The Bayards descended from a sister of Dutch Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant and came to Bohemia Manor, Cecil County, Maryland in 1698.

[2] Upon the premature death of his parents, the younger James went to live with his uncle, Colonel John Bubenheim Bayard, in Philadelphia.

They had six children, Richard, Caroline, James Jr., Edward, Mary, and Henry M. and lived on the southwest corner of 3rd and French Street in Wilmington,[1] where they owned slaves.

While the U.S. House impeached him, under Bayard's leadership, the United States Senate dropped the charges in 1799 on the grounds that no further action could be taken beyond his dismissal.

With the vote tied in the Electoral College, it was a group of Federalists led by Bayard who broke the deadlock by agreeing to allow the election of Thomas Jefferson by the House of Representatives.

The young Bayard enlisted Representative Samuel Smith (Maryland politician) to negotiate with Jefferson on Federalist control of the Philadelphia and Wilmington custom offices.

Just before John Adams left office as U.S. president he used the provisions of the Judiciary Act of 1801 to make many "midnight" judicial appointments.

So effective was Bayard in opposing Jefferson's administration that an all-out effort was made by the Democratic-Republicans to defeat him in his attempt at a fourth term in 1802.

As the possibility of war became more likely, he urged caution, thinking of the lack of preparedness of the army and navy and especially of the vulnerability of coastal Delaware.

Resigning his Senate seat, he went to Europe and played a major role in the negotiations that ended the War of 1812 when the treaty was signed in December 1814.

[6]Subsequently, President James Madison offered him an appointment as Minister to Russia, but Bayard declined, believing a Federalist could hardly represent a Democratic-Republican administration.

[7] His disposition on membership is unknown, as no known correspondence confirms or denies his interest, and his death was only a few weeks after his election, and a few days after his return from Europe.