John Jay Papers
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To John Jay from John Lansing Jr., Egbert Benson, James Kent, and Jacob Radcliff, 26 March 1801

From John Lansing Jr., Egbert Benson, James Kent, and Jacob Radcliff

ALBANY, March 26, 1801.

SIR,

WE have the honor of your Excellency’s letter of the 18th inst. directed to the Chancellor, and to the Chief Justice and the other Judges of the Supreme Court,1 requesting their sentiments on the question therein stated by your Excellency, unless a mode of having it judicially determined should occur to them, and in that case that they would indicate it.

No mode occurs to us, to be adopted by your Excellency, to have the question judicially determined. Still we conceive that we cannot comply with your Excellency’s request, in as much as any opinion from us on the question, unless in a judicial procedure, or in the Council of Revision, considered as a mean to declare, and thereby to establish, the sense in which the constitution ought to be received and observed, would be without effect. We cannot therefore view the present as one of the cases (for we will not pronounce there cannot be any) in which the Governor may require the advice of the Chancellor and Judges of the Supreme Court, on the laws and constitution, in the execution of his office.2 We have the great honor to be, with great respect, Your Excellency’s most obedient servants,

JOHN LANSING, Jun.
EGBERT BENSON.
JAMES KENT.
JACOB RADCLIFF.

His Excellency Governor Jay.

PtD and C, embedded in JJ’s Message to the New York State Assembly, 28 Mar. 1801, below. Reprinted: Albany Gazette, 30 Mar.; Albany Centinel (supplement), 31 Mar., DeWitt Clinton Broadside Collection, NAll; American Citizen, Commercial Advertiser, and Mercantile Advertiser (all New York), 2 Apr.; Spectator (New York) 4 Apr.; Philadelphia Gazette, 6 Apr.; Washington Federalist, (Georgetown), 10 Apr.; Hudson Gazette, 14 Apr. 1801; N.Y. Assembly Journal, 28 Mar. 1801, 24th sess. (1800–1801), 248–49; NYGM, 2: 483.

The letter by the Supreme Court Bench is in reply to JJ to the New York State Chancellor (Robert R. Livingston), Chief Justice (John Lansing Jr.), and Associate Justices of the New York State Supreme Court (Egbert Benson, James Kent, Morgan Lewis, and Jacob Radcliff), 18 Mar. 1801, above. See also replies to JJ’s letter by RRL, 21 Mar.; and John Lansing Jr., 26 Mar. 1801, both above.

2For more on JJ’s longstanding dispute with the Council of Appointment, and his attempts to resolve the issue, see the editorial note “Conflict with the Council of Appointment,” above.

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