a bad choice. Washington also considered sending Thomas Jefferson, who had resigned as Secretary of state at the end of 1793. But advisors counseled against Jefferson's appointment as well. He was too pro French and did not seem politically aligned with the president's goals. There were similar criticisms made about appointing James Madison the U.S. ambassador to France. At this time, Gouverneur Morris had already traveled to London for negotiations. The British essentially dismissed him as too combative and too pro French. The choice had to be someone who would be at least a little more aligned with British interests. Washington did consider giving the job to Alexander Hamilton. Although Hamilton had no real diplomatic experience, he seemed capable and was strongly aligned with the faction that wanted a better relationship with Britain. By this time, however, Hamilton had become a political lightning rod. His appointment would have invited strong republican opposition. Washington wanted a federalist, but not someone that controversial. He eventually turned to John Jay. Jay, of course, had been part of the team that negotiated the final peace treaty with Britain. He'd spent years in Europe, and then as Secretary for Foreign affairs for the Confederation Congress. Jay would also be acceptable to Britain. In 1786, Jay had written a report for the Confederation Congress justifying Britain's occupation of frontier posts because the US had refused to allow British recovery of debts against American merchants in US Courts. Jay's report had been meant to encourage Congress to take further steps to allow the collection of debts, and his memo was meant to remain secret. But for some inexplicable reason, Jay gave a copy of his report to the British ambassador. This report, of course, made its way to London, and it told British officials that Jay was amenable to the British position. The Americans didn't know all this, but it definitely weakened Jay's negotiating position from the start. The problem with Jay's nomination was that he was already serving on the Supreme Court as Chief Justice. After Washington nominated Jay, a number of senators objected that it was unconstitutional for someone to hold two government jobs. But despite these objections, the Senate approved the appointment. John Jay sailed for London on May 12, 1794. The transatlantic trip was a relatively fast one. Jay arrived in London on June 15. The British received him with the respect that was due to a diplomat. He met with Foreign Minister Lord Grenville a few days after his arrival, and he also received a formal introduction to King George III a few weeks later. Things seemed to get off to a pretty good start. Both parties agreed to end the aggressive measures in the Northwest Territory and that both sides would maintain the status quo during negotiations. The negotiations continued through July and into August. Jay completed his first proposed treaty on August 6. It called for the evacuation of British posts on American territory, compensation for ships seized by the British, and access for American ships to the British West Indies. A few weeks later, Lord Grenville countered with the British proposal. He suggested that boundaries between Canada and the U.S. needed to be adjusted so that Britain had access to the Mississippi River. He was open to trade in the West Indies, but only for smaller ships under 70 tons. These ships could not profitably make the transatlantic voyage and therefore would limit trade to trade between the US and the West Indies. It would essentially create a British monopoly on trade between the West Indies and Europe. Jay objected to these British proposals. Giving up over 35,000 acres of US territory to give Britain access to the Mississippi river was simply unacceptable. He also objected to the size limitation on US Ships. The US Were not British colonies anymore, and Britain should not be permitted to dictate how American merchant ships conducted trade in the West Indies. One of Jay's instructions was to push for the reimbursement of slaves taken during the Revolutionary War. This had been a provision in the 1783 peace treaty that the British simply ignored. Grenville argued that if slaves had, on their own, traveled into British lines during the war, they were no longer the property of their masters and Britain should be free to allow them to leave the country. It was a difficult point for Jay to argue since he personally opposed slavery, and he eventually let the matter drop. Another big issue was the British arming and supplying British tribes in the Northwest Territory. Britain insisted on being permitted to trade with them, but they agreed not to try to forge political ties or supply these tribes in wars against the U.S. jay countered with total demilitarization of The Great Lakes area. Grenville actually seemed amenable to this. Britain also agreed to limit what it considered contraband in order to allow American shipments of food and other raw materials to Europe. Jay and Grenville debated back and forth for weeks. These were mostly private talks. Even their secretaries didn't participate, and we don't have any formal records of their discussions. One of the main reasons that Britain was willing to debate at all was the fear that the US Might join the League of Armed Neutrality. If it did, this might draw other European powers into a war against Britain. So even though the US had no navy of its own, attacks on American shipping could result in other European navies coming to the assistance of the US by the end of September, Jay submitted a draft treaty which included free trade and other expansive rights for neutral shipping. It also prohibited British treaties with the Indian tribes in US Territory and affirmed that neither country would arm tribes or encourage war. It also called for the demilitarization of the Great Lakes region, the right of free trade worldwide, except for a limitation on specific contraband items being delivered to Britain's enemies. It barred the impressment of sailors and that Britain would reduce certain import tariffs. The British, however, began to harden their negotiations and take a more aggressive stance. What happened was Alexander Hamilton had told the British ambassador to the US that America had no interest in joining the League of Armed Neutrality. The administration wanted to stay out of European entanglements. The ambassador, of course, relayed this information to London. This information reached Grenville on September 30, the same day that Jay submitted his draft treaty. Grenville realized that the strongest card that the US had to play against Britain in the negotiations was was a bluff. Therefore, Britain could pretty much dictate whatever terms it wanted and the US could do little about it. Britain still saw some value in completing a treaty on its own terms, of course, but it began to reject many of the tentative agreements that the parties had already reached. Grenville rejected the idea that Britain could not make agreements, treaties, or alliances with the Indian tribes in the Northwest Territory. He called for the removal of provisions that Britain would try to restrain their Indians from conducting war against the US he dropped the idea of disarmament around the Great Lakes or even giving a firm commitment to withdraw British posts from US Territory. Britain demanded the authority to search any ship on the open seas for anything that it considered to be contraband, and it wanted the definition of contraband to be just about anything headed for Europe other than food. Jay had to make continued concessions to get anywhere. Finally, By November, the two parties worked out a final agreement. The British finally agreed to remove their military garrisons from US territory, but only after June 1, 1796, which was a year and a half after the treaty. Both countries agreed to appoint a three member commission to resolve boundary disputes. Anyone would be permitted to cross the U.S. canadian border. For issues of trade, Britain and the U.S. agreed that either of them could use the Mississippi river, although since Spain controlled most of that river, it was unclear exactly what this agreement would mean. A commission would be set up in the US to adjudicate claims from British merchants who were still trying to collect debts from before the Revolution. Another commission would be set up in London to adjudicate the seizures of US Merchant ships. The US Also agreed to compensate British merchant ships for seizures that ended up in U.S. ports. During the Citizen Genet controversy, trade with the British West Indies was limited to the smaller ships of 70 tons or less. Addressing the Republicans threat to sequester or confiscate private British funds, this treaty explicitly prohibited it. Even if the two countries went to war, Britain would still be free to seize ships at sea. But if Britain captured food cargo, it would at least agree to reimburse its owners for the value. Overall. This really didn't resolve any of American complaints. But Jay thought that it would at least prevent open war with Britain. He and Lord Grenville both signed the treaty on November 19, 1794. The next step, of course, would be getting the treaty back to America for presidential approval and Senate ratification. Even getting the treaties across the ocean proved difficult. They sent three copies of the treaty. The French ships managed to stop all three of them. Two of the ships dumped the treaties overboard to prevent capture by the enemy. The third copy did make it. The person carrying the treaty decided to hide it when the French searched his ship rather than throwing it overboard. But it took him three and a half months to get the treaty to America. He arrived in Philadelphia on March 7, 1795, four days after Congress had ended its session and gone home. Americans got word of a treaty more than a month before the actual treaty arrived. In late January, Benjamin Franklin Beige published news that the treaty had been signed in London. But no one knew the details. Rumors swirled. Republicans feared the worst. President Washington did not help quell these concerns when, after he received the treaty, he opted to keep all of the terms a secret. Jay personally had a difficult voyage back to America. His six weeks at sea traveled through constant storms, including 32 consecutive days of rain. He finally reached New York at the end of May. The treaty Terms were still a secret to almost everyone, and Jay wasn't revealing anything either. One big surprise for Jay was that he had been elected governor of New York during his absence. Recall that Jay had run against Governor Clinton three years earlier. He had won the popular vote, but Clinton managed to win the election by having the ballots of three counties invalidated. In 1795, Clinton announced that he would not seek another term. Voters, many of whom were still outraged by that stolen election, swept Jay into office without him even knowing anything about it. Upon learning the news, Jay resigned his office as Chief justice and was sworn in as governor. Meanwhile, all Americans, except for President Washington and a few close advisors, remained in the dark about the terms of the Jay treaty. Washington called the Senate back into special session to debate and approve the treaty. While the senators were able to read the treaty, they adopted a gag order forbidding all senators from revealing the contents of the treaty to anyone outside the Senate. Inevitably, though, senators began leaking some information which only fueled greater public concerns. The federalist majority managed to block all Republican efforts to make changes to the treaty. The treaty, of course, required a 2/3 vote of the Senate. In the end, the Senate could not go along with Article 12. That's the one that limited the sizes of ships that could trade with the British West Indies and also prohibited the export of products that were mainly produced in the West Indies. These included sugar, coffee, cotton, cocoa and molasses. With that one change, the Senate gave its provisional consent by a vote of 20 to 10, just passing the necessary 2/3 approval on June 24, 1795. Even after passage, the Senate maintained its gag order. By this time, though, leaks and rumors were all through the public press. A few days after the final vote, one of the opponents in the Senate, Senator Stevens Mason of Virginia, gave a copy of the treaty to Benjamin Franklin Bache, who who of course was editor of the anti administration newspaper, the Aurora. On July 1, Boiche published the full text of the treaty. As expected, Americans were outraged by the treaty's terms. It achieved almost nothing that Americans wanted and actually legitimized some of the actions that the British were doing to Americans. Protests turned into mob riots across America. Jay was burned in effigy. A Philadelphia mob burned a copy of the treaty right in front of the British ambassador's residence, then used stones to shatter all of his windows. One Bostonian wrote on a wall, damn John Jay. Damn everyone who won't. Damn John Jay. Another mob in Boston burned a British ship that they believed was acting as a privateer. Alexander Hamilton tried to give a speech supporting the treaty in New York City, but was driven away by mobs throwing stones at him. Republicans organized town meetings calling for rejection of the treaty, while Federalists attempted to run some rallies in support of the treaty. These were overwhelmed by the rallies against it. Despite the outrage, President Washington signed the treaty on August 14, 1795. Washington wasn't really happy with the treaty either, but without a navy and without a sizable army, the treaty was the only way the US could avoid war with Britain. The British Parliament accepted the treaty without Article 12, and the Jay Treaty became the law of the land. Next week, Thomas Paine brings us the Age of Reason. This episode is brought to you by Scribe. Back in the time of the American Revolution War, one of the most powerful forces wasn't just strategy or leadership, it was information. Who had it, how clearly it was shared, and whether it made it to the right people at the right time often made the difference between coordination and complete chaos. And that's a problem that really hasn't gone away. It just looks different today. In modern teams, things don't usually break because people aren't capable. They break because knowledge is scattered, processes aren't clearly documented, and manual documentation never quite gets done when people are busy actually doing the work. That's exactly the problem today's sponsor, Scribe, was built to fix. Scribe is a workflow AI platform that captures any workflow in real time and automatically turns it into step by step documentation. No manual writing, no screenshots, no extra effort. It's trusted by over 80,000 enterprises, including nearly half of the Fortune 500. I've personally lost count of how many times I've had to explain the same process more than once. With Scribe, you just turn on the extension and go through the workflow normally and it builds a complete guide automatically as you work. It even takes care of sensitive data by redacting. It automatically provides real time step by step guidance inside the tool, and suggests improvements to make workflows more efficient over time. So instead of just capturing how work gets done, it actually helps teams improve it. If you want more clarity and consistency across your team, Scribe is a simple place to start. You can book a personalized enterprise demo at Scribe. How Revolution that's S C R I B E H O W Revolution. This episode is sponsored by the book the Banker who Made America by Richard Vague. The banker in question is Thomas Willing. When Robert Morris was getting his start in Philadelphia, he went to work for Thomas Willing. Willing was the guy who taught Morris and later Alexander Hamilton all about the world of banking and commerce this book is by Richard Vague, who was Pennsylvania's security secretary a few years ago. In his book, he follows the money and helps us to understand how willing stayed in the background when while guiding the birth of America's banking and financial systems, Richard Vague sheds genuinely new light on the genesis of the American Republic as well as the enduring economic and political conflicts that still shape US Society today. I've enjoyed this book so much that I've asked the author to join us at our June Roundtable. This is a great opportunity for you to read the book ahead of time and be ready to speak to the author at our roundtable. Go to bookshop.org and use the code ARP15 for 15% off at checkout. That's www. Bookshop.org to get 15% off the book with the promo code ARP15 hey, thanks for joining the American Revolution Podcast aftershow, part of the Airwave Media Network. Thanks to my Patreon supporters in the Alexander Hamilton Club, George Davis and Gordon Kemp. Thanks to Robert Morris Circle supporters Chasen Harrison and Ron Thorson. And welcome to Robert Wilgas who recently joined as a standard bearer. I also want to thank Catherine Clark for a generous one time gift via Venmo. This past week we held our monthly roundtable. It was great discussion with several officials from various historical state parks discussing what the plans were for their 250th celebrations. As we move through this 250th year of independence, there are going to be many more events across the country. I encourage everyone to join in the celebrations wherever you can. Next month our roundtable speaker will be Richard Vague, who wrote a book called the Banker who Made America about Thomas Willing. Mr. Vague also bought some commercial time on this podcast, so you may have heard me talk about him before. I just wanted to add to this an unsolicited recommendation for the book and mentioned that it would be great if we had some folks who had read the book before he appears at our June roundtable. That way you can discuss the topic of his book with the author. Because he's an advertiser, you can get a discount if you buy the book@bookshop.org and using the coupon code ARP15, I'll include a link and a reminder in the show notes so that you can get the book and the discount. Also a reminder that if you want to participate in Zoom and future roundtables, be sure to sign up for my mailing list on mailchimp. Links to that are also in the Show Notes. This week we discussed the Jay Treaty, which was hugely unpopular among Americans. I've only covered the events of 1794 and 1795 in this week's episode up to the point where the treaty was signed and became law. But this controversy actually had a whole new chapter in 1796. Remember, treaties are approved by the Senate. The House of Representatives have no say in a treaty. Yet this treaty would require funding in order to comply with its terms. And the House very much had a say over funding. Members used that power to demand that Washington turn over all instructions and documents related to Jay's mission to London. Washington refused to do this, citing executive privilege. Washington had used executive privilege before when he was withholding information about St. Clair's expedition against the Indians. He believed that the president could not operate if Congress could scrutinize the process later. People had to be able to feel free to discuss candidly their policies and opinions when talking to the President. Congress had to authorize funding for the treaty and refused to do so. Washington essentially made the issue a national one by telling people that they had to trust him to do the right thing and accept the fact that he had signed the treaty. Based on Washington's popularity, the funding bill had a fighting chance. Supporters of the bill focused on the fact that even if this treaty was dishonorable, it prevented war and one that they simply could not fight. Representative Fisher Ames delivered a famous tomahawk speech the essentially saying that there would be a massive frontier war with the Indians backed by Britain, and that the US Would lose this war if the treaty failed. The other big argument was that no treaty meant no foreign trade, which would have killed New England's economy. It also would have killed funding for the federal government, which survived on import tariffs. It meant a default on loans and a national disaster. The funding bill remained highly controversial the Committee of the Whole and the House of Representatives and ended up voting a tie 4949 over the funding. The tie was broken by the chairman, Friedrich Muhlenberg. Later Muhlenberg's brother would stab him for taking that vote. Muhlenberg survived the attack and the House eventually voted 51 to 48 to pass the final authorization bill. This fight, however, only increased the divide between Federalists who supported the treaty and and Democratic Republicans who did not. Many historians point to this fight as the final break between George Washington and James Madison. The fight also solidified party line voting in Congress and forced both sides to develop more political organizations to elect representatives across the country. It also solidified the precedent of executive privilege, something that remains an issue today. Despite the unpopularity of this treaty, Jay would be re elected governor of New York three years later. He would also receive a few electoral votes for president in the elections of 1796 and 1800. President Adams also re nominated him to join the Supreme Court again, and the Senate confirmed Adams's appointment. Despite getting a new job on the Supreme Court, Jay declined the appointment, and after Jay's rejection, Adams nominated John Marshall instead. The treaty did give the US about a decade of peace and allowed foreign trade to greatly expand over this time. It also created a much greater division between the US And France. Revolutionary France saw this as the US Essentially siding with Britain, and this fact nearly led to a war between the US And France. We'll get into that in a future episode. Many of the issues that the Jay Treaty failed to resolve remained a thorn in relations between the US and Britain. These eventually led to the War of 1812. Although the Jay Treaty understandably infuriated Americans, it did serve its purpose. It kept the US out of another war for more than a decade and allowed that valuable time for US Trade to grow and build an economy that could afford to fight the next war in 1812. My book recommendation this week is the Jay Treaty Debate by Todd Estes. This book focuses on this week's topic pretty concisely. The book is a little over 200 pages, not counting notes in index. The writing is a little dry. I guess that this was written for use in college classes. The author is a history professor at Oakland University and it was first published in 2006. There's also a borrow only copy of the book on arxiv.org so if you want a deeper understanding of the debates and politics surrounding the Jay Treaty, get the Jay Treaty Debate by Todd Estes. If you want to read more but don't want to buy the book, my online Recommendation is a PhD thesis entitled Further Concessions Cannot Be the Jay Grenville Treaty and the Politics of Anglo American Relations, 1789-1807 by Samuel D. Nagus. This is from Texas Christian University. It's pretty in depth as a PhD thesis. It's over 250 pages long and is divided into chapters, but it gets into great detail and is available for download as a PDF. As always, I've included links on my blog and in the show notes. My question this week asks In a recent episode, you mentioned that armed slaves helped defend the home of their master against attackers. Wasn't it illegal for slaves to be armed for any reason? Well, this is a reference to my description of the attack on John Neville's plantation, Bower Hill, during the main combat that took place during the Whiskey Rebellion. Neville, who was originally from Virginia and who settled his plantation when it was unclear whether his land would be in Virginia or Pennsylvania, was probably the largest slave owner in Pennsylvania at the time. Although Pennsylvania had passed a law that all children born to slaves would be free when they reached adulthood, those who were slaves before the law passed remained slaves for the rest of their lives. There are many historical instances of slaves defending the property of their masters, although doing so armed with muskets is a little more unusual. Pennsylvania's law at the time barred slaves from keeping or bearing arms without their master's permission. The exception for permission allowed slaves to hunt if the master was okay with that. Usually a slave in that situation would carry a written note from his master approving him carrying the weapon. There's no evidence of any written permission in the case of the slave's defense of Bower Hill, but it seems pretty clear that they had no problems defending the home and and that they were already well acquainted with the use of firearms. In any event, no one really questioned it at the time. The allowance of slaves to carry and use firearms with the permission of the master was pretty common in many slave states in the 18th century. In the 19th century, most of these states passed laws barring slaves from ever possessing or using firearms, even if the master was okay with it. The concern grew that slaves should have no knowledge of how firearms work, lest they be tempted to use them in a slave revolt. So in many other times and places, actions taken by slaves to use firearms, especially against white people, would have had a very swift and severe punishment, even if the master asked them to participate. But in Pennsylvania in the 1790s, this action was perfectly acceptable. If you have a question you'd like me to answer, please reach out to me either via email or on X, Facebook, Quora, or Reddit. Well, that's all for this week. I hope you will join me again next week for another American Revolution podcast.
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