Make 'em bobble!

The Annotated Bobblehead Justice John Jay

There is some evidence that in the Court's earliest years at least some of the Justices wore robes that were not plain black, and many portraits of Jay show him in black robes with salmon facings and white trim.

He is holding the second volume (2 Dallas) of the U.S. Reports because it covers most of his years of service on the Court and includes his opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793), which inspired the the 11th amendment to the Constitution. It also includes, in a footnote to Hayburn's Case, 2 U.S. 409 (1792), letters to President Washington explaining his and four other Justices' refusals to render decisions as circuit judges that would, by statute, be subject to review

He was the first member of the Court appointed from New York. He resigned the Chief-Justiceship in 1795 to serve as governor of that state.

John Jay, 1789-1795

As a young lawyer involved in colonial politics, John Jay served New York as a representative at the First Continental Congress in 1774, and as President of the Second Continental Congress from 1778-79.

Jay was also instrumental in drafting New York's first state constitution, ratified in 1777, and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending the Revolutionary War.

Famously, Jay wrote five essays of The Federalist Papers in 1787 and 1788, in an attempt to persuade the citizens of New York to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1794, President Washington sent Jay to England as part of a diplomatic mission to improve relations between the two countries. The resulting treaty was the Jay Treaty (officially the 1794 "Treaty of Amity and Commerce"), which caused controversy at the time.

Appointed Chief Justice for a second time in 1800, Jay declined because he hated riding the circuits and did not feel the Supreme Court had been given sufficient authority. Marbury v. Madison would be decided only three years later.