John Hay

John Hay (1838-1905), American statesman and writer, secretary of state during the expansion of United States international activity under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and an important biographer of President Abraham Lincoln.

John Milton Hay was born October 8, 1838, in Salem, Indiana, and educated at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Hay joined his uncle's law office in Springfield, Illinois, in 1858. In 1861-65, during the American Civil War, he was assistant to his friend John Nicolay, private secretary to Lincoln. During this period he and Nicolay collected the material for the two monumental works on which they later collaborated: Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 volumes, 1890), a critical biography still highly regarded today; and Abraham Lincoln: Collected Works (2 volumes, 1894).

Hay held minor diplomatic posts in Europe in 1865-70 and then, except for serving as assistant secretary of state in 1879-80, devoted himself to writing until 1897. Besides serving on the editorial board of the New York Tribune he published sketches of his experiences in Spain, Castilian Days (1871), a collection of poems in Illinois frontier dialect, Pike County Ballads (1871), and the two Lincoln works.

Hay was ambassador to Britain in 1897-98 and then served until his death as secretary of state to McKinley and Roosevelt. As secretary he directed peace negotiations after the Spanish-American War (1898), secured U.S. influence in the Pacific by annexing the Philippines, and in China initiated (1899) the Open Door Policy, which guaranteed equal trade opportunities for all countries. In 1900, following the outbreak of the Boxer Uprising, Hay defined U.S. policy even more emphatically, declaring that the U.S. would uphold both the territorial and administrative integrity of China and the policy of free trade. In 1901 he negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which opened the way for U.S. construction of the Panama Canal. Hay died on July 1, 1905, in Newbury, New Hampshire.