Secretary of Foreign Affairs and the Federalist Papers

In 1779, Jay was appointed Minister to Spain and traveled across the Atlantic to seek assistance and international recognition for the American Colonies. Unfortunately, Spain wanted nothing to do with Jay or the American Colonies, so Jay changed course and headed to Paris, where the end-of-war negotiations were scheduled to take place. While there, he signed the Treaty of Paris, thus helping the United States receive its independence from Britain.

Jay served as the second Secretary of Foreign Affairs, until the office was changed to "Secretary of State." During this time in office, Jay, along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, began working on a series of periodicals which would eventually be known as The Federalist Papers. Jay wrote the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and sixty-fourth articles.

Slaves are property, not persons: Dred Scott, Plaintiff In Error, v. John F. A. Sandford

On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the majority opinion of the Court, which stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a federal territory. This decision moved the nation a step closer to the Civil War.

The decision of Scott v. Sandford, considered by many legal scholars to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court, was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens of the United States.

The right of a woman to make autonomous decisions about her own body and reproductive functions is at the very core of her fundamental right of liberty under the Constitution. Women's rights of Roe vs Wade should have been embellished in a constitutional amendment.

'Sapere aude'