“John Jay: Founding Father” by Walter Stahr [Book Review]

It’s high praises from me for Walter Stahr’s book “John Jay: Founding Father!” In this book we get to meet one of the most crucial, yet lesser known figures in early American history; in particular, a statesman, lawyer, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Governor of New York, and legal mind without whom there would not have been a successful American Revolution.

The irony of John Jay, the man, is that he did SO MUCH to create and support the American Revolution and early Republic, yet his name is hardly listed among the top 10 founding fathers. But that’s exactly who John Jay is and Walter Stahr weaves a thoughtful narrative about the life and extraordinary accomplishments of this historical figure that any historian or American patriot should get to know.

STAR RATINGS:

JOHN JAY BOOK STATS:

• Published 2017
• 484 total pages
• 388 pages of text
• 16 chapters
• List of 11 illustrations
• One 8-page B&W picture inset
• 1 extensive Notes section
• 1 short Bibliography section
• 1 Index section
• Hardcover available

MIND BLOWN! COOL THINGS I LEARNED:

• In many respects John Jay was the legal mind behind America gaining its independence from Great Britain.
• John Jay negotiated complex treaties with Great Britain, France, and Spain.
• These treaties quibbled less with the rights of the people and more about debts, navigable waters, fisheries, and the removal of forts in the post-American Revolution.
• The original Circuit Court was just that, a court of Justices who literally traveled from city to city in a circuit being gone upwards of 6 months a year.
• Although France supported the American Revolution, after it was over they became jealous of its outcome and even tried to prevent peaceful negotiations with other nations.
• The ratification of the original US Constitution was a hard-fought political battle where New York at one point even thought of secession rather than signing.
• The New York ratification won only by a margin of 3 votes: 30-27.
• In the election for the first President, John Jay came in 3rd behind George Washington and John Adams.

JOHN JAY BOOK REVIEW:

“John Jay: Founding Father” was a masterful read. I knew of John Jay through reading about the other founding fathers such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and one of my personal favorites Robert Morris. Jay’s name came up so consistently and with so much reverence that I finally decided that I had to investigate this man’s life and see who he was through his own words, so to speak, and not through the point of view of others.

As Jay’s life unfolds for us in the pages of this book, we find several delectable ironies: one that he is of French ancestry, yet because of his treatment as a Revolutionary emissary to France during the 1780s, he never quite liked or trusted them. The other is that his older brother James was a British loyalist, which created a severe rift in their relationship. I found it somewhat intoxicating that these types of imperfections in the historical figure of John Jay were not lost on author Walter Stahr as they were billed not as shortcomings but signals of his ultimate patriotism, for even against his own family Jay stood in support of his fledgling government and through its creation into the early republic.

That transition from Confederation into early republic was, in reality, due in large part to John Jay’s negotiations with the British, the French, and the Spanish; not to mention negotiations with the early Congress, of which he was one of its first Presidents.

Although an excellent addition to anyone’s bookshelf or library, there are a few editorial concerns I have about this publication. The first is that there are approximately 5 formatting mistakes I found! Not acceptable! The publishers definitely should have caught these, heck, John Jay himself in all his legal writings would not have let these fly. The second is that Stahr seems to avoid a particular writing convention whereby it is customary to introduce a name IN FULL before later referring to that person by their last name only, regardless of their all-star status. For example, there were multiple occasions where “Franklin” was impartially dropped into a paragraph with no anaphoric reference – the same is true for other historical figures.

The other incidental formatting issue that kinda got under my skin was that there were no chapter titles in the page headers. Instead of the name of each respective chapter at the very top, Stahr prints his name on each even page, the book name on each odd page! Again, a matter of preference but since his chapters were so lengthy a lack of a reference point became distracting over the course of 388 pages. Beyond these slight critiques, the book was very well written.

On the plus side of the equation, the author’s use of quotes to support his narrative was exceptional, one of the best examples of in-text quotation I’ve seen. In reality it may be a matter of personal preference (just like my name-dropping critique in that it’s not literally violating any grammatical laws) but multiple threaded quotations that are paragraphs long are, in my mind, like cheating. You know an author ‘nails’ the use of quotations when you are reading his/her text and the quotation fits in so eloquently that it espouses an emotional response. There were several occasions that Walter Stahr’s quotes actually made me laugh!

In sum, Walter Stahr really brings into perspective the life, energy, and accomplishments of John Jay. It’s an excellent read and I highly recommend reading this book; his writing is fluid, easy to follow and the level of detail that the author brings to bear is equal to the stature of one of Americas greatest founding fathers, John Jay.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Stahr, Walter. 2017. John Jay: Founding Father. New York: Diversion Books.
• ISBN-13: 978-1635763362
• Amazon Link

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