A Political History of the State of New York Volume I Part 12

Thenceforth he became a stranger and a wanderer on the face of the earth. His friends left him and society shunned him. "I have not spoken to the d.a.m.ned reptile for twenty-five years," said former Governor Morgan Lewis, in 1830.[151]

[Footnote 151: _Autobiography of Thurlow Weed_, p. 370.]

For the moment, one forgets the horrible tragedy of July 11, 1804, and thinks only of the lonely man who lived to lament it. He was in his eighty-first year when he died. On his return from Europe in 1812, only one person welcomed him. This was Matthew L. Davis, his earliest political friend and biographer. Burr made Davis his literary executor, and turned over to him the confidential female correspondence that had acc.u.mulated in the days of his popularity as United States senator and Vice President, and that he had carefully filed and indorsed with the full name of each writer. The treachery, falsehood, and desertion with which these letters charged him, seemed to this unnatural man to add to their value, and he gave them to his executor without instructions, that the extent of his gallantries, his power of fascination, and the names of the gifted and beautiful victims of his numerous amours might not become a secret in his grave.

One can conceive nothing baser. The preservation of letters to satisfy an erotic mind is low enough, but deliberately to identify each anonymous or initialled letter with the full name of the writer, for the use of a biographer, is an act of treachery of which few men are capable. To the credit of Davis, these letters were either returned to their writers or consigned to the flames.

Burr was a politician by nature, habit and education. In his younger days he easily enlisted the goodwill and sympathy of his a.s.sociates, surrounding himself with a large circle of devoted, obedient friends; and, though neither a great lawyer nor a brilliant speaker, his natural gifts, supplemented by industry and perseverance, and a very attractive presence, made him a conspicuous member of the New York bar and of the United States Senate. He was, however, the ardent champion of nothing that made for the public good. Indeed, the record of his whole life indicates that he never possessed a great thought, or fathered an important measure. Throughout the long, and, at times, bitter controversy over the establishment of the Union, his silence was broken only to predict its failure within half a century.

It is doubtful if he was ever a happy man. In the very hours when he was the most famous and the most flattered, he described himself as most unhappy. So long, though, as Theodosia lived, he was never alone.

When she died, he suffered till the end. There has hardly ever been in the world a more famous pair of lovers than Burr and his gifted, n.o.ble daughter, and there is nothing in history more profoundly melancholy than the loss of the ship, driven by the pitiless wind of fate, on which Theodosia had taken pa.s.sage for her southern home. Yet one is shocked at the unnatural parent who instructs his daughter to read, in the event of his death in the duel with Hamilton, the confidential letters which came to him in the course of his love intrigues and affairs of gallantry. It imports a moral obliquity that, happily for society, is found in few human beings. As he lived, so he died, a strange, lonely, unhappy man, out of tune with the beautiful world in which he was permitted to exist upward of four score years. He had done a great deal of harm, and, except as a Revolutionary soldier, no good whatever.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CLINTONS AGAINST THE LIVINGSTONS

1804-1807

When Morgan Lewis began his term as governor tranquillity characterised public affairs in the State and in the nation. The Louisiana Purchase had strengthened the Administration with all cla.s.ses of people; Jefferson and George Clinton had received 162 electoral votes to 14 for Pinckney and Rufus King; Burr had gone into retirement and was soon to go into obscurity; the Livingstons, filling high places, were distinguishing themselves at home and abroad as able judges and successful diplomatists; DeWitt Clinton, happy and eminently efficient as the mayor of New York, seemed to have before him a bright and prosperous career as a skilful and triumphant party manager; while George Clinton, softened by age, rich in favouring friends, with an ideal face for a strong, bold portrait, was basking in the soft, mellow glow that precedes the closing of a stormy life.

Never before, perhaps never since, did a governor enter upon his duties, neither unusual nor important, under more favourable auspices; yet the story of Lewis' administration is a story of astonishing mistakes and fatal factional strife.

The Governor inaugurated his new career by an unhappy act of patronage. The appointment of Maturin Livingston, his son-in-law, and the removal of Peter B. Porter, the friend of Burr, showed a selfish, almost malevolent disregard of public opinion and the public service, a trait that, in a way, characterised his policy throughout.

Livingston was notoriously unfitted for recorder of New York. He was unpopular in his manners, deficient in a knowledge of law, without industry, and given to pleasure rather than business, but, because of his relationship, the Governor forced him into that responsible position. In like manner, although until then no change had occurred within the party for opinion's sake, Lewis voted for the removal of Peter B. Porter, the young and popular clerk of Ontario County.

Porter's youth indicated an intelligence that promised large returns to his country and his party, and the Governor lived long enough to see him honourably distinguished in Congress, highly renowned when his serious career began on the Niagara frontier in the War of 1812, and, afterward, richly rewarded as secretary of war in the Cabinet of John Quincy Adams. But in 1805 the Governor cheerfully voted for his removal, thus establishing the dangerous precedent that a member of one's political household was to be treated with as little consideration as a member of the opposite party.

Although Lewis' conduct in the case of Maturin Livingston and Peter B.

Porter was not the most foolish act in a career of folly, it served as a fitting preface to his policy in relation to the incorporation of the Merchants' Bank of New York, a policy that proved fatal to his ambition and to the influence of the Livingstons. Already doing business under the general laws, two Republican Legislatures had refused to incorporate the Merchants' Bank. But during the legislative session of 1805 the bank people determined to have their way, and in the efforts that followed they used methods and means common enough afterward, but probably unknown before that winter. Although in no wise connected with the scandal growing out of the controversy, Lewis favoured the incorporation of the bank. On the other hand, DeWitt Clinton opposed it, maintaining that two banks in New York City were sufficient. However, the Governor, backed by the Federalists and a small Republican majority, was successful. In the Council of Revision, Ambrose Spencer opposed the act of incorporation on the ground that existing banks, possessing five million dollars of capital, with authority to issue notes and create debts to the amount of fifteen million more, were sufficient, especially as the United States had suffered an alarming decrease of specie, and as no one save a few individuals, inspired solely by cupidity, had asked for a new bank.

Spencer, however, relied princ.i.p.ally in his attack upon affidavits of Obadiah German, the Republican leader of the a.s.sembly, and Stephen Thorn of the same body, charging that Senator Ebenezer Purdy, the father of the measure, had offered them large rewards for their votes, German having Purdy's admission that he had become convinced of the propriety of incorporating the bank after a confidential conference with its directors. From this it was to be inferred, argued Spencer, that before such improper means were made use of, Purdy himself, whose vote was necessary to its pa.s.sage, was averse to its incorporation.

"To sanction a bill thus marked in its progress through one branch of the Legislature with bribery and corruption," concluded the Judge, "would be subversive of all pure legislation, and become a reproach to a government hitherto renowned for the wisdom of its councils and the integrity of its legislatures."[152] But Spencer's opposition and Purdy's resignation, to avoid an investigation, did not defeat the measure, which had the support of Chief Justice Kent, a Federalist, and two members of the Livingston family, a majority of the Council.

[Footnote 152: Alfred B. Street, _New York Council of Revision_, p.

429.]

DeWitt Clinton had not approved the Governor's course. The flagrant partiality shown Lewis' family in the unpopular appointment of Maturin Livingston, his son-in-law, displeased him, and the removal of Porter seemed to him untimely and vindictive. In killing Hamilton, Clinton reasoned, Burr had killed himself politically, and out of the way himself there was no occasion to punish his friends who would now rejoin and strengthen the Republican party. Clinton, however, remained pa.s.sive in his opposition until the incorporation of the bank furnished a plausible excuse for an appeal to the party; then, with a determination to subjugate the Livingstons, he caused himself and his adherents to be nominated and elected to the State Senate upon the platform that "a new bank has been created in our city, and its charter granted to political enemies." It was a bold move, as stubborn as it was dangerous. Clinton had little to gain. The Livingstons were not long to continue in New York politics. Maturin was insignificant; Brockholst was soon to pa.s.s to the Supreme Court of the United States; Edward had already sought a new home and greater honours in New Orleans; and the Chancellor, having returned from France, was without ambition to remain longer in the political arena. Even the brothers-in-law were soon to disappear. John Armstrong was in France; Smith Thompson, who was to follow Brockholst upon the bench of the United States Supreme Court, refused to engage in party or political contests, and the gifts of Tillotson and Lewis were not of quality or quant.i.ty to make leaders of men. On the other hand, Clinton had much to lose by forcing the fight. It condemned him to a career of almost unbroken opposition for the rest of his life; it made precedents that lived to curse him; and it compelled alliances that weakened him.

Lewis resented Clinton's imperious methods, but he made a fatal mistake in furnishing him such a pretext for open opposition. He ought to have known that in opposing the Merchants' Bank, Clinton represented the great majority of his party which did not believe in banks. Undoubtedly Clinton's interest in the Manhattan largely controlled his att.i.tude toward the Merchants', but the controversy over the latter was so old, and its claims had been pressed so earnestly by the Federalists in their own interest, that the question had practically become a party issue as much as the contest over the Bank of the United States. Already two Republican Legislatures had defeated it, and in a third it was now being urged to success with the help of a solid Federalist vote and a system of flagrant bribery, of which the Governor was fully advised. A regard for party opinion, if no higher motive, therefore, might well have governed Lewis' action.

After the fight had been precipitated, resulting in a warfare fatal to Lewis, the Governor's apologists claimed that in favouring the bank he had simply resisted Clinton's domination. The Governor may have thought so, but it was further evidence of his inability either to understand the sentiment dominating the party he sought to represent, or successfully to compete with Clinton in leadership. DeWitt Clinton, with all his faults, and they were many and grave, had in him the gifts of a master and the capacity of a statesman. Lewis seems to have had neither gifts nor capacity.

In January, 1806, DeWitt Clinton, securing a majority of the Council of Appointment by the election of himself and two friends, sounded the signal of attack upon the Governor and his supporters. He subst.i.tuted Pierre C. Van Wyck for Maturin Livingston and Elisha Jenkins for Thomas Tillotson. The Governor's friends were also evicted from minor office, only men hostile to Lewis' re-election being preferred.

Nothing could be less justifiable, or, indeed, more nefarious than such removals. They were discreditable to the Council and disgraceful to DeWitt Clinton; yet sentiment of the time seems to have approved them, regarding Clinton's conduct merely as a stroke of good politics.

In the midst of this wretched business it is pleasant to note that Jenkins' transfer from comptroller to secretary of state opened a way for the appointment of Archibald McIntyre, whose safe custody of the purse in days when economies and husbandries were in order, distinguished him as a faithful official, and kept him in office until 1821.

After such drastic treatment of the Governor, it is not without interest to think of Lewis in Albany and Clinton in New York keeping their eyes upon the election in April, 1806, both alike hopeful of finding allies in the party breakup. The advantage seemed to be wholly with the Mayor and not with the Governor. Indeed, Republicans of all factions were so well a.s.sured of Clinton's success that it required the faith of a novice in politics to believe that Lewis had any chance. But DeWitt Clinton had to deal with two cla.s.ses of men, naturally and almost relentlessly opposed to him--the friends of Burr and the Federalists. It was of immense importance that the former should stand with him, since the Federalists were certain to side with the Lewisites or "Quids," as the Governor's friends came to be known, and to secure such an advantage Clinton promptly made overtures to the Burrites, of whom John Swartout, Peter Irving and Matthew L. Davis were the leaders.

There is some confusion as to details, but Davis is authority for the statement that in December, 1805, Theodorus Bailey, as Clinton's agent, promised to aid Burr's friends through the Manhattan Bank, to recognise them as Republicans, to appoint them to office on the same footing with the most favoured Clintonian, and to stop Cheetham's attacks in the _American Citizen_. Clinton p.r.o.nounced the story false, but it was known that the Manhattan Bank loaned eighteen thousand dollars to a prominent Burrite; that on January 24, 1806, Clinton met Swartout, Irving and Davis at the home of Bailey; and that afterward, on February 20, leading Clintonians banqueted the Burrites at Dyde's Hotel in the suburbs of New York in celebration of their union. There were many reasons for maintaining the profoundest secrecy as to this alliance and Dyde's Hotel had been selected for the purpose of avoiding publicity, but the morning's papers revealed the secret with an exaggerated account of their doings and sayings. Immediately, other Burrites, joining the Lewisites at Martling's Long-room, a popular meeting-place, organised a protestant faction, afterward known as Martling Men, whose enmity was destined to follow Clinton to his downfall.

As election day approached the Quids made a decisive struggle against Clinton. They rehea.r.s.ed the charges of "Aristides;" they denounced him as cold and imperious; they charged that he had an almost boundless political ambition; that he maintained his own councils regardless of his a.s.sociates, and accepted no suggestion not in harmony with his own policy. The Martling Men accused him of duplicity, and of a desire only for place and pay. In aid of Lewis, Chancellor Lansing took this opportunity of revealing the secret that led him to withdraw from the gubernatorial race in 1804, charging that George Clinton had sought "to pledge him to a particular course of conduct in the administration of the government of the State." When the latter denied the statement, Lansing, becoming more specific, affirmed that the venerable statesman had mentioned DeWitt Clinton as a suitable person for chancellor. It is not surprising, perhaps, that DeWitt Clinton's reply that if tendered the office he would have declined it, fell upon incredulous ears, since the young man at that very moment was holding three offices and drawing three salaries.

But the contest did not become seriously doubtful until the Quids received the active support of the Federalists, just then led by William W. Van Ness, who seems to have leaped into prominence as suddenly as did "Aristides," his cousin. If we may estimate the man by the praises of his contemporaries, William W. Van Ness' eloquence delighted the a.s.sembly of which he had become a member in 1805, not more than his pointed and finished wit charmed every social gathering which he honoured with his presence. Indeed, as a popular orator he seems to have had no rival. Though his pa.s.sion for distinction was too ardent and his fondness for sensual pleasure immoderate, sober minded men were carried away with the fascinating effervescence of his public utterances and the brilliancy of his conversation. He had a commanding presence, almost a colossal form, and a voice marvellous for its strength and for the music of its intonations. He was neither profound nor learned. The common school at Claverack, where he was born in independence year, furnished him little more than the rudiments of English, and at the age of twenty he closed the door to further advancement by prematurely burdening himself with a family; yet he seemed to know without apparent effort everything that was necessary to know, and to exert a gentle, unconscious, unpretending power that was resistless. A sweetness of temper and a native dignity of manner cast a grace and charm about him which acted as a spell upon all who came within its influence. Hammond, the historian, thought him the possessor of every gift that nature and fortune could bestow--wit, beauty, good nature, suave manners, eloquence, and admirable conversation. Such a combination gave him leadership, and he led his followers solidly to Lewis, with the result that the coalition of Federalists and Quids won out by a small majority.

When the Legislature a.s.sembled, in January, 1807, the intense bitterness of the fight exhibited itself in the defeat of Solomon Southwick for clerk of the a.s.sembly. Southwick possessed the amiable, winning qualities that characterised William W. Van Ness. He was a.s.sociated with his brother-in-law in the management of the Albany _Register_, and from his earliest youth had been as zealous a Republican as he was warm and disinterested in his friendships. To friend and foe he was alike cordial and generous. He possessed an open mind, not so eloquent as Van Ness, and less brilliant, perhaps, in conversation; but the fluent splendour of his speech and the beauty of his person and manners went as far toward the attainment of his ambition. He had been elected clerk of the a.s.sembly continuously since 1803, until his popularity among the members, whom he served with uniform politeness and zeal, seemed proof against the attacks of any adversary. Just now, however, the enemies of DeWitt Clinton were the opponents of Solomon Southwick, while his rival, Garret Y. Lansing, the nephew of the Chancellor, had become the bitterest and most formidable enemy the Clintons had to encounter. Popular as he was, Southwick could not win against such odds, although it turned out that a change of four votes would have elected him.

A Lewis Council of Appointment made a clean sweep of the Governor's enemies and of DeWitt Clinton's friends. Clinton himself gave up the mayoralty of New York, Maturin Livingston again a.s.sumed the duties of recorder, and Thomas Tillotson was restored to the office of secretary of state. Perhaps Clinton thought he stood too high to be in danger from Lewis' hand. If he did he found out his mistake, for Lewis struck him down in the most unsparing and humiliating way. Public affront was added to political deprivation. Without warning or explanation, the first motion put at the first meeting of the new Council, on February 6, 1807, made him the first sacrifice. Had he been a justice of the peace in a remote western county he could not have been treated more rudely; and, it may be added, if better reason than that already existing were needed to seal the fate of Lewis, Clinton's removal furnished it. New York has seldom been roused to greater pa.s.sion by a governor's act. It could even then be said of Clinton that his name was a.s.sociated with every great enterprise for the public good. Less than a year before, in his efforts to educate the children of the poor, unprovided for in parochial schools, he had laid the foundation of the public school system, heading the subscription list for the purchase of suitable quarters. In spite of his faults he was a great executive, and before the sun went down on the day of his removal a large majority of the Republican members of the Legislature, guided by the deposed mayor, had nominated Daniel D.

Tompkins for governor in place of Morgan Lewis.

In disposing of the mayoralty, Lewis recognised the importance of keeping it in the family, and offered it to Smith Thompson, both of whose wives were Livingstons; but only once in forty years did Thompson's love for the judiciary give way to political preferment, and then Martin Van Buren defeated him for governor. The mayoralty finally went to Marinus Willett, an officer of distinguished service in the Revolutionary war, whose gallantry at Fort Schuyler in the summer of 1777 won him a sword from Congress and the admiration of General Washington. But the steadfast, judicious qualities that commended him as a soldier seem to have forsaken him as a politician.

He supported Burr, he followed Lewis, and he finally ran for lieutenant-governor against DeWitt Clinton, the regular nominee of his party, losing the election by a large majority; yet his amiability and war services kept him a favourite in spite of his political wavering.

It was hard for a lover of his country to dislike a real hero of the Revolution, even though he forfeited the confidence of his party.

Clinton, who had kept his head cool in victory, did not lose it in defeat; but the Governor found himself in an awkward and humiliating position. Although the Federalists had made it possible for him to organise the Legislature and elect a friendly Council, he dared not appoint one of them to office, and the few ambitious Republicans who had marshalled under his standard proved inferior, inexperienced, or indiscreet. Only one Federalist fared well, and he succeeded in spite of Lewis. William W. Van Ness aspired to the Supreme Court judgeship made vacant by Brockholst Livingston's appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Governor, favouring, of course, a member of his own family, proposed Maturin Livingston. To this Thomas Thomas of the Council agreed, but Edward Savage proposed John Woodworth; John Nicholas inclined to Jonas Platt, and James Burt, the fourth member of the Council, preferred Van Ness. Platt was a Federalist, and in his way a remarkable man. His father, Zephaniah Platt, served in the Continental Congress, and as judge of the Circuit Court had pushed his way to the northern frontier, founded Plattsburg, and advocated a system of ca.n.a.ls connecting the Hudson with the lakes.

The son, following his example, studied law and emigrated to the western frontier, settling in Herkimer County, at Whitesboro. He had already served one term in the Legislature and one in Congress, and was destined to receive other honourable preferment. But just now Nicholas, his political backer, a recent comer from Virginia, who had served with him in Congress, was no match for the adroit Burt, whose shrewd management in the interest of Aaron Burr had recently sent Theodorus Bailey to the United States Senate over John Woodworth. Burt convinced Nicholas that Platt's candidacy would result in the election of Livingston or Woodworth, and having thus destroyed the Herkimer lawyer, he appealed to Savage to drop Woodworth in favour of Van Ness. Savage was a Republican of the old school, a supporter of George Clinton, an opponent of the Federal Const.i.tution, who had apparently followed Lewis for what he could make out of it; but he was indisposed to add to the sin of rebellion against DeWitt Clinton the folly of voting for Maturin Livingston, and so he joined Burt and Nicholas in support of Van Ness. Thus it happened that the popular young orator became a member of the Supreme Court at the early age of thirty-one, being the youngest member of the court, save Daniel D. Tompkins, to serve on the old, conservative Council of Revision.

News of this bad business intensified the angry feeling against the Governor. A place on the Supreme Court, valued then even more highly than now, had been lost to the party because of his arrogant and consuming nepotism, and men turned with enthusiasm to Daniel D.

Tompkins, whose nomination for governor brought him champions that had heretofore avoided all appearance of violent partisanship. Tompkins was accepted as the exponent of all that Republicans most prized; Lewis as their most obstinate and offensive opponent. Thus, at last, the Clintons faced the Livingstons on a fair field.

CHAPTER XIV

DANIEL D. TOMPKINS AND DeWITT CLINTON

1807-1810

Had DeWitt Clinton succeeded to the governorship in 1807, his way to the Presidency, upon which his eye was already fixed, might have opened easily and surely. But the bitterness of the Livingstons and the unfriendly disposition of the Federalists compelled him to flank the difficulty by presenting a candidate for governor who was void of offence. If it was humiliating to admit his own ineligibility, it was no less so to meet the new condition, for Lewis' election in 1804 had discovered the scarcity of available material, and developed the danger of relying upon another to do his bidding. Just now Clinton wanted a candidate with no convictions, no desires, no ambitions, and no purposes save to please him. There were men enough of this kind, but they could neither conceal their master's hand, nor command the suffrages of a majority on their own account. In this crisis, therefore, he selected, to the surprise of all and to the disgust of some, Daniel D. Tompkins, the young and amiable justice of the Supreme Court, who had taken the place of James Kent on the latter's promotion to chief justice.

Thus it happened that the day which witnessed DeWitt Clinton's removal from the New York mayoralty, welcomed into larger political life this man of honourable parentage, who was destined to play a very conspicuous part in affairs of state. Daniel D. Tompkins, a youth of promise and a young man of ripening wisdom, had been for some years in the public eye, first as a member of the const.i.tutional convention of 1801, afterward as a successful candidate for Congress, and later as a judge of the Supreme Court. His rise had been phenomenally rapid. He pa.s.sed from the farm to the college at seventeen, from college to the law office at twenty-one, from the law office to the const.i.tutional convention at twenty-seven, and thence to Congress and the Supreme Court at thirty. He was now to become governor at thirty-three. But with all his promise and wisdom and rapid advancement, no one dreamed in 1807 that he was soon to divide political honour and power with DeWitt Clinton, five years his senior.

Tompkins was on the farm when Clinton was in Columbia College; but if the plow lengthened his days, study shortened his nights, and five years after Clinton graduated, Tompkins entered the same inst.i.tution.

Just then it was a stern chase. Clinton had the advantage of family, Tompkins the disadvantage of being a stranger. When the former entered the Legislature, the latter had only opened a law office. Then, but four years later, they met in the const.i.tutional convention, Clinton on the winning side and Tompkins on the right side. The purpose of this convention, it will be recalled, had been to give each member of the Council of Appointment the power to nominate candidates for office--Clinton holding that the Council had the right to nominate as well as to confirm appointments; Tompkins, with barely a dozen a.s.sociates, took the ground, maintained by Governors Clinton and Jay, that its power was limited to confirmation. This position showed the nerve as well as the independence of the younger man, and he was able proudly to refer to it when, twenty years later, the const.i.tutional convention of 1821, inspired by the popular contempt, achieved the abolition of the Council, and with it the political corruption and favouritism to which it had given rise.

The record of New York politics is a record of long and bitter contests between these chiefs of two antagonistic Republican factions.

What the struggle between Stalwarts and Half Breeds was to our own time, the struggle between Clinton and Tompkins was to our ancestors of two and three generations ago. Two men could hardly be more sharply contrasted. The one appeared cold and reserved, the other most gracious and gentle; Clinton's self-confidence destroyed the fidelity of those who differed in opinion, Tompkins' urbanity disarmed their disloyalty; Clinton was unrelenting, dogged in his tenacity, quick to speak harshly, moving within lines of purpose regardless of those of least resistance. Although he often changed his a.s.sociates, like Lord Shaftesbury, he never changed his purposes. Tompkins, always firm and dignified, was affable in manner, sympathetic in speech, overflowing with good nature, and unpretending to all who approached him. It used to be said that Tompkins made more friends in refusing favours than Clinton did in granting them.

The two men also differed as much in personal appearance as in manner.

Tompkins, shapely and above the ordinary height, had large, full eyes, twinkling with kindness, a high forehead wreathed with dark, curly hair, and an oval face, easily and usually illuminated with a smile; Clinton had a big frame, square shoulders, a broad, full forehead, short, pompadour hair, dark penetrating eyes, and a large mouth with lips firmly set. It was a strong face. A dullard could read his character at a glance. To his intimate friends Clinton was undoubtedly a social, agreeable companion; but the dignified imperiousness of his manner and the severity of his countenance usually overcame the ordinary visitor before the barriers of his reserve were broken.

Tompkins, on the contrary, carried the tenderness of a wide humanity in his face.

It was hardly creditable to Clinton's knowledge of human nature that he selected Daniel D. Tompkins for a gubernatorial candidate, if he sought a man whom he might control. The memory of the const.i.tutional convention, or a glance into the history of the elder Tompkins, who had stood firm and unyielding in the little settlement of Fox Meadows in Winchester after the American defeat on Long Island, when all his neighbours save two had faltered in the cause of independence, would have enlightened him respecting the Tompkins character. The farmer boy's determined, patient preparation for public life, and his fort.i.tude in the face of conscious disadvantages, ought also to have suggested that the young man was made of sterner stuff than the obedient Theodorus Bailey. Still more surprising is it that Clinton should overlook, or insufficiently consider the fact that Tompkins was now the son-in-law of Mangle Minthorne, a wealthy citizen of New York, and the leader of the Martling Men, of whose opposition he had already been apprised, and whose bitter hostility he was about to experience.

If he thought to disarm the enmity of Minthorne by helping the son-in-law, his hopes were raised only to be dashed to earth again.

It is certain DeWitt Clinton had no one save himself to thank for taking this Hercules, whose political direction was conspicuously inevitable from the first. But Clinton wanted an a.s.sured victor against Morgan Lewis and the Livingstons, with their Federalist supporters, and, although some people inclined to the opinion that Tompkins had already been promoted too rapidly, Clinton believed his services on the bench had made him the most available man in the party. For three years this young judge, subst.i.tuting sympathy for severity, had endeared himself to all who knew him. The qualities of fairness and fitness which Greek wisdom praised in the conduct of life were characteristic of his life. From what we know of his work it is fair to presume, had he tarried upon the bench until 1821, he would have been a worthy a.s.sociate of Smith Thompson and Ambrose Spencer.

Sixty-five Republican members of the Legislature signed the address, drawn by DeWitt Clinton, putting Tompkins into the race for governor; forty-five indorsed the platform on which Governor Lewis stood for re-election. The Clinton address gave no reason for preferring Tompkins to Lewis, but the latter's weakness as an executive, foreshadowed a defeat which each day made plainer, and when the votes, counted on the last day of April, gave Tompkins 4085 majority, the result was as gratifying to Clinton as it was disastrous to Lewis.[153] It was not a sweeping victory, such as Lewis had won over Burr three years before, for the former's weakness was less offensive than the latter's wickedness, but it launched the successful candidate on his long period of authority, which was not to be ended until he was broken in health, if not in character.