Liberty’s Chain : Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York (David N. Gellman - CH)

by David N. Gellman In Liberty's Chain, David N. Gellman shows how the Jay family, abolitionists, and slaveholders alike, embodied the contradictions of the revolutionary age. The Jays of New York were a preeminent founding family. John Jay, diplomat, Supreme Court justice, and coauthor of the Federalist Papers, and his children and grandchildren helped chart the course of the Early American Republic. Liberty's Chain forges a new path for thinking about slavery and the nation's founding. John Jay served as the inaugural president of a pioneering antislavery society. His descendants, especially his son William Jay and his grandson John Jay II, embraced radical abolitionism in the nineteenth century, the cause most likely to rend the nation. The scorn of their elite peers―and racist mobs―did not deter their commitment to end southern slavery and combat northern injustice.  John Jay's personal dealings with African Americans ranged from callousness to caring. Across the generations, even