According to William Jay, John Jay, himself a slaveowner but a longtime opponent of slavery, seemed to have determined on becoming governor that, as far as his influence could effect it, a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery should be moved at every session of the legislature until it was enacted into a law, or until he ceased to be governor. However, William also claimed that rather than risk attaching partisan opposition to him to abolition measures, Jay resolved to work behind the scenes, delegating the fight to allied legislators.1 Bills were introduced in every session from 1796 until 1799, when the fourth was finally adopted. Jay did not refer to the abolition proposals in his messages to the legislature nor make any public pronouncements on them. No documentation of his role can be found. For even the one letter to him found on the subject from black advocate William Hamilton, there is no record of a reply.2

The bills proposed were consistent with the views on abolition Jay had expressed in 1792 when under attack by Republican opponents for his anti-slavery views and policies. He then proclaimed:

As to my sentiments and conduct relative to the abolition of slavery, the fact is this:— In my opinion, every man of every color and description has a natural right to freedom, and I shall ever acknowledge myself to be an advocate for the manumission of slaves in such way as may be consistent with the justice due to them, with the justice due to their masters, and with the regard due to the actual state of society. These considerations unite in convincing me that the abolition of slavery must necessarily be gradual.3

His views thus combined political and social realism, political expediency, a firm support for property rights, and personal self-interest, with his moral belief in the concept of equal rights to liberty.

No doubt in part because of the role the slavery issue had played in the 1792 election, most legislators were reluctant at first to take up the issue. Support for slavery in New York was strongest in Queens, Ulster, and Albany Counties, all places heavily dependent on enslaved persons as agricultural workers. Opposition was strongest in New York City, headquarters of the New-York Manumission Society and home to many black freedmen, and in newly settled western counties where the practice of slavery was not as prevalent. Although Republicans found it politically expedient to attack anti-slavery proponents in 1792, over time their support for slavery declined as their commitment to equalitarianism increased, and in the end the abolition bill passed with bipartisan support. News of the violent rebellion in Haiti increased fears of slavery, while greater awareness of the harshness with which enslaved persons were treated outside New York rose as refugees from Haiti arrived in New York with their enslaved servants in tow.4

The question of compensation to slave-owners was the chief stumbling block to passage for the bills proposed. In November 1795, opponents of slavery in New York decided again to seek gradual abolition legislation, responding in part to the call by the Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies Established in Different Parts of the United States earlier that year for state manumission societies to use “every method in your power which can promise any success” in altering state laws protecting slavery.5 In January 1796, Jay ally James Watson asked to introduce an abolition bill in the assembly, winning reluctant permission to do so from a small majority. The bill he introduced prompted protracted discussion. General agreement was reached that abolition would apply not to those currently enslaved but to their children. The concept of compensation to owners won approval by one vote, with supporters of abolition split on the measure. The bill was then referred to a five-man committee, ending action during that session.6

In January 1797, a second bill was introduced, but was postponed time and again until the session ended.7 In 1798, the third bill faced strong opposition in the assembly and, intent on destroying it, opponents added a clause providing for state remuneration to slave-owners for the persons freed. The amendment was overwhelmingly defeated by representatives from New York City and the northern and western counties. Proposals to make the state financially responsible for any freed persons who subsequently became a pauper were similarly defeated. The bill passed in the assembly, but the senate declined to take it into consideration during that session.8

When the bill came before the 1799 session, the chief concern was financial responsibility for prospective freed people. The idea that the children and their masters should cover much of the cost prevailed. The principle was established that children born of an enslaved mother would be free, but obliged to serve for a defined number of years passed by a vote of 68 to 33. A second clause permitted masters to renounce their rights to enslaved children within a year after their birth. Those children would become wards of their local jurisdiction, which would bind them out to work for others. A vote to make the state financially responsible for the abandoned children passed, then was reversed the following day. Slaveholders then sought to prolong the period of service for these children as much as possible, eventually settling on age 28 for males and age 25 for females. When the senate took up the bill, it reinstated state support for abandoned enslaved children and liberalized rules governing private manumission. The assembly agreed to the senate’s changes and the Council of Revision approved “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery” on 29 March. It stipulated that all children born to enslaved mothers after 4 July of that year would be free, with the requirement that males serve their mothers’ masters until age 28 and females until age 25.9 By the time of its passage all the northern states except New Jersey had passed abolition bills. Those enslaved born before 4 July 1799 and not previously manumitted were freed under later legislation effective 4 July 1827 when slavery officially came to an end in New York. Nevertheless, some of those covered by the 1799 act who had not reached the ages specified in the act still had to complete their indentures to their mother’s masters well into the 1830s and 40s.10