A Political History of the State of New York Volume I Part 3

CHAPTER IV

CLINTON AND HAMILTON

1777-1789

During the war Governor Clinton's duties were largely military. Every important measure of the Legislature dealt with the public defence, and the time of the Executive was fully employed in carrying out its enactments and performing the work of commander-in-chief of the militia. A large proportion of the population of the State was either avowedly loyal to the Crown or secretly indisposed to the cause of independence. "Of all the Colonies," wrote William Jay, "New York was probably the least unanimous in the a.s.sertion and defence of the principles of the Revolution. The spirit of disaffection was most extensive on Long Island, and had probably tainted a large majority of its inhabitants. In Queens County, in particular, the people had, by a formal vote, refused to send representatives to the colonial congress or convention, and had declared themselves neutral in the present crisis."[21]

[Footnote 21: William Jay, _Life of John Jay_, Vol. 1, p. 41.]

The Governor sought to crush this spirit by methods much in vogue in the eighteenth century. At the outset of his career he declared that he had "rather roast in h.e.l.l to all eternity than be dependent upon Great Britain or show mercy to a d.a.m.ned Tory." To add to his fame, he enforced this judgment with heavy fines, long imprisonments, summary banishments, and frequent coats of tar and feathers.

Very soon after the adoption of the Const.i.tution, the Legislature pa.s.sed a law requiring an oath of allegiance to the State; and under the vigorous enforcement of this act the Governor sent many Tories from the rural districts into the city of New York or expelled them from the State. Others were required to give a pledge, with security, to reside within prescribed limits. At times even the churches were filled with prisoners, some of whom were sent to jails in Connecticut, or exchanged for prisoners of war. In 1779 the Legislature increased the penalty of disloyalty to the State, by pa.s.sing the Confiscation Act, declaring "the forfeiture and sale of the estates of persons who had adhered to the enemy."

Up to this time only one political party had existed among the Whig colonists. The pa.s.sage of the Confiscation Act, however, encountered the opposition of many sincere lovers of the cause of independence, who favoured a more moderate policy toward loyalists, since they were probably as sincere in their opinions as those opposed to them.

Besides, a generous and magnanimous course, it was argued, would induce the return of many desirable citizens after hostilities had ceased. To this the ultra-Whigs replied that the law of self-preservation made a severe policy necessary, and if any one suffered by its operation he must look to the government of his choice for comfort and reimburs.e.m.e.nt. As for the return of the Tories, the ultras declared that only citizens sincerely loyal to an independent country would be acceptable.

This division into moderate and ultra Whigs was emphasised in 1781 by the legislative grant to Congress of such import duties as accrued at the port of New York, to be levied and collected "under such penalties and regulations, and by such officers, as Congress should from time to time make, order, and appoint." Governor Clinton did not cordially approve the act at the time of its pa.s.sage, and as the money began flowing into the national treasury, he opposed the method of its surrender. In his opinion, the State, as an independent sovereignty, had a.s.sociated itself with other Colonies only for mutual protection, and not for their support. At his instance, therefore, the Legislature subst.i.tuted for the law of 1781 the act of March, 1783, granting the duties to Congress, but directing their collection by officers of the State. Although this act was subsequently amended, making collectors amenable to Congress, another law was enacted in 1786 granting Congress the revenue, and reserving to the State, as in the law of 1783, "the sole power of levying and collecting the duties." When Congress asked the Governor to call a special session of the Legislature, that the right to levy and collect might be yielded as before, he refused to do so.

Governor Clinton understood the commercial advantages of New York's geographical location, which were greatly enhanced by the navigation acts of other States. The peace treaty had made New York the port of entry for the whole region east of the Delaware, and into its coffers poured a revenue so marvellous as to excite hopes of a prospective wealth which a century, remarkable as was its productiveness, did little more than realise. If any State, therefore, could survive without a union with other Colonies, it was New York, and it is not surprising that many, perhaps a majority of its people, under the leadership of George Clinton, settled into a policy unfriendly to a national revenue, and later to a national government.

The Governor had gradually become mindful of an opposition as stubborn as it was persistent. He had encountered it in his treatment of the Tories, but not until Alexander Hamilton became an advocate of amnesty and oblivion, did Clinton recognise the centre and future leader of the opposing forces. Hamilton did not appear among those interested in the election of governor in 1777. His youth shut him out of a.s.sembly and Congress, out of committees and conventions, but it did not shut him out of the army; and while Governor Clinton was wrestling with new problems of government in the formation of a new State, Hamilton was acting as secretary, aide, companion, and confidant of Washington, accepting suggestions as commands, and acquiescing in his chief's judgment with a fidelity born of love and admiration. In the history of war nothing is more beautiful than the friendship existing between the acknowledged leader of his country and this brave young officer, spirited and impulsive, brilliant and able, yet frank and candid, without ostentation and without egotism. It recalls a later-day relationship between Ulysses S. Grant and John A. Rawlins, his chief of staff.

In July, 1781, Hamilton, in command of a corps, accompanied Washington in the forced march of the American army from New York to Yorktown.

This afforded him the opportunity, so long and eagerly sought, of handling an independent command at a supreme moment of danger, and before the sun went down on the 14th of October, he had led his troops with fixed bayonets, under a heavy and constant fire, over abatis, ditch, and palisades; then, mounting the parapet, he leaped into the redoubt. Washington saw the impetuosity of the attack in the face of the murderous fire, the daring leap to the parapet with three of his soldiers, and the almost fatal spring into the redoubt. "Few cases,"

he says, "have exhibited greater proofs of intrepidity, coolness, and firmness." Three days later Cornwallis surrendered.

In the summer of 1782 Hamilton was admitted to the bar in Albany, but soon afterward settled in New York City, where he seems to have come into practice and into fame by defending the rights of Tories. For four years after the war ended, the treatment of British sympathisers was the dominant political issue in New York. Governor Clinton advocated disfranchis.e.m.e.nt and banishment, and the Legislature enacted into law what he advised; so that when the British troops, under the peace treaty, evacuated New York, in November, 1783, loyalists who had thus far escaped the wrath of this patriot Governor, flocked to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick like birds seeking a more congenial clime, recalling the flight of the Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes one hundred years earlier. It is not easy to estimate the number who fled before this savage and violent action of the Legislature. Sir Guy Carleton, in command at New York, fixes the emigration at one hundred thousand souls. For many years the "Landing of the Loyalists" was annually commemorated at St. John, and in the cemeteries of England and Scotland are found the tombstones of these unfortunate devotees of the mother country.

It is likely Clinton was too intolerant, but it was the intolerance that follows revolution. Hamilton, on the other hand, became an early advocate of amnesty and oblivion, and, although public sentiment and the Legislature were against him, he finally succeeded in modifying the one and changing the other. "Nothing is more common," he observed, "than for a free people in times of heat and violence to gratify momentary pa.s.sions by letting in principles and precedents which afterwards prove fatal to themselves. If the Legislature can disfranchise at pleasure, it may soon confine all the votes to a small number of partisans, and establish an aristocracy or an oligarchy; if it may banish at discretion, without hearing or trial, no man can be safe. The name of liberty applied to such a government would be a mockery of common sense."[22]

[Footnote 22: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 3, p. 450.]

The differences between Congress and the Legislature respecting the collection of duties also brought Clinton and Hamilton into conflict.

As early as 1776 Hamilton had considered the question whether Congress ought not to collect its own taxes by its own agents,[23] and, when a member of Congress in 1783, he urged it[24] as one of the cardinal features of an adequate federal system. In 1787 he was a member of the Legislature. Here he insisted upon having the federal revenue system adopted by the State. His argument was an extended exposition of the facts which made such action important.[25] Under the lead of Clinton, however, New York was willing to surrender the money, but not the power of collection to Congress.

[Footnote 23: _Republic_, Vol. 1, p. 122.]

[Footnote 24: _Madison Papers_, Vol. 1, pp. 288, 291, 380.]

[Footnote 25: _Works_, Vol. 2, p. 16.]

Meantime, the pitiable condition to which the Confederation had come, accented the need of a stronger central government. To this end Clinton and Hamilton seemed for several years to be working in harmony. In 1780 Clinton had presented to the Legislature the "defect of power" in the Confederation, and, in 1781, John Sloss Hobart and Egbert Benson, representing New York at a convention in Hartford, urged the recommendation empowering Congress to apportion taxes among the States in the ratio of their total population. The next year, Hamilton, although not a member of the Legislature, persuaded it to adopt resolutions written by him, declaring that the powers of the central government should be extended, and that it should be authorised to provide revenue for itself. To this end "it would be advisable," continued the resolutions, "to propose to Congress to recommend, and to each State to adopt, the measure of a.s.sembling a general convention of the States, specially authorised to revise and amend the Const.i.tution." To Washington's farewell letter, appealing for a stronger central government, Governor Clinton sent a cordial response, and in transmitting the address to the Legislature in 1784, he recommended attention "to every measure which has a tendency to cement the Union, and to give to the national councils that energy which may be necessary for the general welfare."[26]

[Footnote 26: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 1, p. 277.]

Nevertheless, Clinton was not always candid. His official communications read like the utterances of a friend; but his influence, as disclosed in the acts of 1783 and 1786, reserving to the State the sole power of levying and collecting duties, clearly indicate that while he loved his country in a matter-of-fact sort of way, it meant a country divided, a country of thirteen States each berating the other, a country of trade barriers and commercial resentments, a country of more importance to New York and to Clinton than to other Commonwealths which had made equal sacrifices.

Thus matters drifted until New York and other middle Atlantic States discovered that it was impossible under the impotent Articles of Confederation to regulate commerce in waters bordered by two or more States. Even when New York and New Jersey could agree, Pennsylvania, on the other side of New Jersey, was likely to withhold its consent.

Friction of a similar character existed between Maryland and Virginia, North Carolina and Virginia, and Maryland and Pennsylvania. This compelled Congress to call the convention, to which commissioners from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia, a.s.sembled at Annapolis in 1786, to consider the trade and commerce of the United States, and to suggest measures for the action of Congress. Hamilton and Egbert Benson were members of this body, the former of whom wrote the address, afterward adopted, which declared the federal government inefficient, and proposed a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation,[27] in order to render them adequate to the exigencies of the Union. This was the resolution unanimously adopted by the New York Legislature in 1782, but to the surprise of Hamilton and the friends of a stronger government, the Legislature now disapproved such a convention. The idea did not please George Clinton. As Hamilton summed up the opposition, it meant disinclination to taxation, fear of the enforcement of debts, democratic jealousy of important officials, and the influence of foreign powers.[28]

[Footnote 27: _Journal of Congress_, Vol. 12, p. 12.]

[Footnote 28: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 1, p. 401.]

In 1787, however, the Legislature adopted a joint resolution instructing members of Congress from the State to urge that a convention be held to amend the Articles of Confederation, and, when Congress issued the call,[29] Robert Yates, John Lansing, Jr., and Alexander Hamilton were elected delegates "for the sole purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations as shall, when agreed to by Congress and confirmed by the several States, render the Federal Const.i.tution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union." Hamilton's election to this convention was cited as proof of Clinton's disposition to treat fairly the opponents of state supremacy, since it was well understood that his presence at Philadelphia would add the ablest and most ultra exponent of a strong, central government. It was certainly in Clinton's power to defeat Hamilton as he did John Jay, but his liberality carried a high check-rein, for Robert Yates and John Lansing were selected to overcome Hamilton's vote.

[Footnote 29: In _Madison Papers_, Vol. 2, Introductory to Debates of 1787, is a history of previous steps toward union.]

Clinton's first choice for a delegate was Yates, whose criticism of the work of the convention manifests hostility to a Union. He seemed to have little conception of what would satisfy the real needs of a strong government, preferring the vague doctrines of the old Whigs in the early days of revolution. Lansing was clearer, and, perhaps, less extreme in his views; but he wanted nothing more than an amendment of the existing Confederation, known as the New Jersey plan.[30] The moment, therefore, that a majority favoured the Virginia plan which contemplated a national government with an executive, legislature, and judiciary of its own, Lansing and Yates, regarding it a violation of their instructions, and with the approval of Governor Clinton, withdrew[31] from the convention and refused to sign the Const.i.tution after its adoption.[32]

[Footnote 30: "After an amendment of the first, so as to declare that 'the government of the United States ought to consist of a supreme legislative, judiciary, and executive,' Lansing moved a declaration 'that the powers of legislation be vested in the United States Congress.' He stated that if the Jersey plan was not adopted, it would produce the mischiefs they were convened to obviate. That the principles of that system were an equality of representation, and dependence of the members of Congress on the States. That as long as state distinctions exist, state prejudices would operate, whether the election be by the States or the people. If there was no interest to oppress, there was no need of an apportionment. What would be the effect of the other plan? Virginia would have sixteen, Delaware one representative. Will the general government have leisure to examine the state laws? Will it have the necessary information? Will the States agree to surrender? Let us meet public opinion, and hope the progress of sentiment will make future arrangements. He would like the system of his colleague (Hamilton) if it could be established, but it was a system without example."--_Hamilton's MSS. notes_, Vol. 6, p.

77. Lansing's motion was negatived by six to four States, Maryland being divided.]

[Footnote 31: Yates and Lansing retired finally from the convention on July 10.]

[Footnote 32: "That they acted in accordance with Clinton was proved by his deportment at this time. Unreserved declarations were made by him, that no good was to be expected from the appointment or deliberations of this body; that the country would be thrown into confusion by the measure. Hamilton said 'Clinton was not a man governed in ordinary cases by sudden impulses; though of an irritable temper, when not under the immediate influence of irritation, he was circ.u.mspect and guarded, and seldom acted or spoke without premeditation or design.' When the Governor made such declarations, therefore, Hamilton feared that Clinton's conduct would induce the confusion he so confidently and openly predicted, and to exhibit it before the public in all its deformity, Hamilton published a pointed animadversion, charging these declarations upon him, and avowing a readiness to substantiate them."--John C. Hamilton, _Life of Alexander Hamilton_, Vol. 2, p. 528.]

Hamilton doubted if Madison's plan was strong enough to secure the object in view. He suggested a scheme continuing a President and Senate during good behaviour, and giving the federal government power to appoint governors of States and to veto state legislation. In the notes of a speech presenting this plan, he disclaimed the belief that it was "attainable," but thought it "a model which we ought to approach as near as possible."[33] After the Madison plan had been preferred, however, Hamilton gave it earnest support, and although he could not cast New York's vote, since a majority of the State's representatives had withdrawn, he was privileged to sign the Const.i.tution. If he had never done anything else, it was glory enough to have subscribed his name to that immortal record. When Hamilton returned home, however, he found himself discredited by a majority of the people. "You were not authorised by the State," said Governor Clinton.[34] Richard Morris, the chief justice, remarked to him: "You will find yourself, I fear, in a hornet's nest."[35]

[Footnote 33: _Works_, Vol. 1, p. 357. G.T. Curtis, _Commentaries on the Const.i.tution_, pp. 371, 381, presents a very careful a.n.a.lysis of Hamilton's plan. For fac-simile copy of Hamilton's plan, see _Doc.u.mentary History of the Const.i.tution_ (a recent Government publication), Vol. 3, p. 771.]

[Footnote 34: M.E. Lamb, _History of the City of New York_, Vol. 2, p.

318.]

[Footnote 35: _Ibid._, Vol. 2, p. 318.]

On September 28, 1787, Congress transmitted a draft of the Const.i.tution, which required the a.s.sent of nine of the thirteen States, to the several legislatures. At once it became the sole topic of discussion. In New York it was the occasion of riots, of mobs, and of violent contests. It was called the "triple-headed monster," and declared to be "as deep and wicked a conspiracy as ever was invented in the darkest ages against the liberties of a free people." Its opponents, numbering four-sevenths of the community--although their strength was mainly in the country[36]--and calling themselves Federal Republicans, organised a society and opened correspondence with leading men in other States. "All the old alarm about liberty was now revived," says W.G. Sumner, "and all the elements of anarchy and repudiation which had been growing so strong for twenty years were arrayed in hostility."[37] But its bitterest opponent in the thirteen Colonies was George Clinton.[38] "He preferred to remain the most powerful citizen of New York, rather than occupy a subordinate place under a national government in which his own State was not foremost."[39] On the other hand, the _Federalist_, written largely by Hamilton, carried conviction to the minds of thousands who had previously doubted the wisdom of the plan. In the last number of the series, he said: "The system, though it may not be perfect in every part, is upon the whole a good one, is the best that the present views and circ.u.mstances will permit, and is such an one as promises every species of security which a reasonable people can desire."[40]

[Footnote 36: W.G. Sumner, _Life of Hamilton_, p. 137.]

[Footnote 37: _Ibid._, p. 135.]

[Footnote 38: John Fiske, _Critical Period of American History_, p.

340.]

[Footnote 39: John Fiske, _Essays Historical and Literary_, Vol. 1, p.

118.]

[Footnote 40: _Works of Hamilton_, Vol. 9, p. 548.]

When the Legislature opened, Governor Clinton delivered the usual speech or message, but he said nothing of what everybody else was talking about. Consideration of the Const.i.tution was the only important business before that body; four States had already ratified it, and three others had it under consideration; yet the Governor said not a word. His idea was for New York to hold off and let the others try it. Then, if the Union succeeded, although revenue difficulties were expected to break it up immediately,[41] the State could come in.

Meantime, like Patrick Henry of Virginia, he proposed another general convention, to be held as soon as possible, to consider amendments.

Thus matters drifted until January, 1788, when Egbert Benson, now a member of the Legislature, offered a resolution for holding a state convention to consider the federal doc.u.ment. Dilatory motions blocked its way, and its friends began to despair of better things; but Benson persisted, until, at last, after great bitterness, the resolution was adopted.

[Footnote 41: W.G. Sumner, _Life of Hamilton_, p. 137.]

Of the sixty-one delegates to this convention, which a.s.sembled at the courthouse in Poughkeepsie on June 17, two-thirds were opposed to the Const.i.tution.[42] The convention organised with Governor Clinton for president. Among the champions of the Const.i.tution appeared Hamilton, Jay, Robert R. Livingston, Robert Morris, James Duane, then mayor of New York, John Sloss Hobart, Richard Harrison, and others of like character. Robert Yates, Samuel Jones, Melancthon Smith, and John Lansing, Jr., led the fight against it. Beginning on June 19, the discussion continued until July 28. Hamilton, his eloquence at its best, so that at times there was not a dry eye in the a.s.sembly,[43]

especially emphasised the public debt. "It is a fact that should strike us with shame, that we are obliged to borrow money in order to pay the interest of our debt. It is a fact that these debts are acc.u.mulating every day by compound interest."[44] In the old Confederation, he declared, the idea of liberty alone was considered, but that another thing was equally important--"I mean a principle of strength and stability in the organisation of our government, and of vigour in its operations."[45] Professor Sumner, in his admirable biography, expresses surprise that nothing is said about debts in the _Federalist_, and comparatively little about the Supreme Court. "This is very remarkable," he says, "in view of the subsequent history; for if there is any 'sleeping giant' in the Const.i.tution, it has proved to be the power of the Supreme Court to pa.s.s upon the const.i.tutionality of laws. It does not appear that Hamilton or anybody else foresaw that this function of the Court would build upon the written const.i.tution a body of living const.i.tutional law."[46]