Liberty’s Chain : : Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York / / David N. Gellman.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2022
• VerfasserIn: Gellman, David N.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (544 p.) :; 15 b&w halftones, 2 maps, 2 diagrams

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 co-author 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 societies. 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 to combat northern injustice. John Jay's personal dealings with African Americans ranged from callousness to caring. Across the generations, even as prominent Jays decried human servitude, enslaved people and formerly enslaved people served in Jay households. Abbe, Clarinda, Caesar Valentine, Zilpah Montgomery, and others lived difficult, often isolated lives, that tested their courage and the Jay family's principles.The personal and the political intersect in this saga, as Gellman charts American values transmitted and transformed from the colonial and revolutionary eras to the Civil War, Reconstruction, and beyond. The Jays, as well as those who served them, demonstrated the elusiveness and the vitality of liberty's legacy. This remarkable family story forces us to grapple with what we mean by patriotism, conservatism, and radicalism. Their story speaks directly to our own divided times.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Jay Family Trees -- List of African American Individuals in Jay Households -- Maps -- A Note to the Reader on Language -- Prologue: Founding -- Part One. Slavery and Revolution -- Chapter 1 Disruptions -- Chapter 2 Rising Stars -- Chapter 3 Negotiations -- Chapter 4 Nation-Building -- Chapter 5 Mastering Paradox -- Chapter 6 Sharing the Flame -- Part Two. Abolitionism -- Chapter 7 Joining Forces -- Chapter 8 A Conservative on the Inside -- Chapter 9 Breaking Ranks -- Chapter 10 The Condition of Free People of Color -- Chapter 11 Soul and Nation -- Part Three. Emancipation -- Chapter 12 Uncompromised -- Chapter 13 Parting Shots -- Chapter 14 Civil Wars -- Chapter 15 Reconstructed -- Epilogue: Reckoning -- Acknowledgments -- Appendix: Enslaved and Free Black Servants in the Households of John Jay and William Jay as Recorded in Federal Census (1790–1850) -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index