Jays Treaty, 8 Stat. 116, also known as Jay's Treaty, The British Treaty, the Treaty of London of 1794, and (officially), Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The United States of America[1] was a treaty between the United States and Great Britain that is credited with averting war,[2], resolving issues remaining since the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the American Revolution,[3], and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, which had begun in 1792.
The terms of the treaty were designed primarily by Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, strongly supported by the chief negotiator John Jay; and support from President George Washington. The treaty gained the primary American goals, which included the withdrawal of units of the British Army from pre-Revolutionary forts that it had failed to relinquish in the Northwest Territory of the United States (the area west of Pennsylvania and north of the Ohio River). (The British had recognized this area as American territory in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.) The parties agree that disputes over wartime debts and the American-Canadian boundary were to be sent to arbitration—one of the first major uses of arbitration in diplomatic history. The Americans were granted limited rights to trade with British possessions in India and colonies in the Caribbean in exchange for some limits on the American export of cotton.
The treaty was hotly contested by the Jeffersonians in each state. They feared that closer economic ties with Britain would strengthen Hamilton's Federalist Party, promote aristocracy and undercut republicanism. Washington's announced support proved decisive and the treaty was ratified by a 2/3 majority of the Senate in November 1794. It was officially ratified by both countries and proclaimed to be in effect on February 29, 1796. The treaty became a central issue of contention—leading to the formation of the "First Party System" in the United States, with the Federalists favoring Britain and the Jeffersonian republicans favoring France. The treaty was for ten years' duration. Efforts to agree on a replacement treaty failed (in 1806) when Jefferson rejected the Monroe-Pinkney Treaty as tensions escalated toward the War of 1812.[4] The treaty was signed on November 19, 1794, the Senate advised and consented on June 24, 1795; it was ratified by the President, and ratifications were exchanged February 29, 1796.
The historian George Herring notes the "remarkable and fortuitous economic and diplomatic gains" produced by the Jay Treaty.[5]
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From the British perspective, its war with France necessitated improving relations with the United States to prevent the U.S. from falling into the French orbit. From the American viewpoint, the most pressing foreign policy issues were normalizing the trade relations with Britain, the United States' leading trading partner, and resolving issues left over from the Treaty of Paris of 1783. As one observer explained, the British government was "well disposed to America… They have made their arrangements upon a plan that comprehends the neutrality of the United States, and are anxious that it should be preserved."[6]
In 1793–94, the British Navy had captured hundreds of neutral American merchant ships, and British officials in Canada were supporting Indian tribes fighting American settlers in the Ohio River Valley, territory which Britain had explicitly ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. Congress voted for a trade embargo against Britain for two months. Hamilton and the Federalists favored Britain over France, and they sought to normalize relations with Britain. Hamilton designed the plan for a treaty and President George Washington sent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Jay to London to negotiate a comprehensive treaty.
The American government had a number of outstanding issues:
Both sides achieved many objectives. The British agreed to vacate the six western forts by June 1796 (which was done), and to compensate American ship owners (the British paid $10,345,200 by 1802).[7] In return, the United States gave most favored nation trading status to Britain, and acquiesced in British anti-French maritime policies. The United States guaranteed the payment of private prewar debts owed by Americans to British merchants that could not be collected in U.S. courts (the U.S. paid £600,000 in 1802).
Two joint boundary commissions were set up to establish the boundary line in the Northeast (it agreed on the Saint Croix River) and in the Northwest (this one never met and the boundary was settled after the War of 1812).[8]
Jay, a strong opponent of slavery, dropped the issue of compensation for slaves, which angered Southern slaveholders. Jay was unsuccessful in negotiating an end to the impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy, which later became a key issue leading to the War of 1812.
Article III states "It is agreed, that it shall at all times be free to His Majesty's subjects, and to the citizens of the United States, and also to the Indians dwelling on either side of the said boundary line, freely to pass and repass, by land or inland navigation into the respective territories and countries of the two parties on the continent of America, (the country within the limits of the Hudson Bay company only excepted) ... and freely carry on trade and commerce with each other." Article III of the Jay Treaty declared the right of "Indians" ("Native Americans") as well as of American citizens and Canadian subjects to trade and travel between the United States and Canada, which was then a territory of Great Britain.[9] Over the years since, the United States has codified this obligation in the provisions of Section 289 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and as amended in 1965. As a result of the Jay Treaty, "Native Indians born in Canada are therefore entitled to enter the United States for the purpose of employment, study, retirement, investing, and/or immigration".[10] Article III of the Jay Treaty is the cause of most Indian claims.[11]
Washington submitted the treaty to the United States Senate for its consent in June 1795; a two-thirds vote was needed. The treaty was unpopular at first, and gave the Jeffersonians a platform to rally new supporters. As the historian Paul Varg explains,
"The Jay Treaty was a reasonable give-and-take compromise of the issues between the two countries. What rendered it so assailable was not the compromise spelled out between the two nations but the fact that it was not a compromise between the two political parties at home. Embodying the views of the Federalists, the treaty repudiated the foreign policy of the opposing party."[12]
The Jeffersonians were opposed to Britain, preferring support for France in the wars raging in Europe, and they argued that the treaty with France from 1778 was still in effect. They considered Britain as the center of aristocracy and the chief threat to the United States' republican values. They denounced Hamilton and Jay (and even Washington) as monarchists who betrayed American values. They organized public protests against Jay and his treaty; one of their rallying cries said: Damn John Jay! Damn everyone that won't damn John Jay! Damn every one that won't put lights in his window and sit up all night damning John Jay![13]
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison strongly opposed the Treaty as they favored France; foreign policy became a major dispute between the new Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties; it became a core issue of the First Party System. Jefferson and his supporters had a counterproposal to establish "a direct system of commercial hostility with Great Britain," even at the risk of war. The Jeffersonians raised public opinion to fever pitch by accusing the British of promoting Indian atrocities on the frontier.[14] The fierce debates over the Treaty in 1794–95, according to one historian, "transformed the Republican movement into a Republican party." To fight the treaty, the Jeffersonians "established coordination in activity between leaders at the capital, and leaders, actives and popular followings in the states, counties and towns."[15] Jay's failure to obtain compensation for "lost" slaves galvanized the South into opposition.[16]
The Federalists fought back and Congress rejected the Jefferson-Madison counter-proposals. Washington threw his great prestige behind the treaty, and Federalists rallied public opinion more effectively than did their opponents.[17] Hamilton convinced President Washington it was the best treaty that could be expected. Washington, who insisted the U.S. must remain neutral in the European wars, signed it, and his prestige carried the day in Congress. The Federalists made a strong, systematic appeal to public opinion, which rallied their own supporters and shifted the debate. Washington and Hamilton outmaneuvered Madison, who was opposition leader.[18] By then out of the government, Hamilton was the dominant figure who helped secure the treaty's approval by the needed 2/3 vote in the Senate. The Senate passed a resolution in June, advising the president to amend the treaty by suspending the 12th article, which concerned trade between the U.S. and the West Indies. In mid-August, the Senate ratified the treaty 20-10, with the condition that the treaty contain specific language regarding the June 24 resolution. President Washington signed it in late August. The Treaty was proclaimed in effect on February 29, 1796 and in a series of close votes, after another bitter fight the House funded the Treaty in April 1796.[19]
James Madison, then a member of the House of Representatives, argued that the treaty could not, under Constitutional law, take effect without approval of the House, since it regulated commerce and exercised legislative powers granted to Congress. The debate which followed was an early example of originalism, in which Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," lost.[20] After defeat on the treaty in Congress, the Jeffersonian Republicans lost the 1796 presidential election on the issue.
When Jefferson became president in 1801, he did not repudiate the treaty. He kept the Federalist minister, Rufus King, in London to negotiate a successful resolution to outstanding issues regarding cash payments and boundaries. The amity broke down in 1805, as relations turned increasingly hostile as a prelude to the War of 1812. In 1815, the Treaty of Ghent superseded the Jay treaty.
The historians Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick note that in conventional diplomatic terms, as a "piece of adversary bargaining", Jay "got much the worst of the 'bargain'. Such a view has to a great degree persisted ever since."[21] They conclude that although Jay did not succeed in asserting neutral rights, he did obtain "his other sine qua nons [sic]"; he got none of things that were "desirable, but not indispensable."[22] They add "Jay's record on the 'soft'[23] was open to many objections; on the 'hard' side, it was a substantial success, which included the prevention of war with Great Britain."[24]
The historian Marshall Smelser argues that the treaty effectively postponed war with Britain, or at least postponed it until the United States was strong enough to handle it.[25]
Bradford Perkins argued in 1955 that the treaty was the first to establish a special relationship between Britain and the United States, with a second installment under Lord Salisbury. In his view, the treaty worked for ten years to secure peace between Britain and America: "The decade may be characterized as the period of "The First Rapprochement." As Perkins concludes,
"For about ten years there was peace on the frontier, joint recognition of the value of commercial intercourse, and even, by comparison with both preceding and succeeding epochs, a muting of strife over ship seizures and impressment. Two controversies with France… pushed the English-speaking powers even more closely together."[26]
Starting at swords' point in 1794, the Jay treaty reversed the tensions, Perkins concludes: "Through a decade of world war and peace, successive governments on both sides of the Atlantic were able to bring about and preserve a cordiality which often approached genuine friendship."[27]
Perkins suggests that (saving perhaps the opening of trade with British India), "Jay did fail to win anything the Americans were not obviously entitled to, liberation of territory recognized as theirs since 1782, and compensation for seizures that even Britain admitted were illegal." He also speculates that a "more astute negotiator than the Chief Justice" would have gotten better terms than he did.[28] He quoted the opinion of the "great historian" Henry Adams that the treaty was a "bad one":
"No one would venture on its merits to defend it now. There has been no time since 1810 when the United States would not prefer war to peace on such terms."
Perkins gave more weight than other historians to valuable concessions regarding trade in India and the concession on the West Indies trade. In addition, Perkins noted that the Royal Navy treated American commerce with "relative leniency" during the wars, and many impressed seamen were returned to America. As Spain assessed the informal British-American alliance, it softened its previous opposition to the United States' use of the Mississippi River and signed Pinckney's Treaty, which the Americans wanted. When Jefferson took office, he gained renewal of the commercial articles that had greatly benefited American shipping.[29]
Elkins and McKitrick find this more positive view open to "one big difficulty": it requires that the British negotiated in the same spirit. Unlike Perkins, they find "little indication of this"; preferring to view the British not as future-oriented, but, having had no indication that the United States required attention, wishing to take it off the long list of issues that did.[30]
George Herring's 2008 history of US foreign policy says that in 1794 "the United States and Britain edged toward war" and concludes, "The Jay Treaty brought the United States important concessions and served its interests well."[31] Joseph Ellis finds the terms of the treaty "one-sided in Britain's favor", but asserts a consensus of historians that it was
"a shrewd bargain for the United States. It bet, in effect, on England rather than France as the hegemonic European power of the future, which proved prophetic. It recognized the massive dependence of the American economy on trade with England. In a sense it was a precocious preview of the Monroe Doctrine (1823), for it linked American security and economic development to the British fleet, which provided a protective shield of incalculable value throughout the nineteenth century. Mostly, it postponed war with England until America was economically and politically more capable of fighting one."[32]