Governor of New York
While in Britain, Jay was elected in May 1795, as the second governor of New York State (following George Clinton) as a Federalist. He resigned from the Supreme Court service on June 29, 1795, and served six years as governor until 1801.
As Governor, he received a proposal from Hamilton to gerrymander New York for the presidential election of that year; he marked the letter "Proposing a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to adopt", and filed it without replying. President John Adams then renominated him to the Supreme Court; the Senate quickly confirmed him, but he declined, citing his own poor health and the court's lack of "the energy, weight and dignity which are essential to its affording due support to the national government."
While governor, Jay ran in the 1796 presidential election, winning five electoral votes, and in the 1800 election, winning one vote.
Jay declined the Federalist renomination for governor in 1801 and retired to the life of a farmer in Westchester County, New York. Soon after his retirement, his wife died. Jay remained in good health, continued to farm and stayed out of politics.
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“Three years ago, also, when the Sims tragedy was acted, I said to myself, There is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of Massachusetts,—what has he been about the last fortnight? Has he had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake?... He could at least have resigned himself into fame.”
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