John Hay

John Milton Hay (1838–1905) was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln. After Lincoln's death, Hay continued in politics, eventually serving as Ambassador to the United Kingdom under William McKinley, and then Secretary of State (1898-1905).

John Hay in Southern Victory
John Hay served as a secretary to President Abraham Lincoln during the War of Secession, and as President James G. Blaine's ambassador to the Confederate States until the Second Mexican War began.

In 1882, Hay was one of several prominent Republican leaders to attend a convention called by Abraham Lincoln in Chicago. He was one of those who resisted Lincoln's proposal that the party replace hostility toward the Confederate States with workers' rights as the central plank of the party's platform. The rejection of this proposal led to Lincoln's defection to the Socialist Party and the end of the Republican Party as an effective force in American politics.