John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the United States, a co-author of the Federalist Papers, and the man who negotiated the treaty with Britain that may have saved the young republic from a second war it could not win. Americans thanked him by burning his effigy in the streets from Boston to Charleston. The Jay Treaty was so unpopular that mobs painted “Damn John Jay” on walls across the country, yet historians now consider it one of the shrewdest diplomatic acts of the founding era.

This episode traces Jay from his role in the Continental Congress through the Supreme Court, the controversial British treaty, and the political firestorm that cost him his reputation in his own time but secured peace for a fragile nation.

• Jay’s role in the Continental Congress and his appointment as the first Chief Justice
• The mission to London and the treaty that averted war with Britain at the cost of massive unpopularity
• The effigy burnings, the riots, and why the public hated the deal Jay negotiated
• Why historians now credit the Jay Treaty with buying America the time it needed to survive