In a union with slaveholders, public clamor about foreign relations could raise divisive questions about the compatibility of slavery and republican government that affected different quarters of that union differently. On April 15, 1794, President George Washington appointed John Jay as envoy extraordinary to London to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce. Anglo-American relations had been tense since the Treaty of Paris in 1783, and the officially neutral United States struggled to steer clear of the Anglo-French War that embroiled the Atlantic World. Read more