Jay was born on December 12, 1745 to one of New York's most influential families. Self-confident, he was marked from the beginning as a person of uncommon intellectual ability. He graduated from King's College (now Columbia University) in 1764 and was admitted to the New York bar four years later. I...

Between October 1787 and August 1788, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay wrote and submitted eighty-five seemingly persuasive essays to various New York newspapers. Their essential goal was to convince the people of New York to support the new Constitution that was drafted in Philadelp...