[Footnote 153: Daniel D. Tompkins, 35,074; Morgan Lewis, 30,989.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]
Daniel D. Tompkins had the good fortune to begin his administration at a time when England and the United States were about to quarrel over the former"s insistence on impressing American seamen into its service, thus giving the people something to think about save offices, and dividing them again sharply into two parties. Indeed, while the election was pending in April, three deserters from the _Melampus_, a British sloop-of-war, by enlisting on the _Chesapeake_, a United States frigate of thirty-eight guns, became the innocent cause of subjecting the United States to gross insult. The American government, smarting under England"s impressment of its seamen, refused to surrender these deserters, inquiries showing that they were coloured men of American birth, two of whom had been pressed into the British service from an American vessel in the Bay of Biscay. When the _Chesapeake_ sailed, therefore, the _Leopard_, an English man-of-war mounting fifty guns, followed her to the high seas and demanded a return of the deserters. Receiving a prompt refusal, the Englishman raked the decks of the _Chesapeake_ for the s.p.a.ce of twelve minutes, killing three men and wounding eighteen, among them the commander. The _Chesapeake_ was not yet ready for action. Her crew was undrilled in the use of ordnance, her decks littered, appliances for reloading were wanting, and at the supreme moment neither priming nor match could be found. Under these distressing circ.u.mstances, the boarding officer of the _Leopard_ took the deserters and sailed for Halifax. The sight of the dismantled _Chesapeake_, with its dead and dying, aroused the people irrespective of party into demanding reparation or war. "This country," wrote Jefferson, "has never been in such a state of excitement since the battle of Lexington."[154] Immediately the most exposed ports were strengthened, and the States were called upon to organise and equip 100,000 militia ready to march. Among other things, Jefferson ordered British cruisers to depart from American waters, forbidding all aid and intercourse with them.
[Footnote 154: Jefferson to Colonel Taylor, August 1, 1807; _Works_, v., 148.]
On the day of Governor Tompkins" inauguration the crippled _Chesapeake_ sailed back into Norfolk; and before the New York Legislature a.s.sembled in the following January, England had published its Orders in Council, forbidding all neutral trade with France.
Napoleon had also promulgated his Milan Decree, forbidding all neutral trade with England, and the Congress of the United States, with closed doors, in obedience to the recommendation of the President, had ordered an embargo forbidding all foreign-bound American vessels to leave United States ports.
For several years American commerce, centring chiefly in New England and New York, and occupying a neutral position toward European belligerents, had enjoyed unparalleled prosperity. Reaching all parts of the world, it had, indeed, largely engrossed the carrying trade, especially of France and the European powers. As restraints increased, the Yankee skippers became sly and cunning--risking capture, using neutral flags, and finding other subterfuges for new restrictions. The embargo would tie up the ships to rot, throw seamen out of employment, destroy perishable commodities like breadstuffs, and paralyse trade.
From the moment of its pa.s.sage, therefore, merchants and shipowners resisted it, charging that Napoleon"s Decree had provoked the British Orders, and that if the former would recede, the latter would be modified. It revived the old charge of Jefferson"s enmity to commerce.
In the excitement, DeWitt Clinton opposed it, and Cheetham, with his bitter, irritating pen, sustained him. He thought American commerce might be left to solve the difficulty for itself, by allowing merchants to arm their vessels or otherwise encounter the risks and perils at their own discretion, rather than be compelled to abandon the highway of nations to their British rivals, whose sole purpose, he maintained, was to drive us from the ocean and capture French supplies being transported in French vessels.
But the Republicans in Congress stood firmly by the embargo, holding that if George Canning would modify the Orders in Council, which were intended to drive American commerce from the ocean, Napoleon would modify his decrees, which were provoked by the British Orders. It was not a question of avoiding sacrifices, said Governor Tompkins, in his speech to the Legislature, in January, 1808, but whether one sacrifice might not better be borne than another. The belligerents had issued decrees regardless of our rights. If we carried for England, France would confiscate; if for France, England would confiscate. England exacted tribute, and insisted upon the right of search; France demanded forfeiture if we permitted search or paid tribute; between the two the world was closed to us. But the belligerents needed our wheat and breadstuffs, and while the embargo was intended only for a temporary expedient, giving the people time for reflection, and keeping our vessels and cargoes from spoliation, it must prevail in the end by making Europe feel the denial of neutral favours. "What patriotic citizen," he concluded, "will murmur at the temporary privations and inconveniences resulting from this measure, when he reflects upon the vast expenditure of national treasure, the sacrifice of the lives of our countrymen, the total and permanent suspension of commerce, the corruption of morals, and the distress and misery consequent upon our being involved in the war between the nations of Europe? The evils which threaten us call for a magnanimous confidence in the efforts of our national councils to avert them, and for a firm, unanimous determination to devote everything that is dear to us to maintain our right and national honour."[155]
[Footnote 155: _Governor"s Speeches._ January 26, 1808, p. 98.]
Governor Tompkins" views, sustained by decided majorities in both branches of the Legislature, hastened DeWitt Clinton"s change of att.i.tude; and, to the great disgust of Cheetham, he now swung into line. Deceived by the first outcry against Jefferson"s policy, Clinton had presided at an opposition meeting, while Cheetham, following his lead, had a.s.sailed it in the _American Citizen_. In the same spirit George Clinton, the Vice President, imprudently and impulsively attacked it in letters to his friends; but DeWitt Clinton, seeing his mistake, quickly jumped into line with his party, leaving Cheetham and his uncle to return as best they could. It was an ungracious act, since Cheetham, who had devoted the best of his powers in justifying the conduct of Clinton, was now left in the air, without the means of gracefully getting down.
Meantime, the new Council of Appointment, elected in February, and controlled by DeWitt Clinton, had reversed the work of Lewis. Marinus Willett surrendered the mayoralty to DeWitt Clinton, Maturin Livingston gave up the recordership, Thomas Tillotson turned over the secretaryship of state to Elisha Jenkins, Sylva.n.u.s Miller again became surrogate of New York, and John Woodworth was dismissed from the office of attorney-general. Under the Const.i.tution, the Legislature elected the treasurer of the State, an office which Abraham G.
Lansing, brother of the Chancellor and father of Garrett, had held continuously since the defalcation of McClanan in 1803. Lansing was wealthy, and, like his brother, a man of the highest character for integrity and correct business methods, but he had followed Lewis to defeat and now paid the penalty by giving place to David Thomas, who, like McClanan, was also to prove a defaulter. Thus, within a year after Tompkins" inauguration, an entire change of persons holding civil offices in the State had taken place, the Governor shrewdly strengthening himself by a.s.suming to have helped the winners, and weakening Clinton by permitting the disappointed to charge their failure to the Mayor.
The nomination of a Republican candidate to succeed Jefferson, gave Tompkins further opportunity of strengthening himself at the expense of DeWitt Clinton. For months the latter had been urging the claims of George Clinton for President, on the ground of the Vice President"s. .h.i.therto undisputed right to promotion, and because Virginia had held the office long enough. But a congressional caucus, greatly to the disgust of Monroe and the Clintons, and without the knowledge of the Vice President, hastily got together according to the custom of the day and nominated James Madison for President and George Clinton for Vice President. The disappointed friends of Monroe and Clinton charged that the caucus was irregular, only eighty-nine out of one hundred and thirty-nine Republican representatives and senators having attended it, and could they have agreed upon a candidate among themselves Madison must have been beaten. Leading Federalists waited until late in April for DeWitt Clinton to make some arrangement which their party might support, but, while Federalists waited, the threatened Republican bolt wasted itself in a fruitless endeavour to unite upon a candidate for first place. Monroe"s friends would not have George Clinton, whom they p.r.o.nounced too old and too infirm, and Clinton"s friends declined to accept Monroe, who was objectionable, if for no other reason, because he was a Virginian. Finally, the Federalists nominated Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina for President and Rufus King of New York for Vice President, making Madison"s election absolutely certain.
This ought to have ended the strife in Republican ranks. Under similar circ.u.mstances any ordinary politician would have hastened to re-establish himself with his party. But DeWitt Clinton, carrying the contest to the New York Legislature, called to appoint presidential electors, insisted that the vote of the State be given to his uncle.
The strong affection for the venerable statesman insured the suggestion favourable consideration by a large portion of the Republican party, but Tompkins a.s.sailed it with unanswerable argument. Without being of the slightest use to George Clinton, he contended, such a course would exhibit an unhappy division in Republican ranks, excite the jealousy of Madison"s friends, impair the influence of New York Republicans with the Administration, and make them appear ridiculous to their brethren in other States. This was the talk of a wise politician. The contest was squarely between James Madison, regularly nominated by the method then accepted, and Charles C. Pinckney, the candidate of the Federalists; and a vote for Clinton meant a Republican vote thrown away out of pique. DeWitt Clinton understood this; but he could not curb a disposition to have things his way, and, upon his insistence, it was finally agreed that each elector should vote his preference. Under this arrangement, George Clinton received six votes out of the nineteen, Ambrose Spencer leading the minority. Of the votes cast for President, Madison received 122, Clinton 6, and Pinckney 48; for Vice President, George Clinton had 113, Rufus King 48, John Langdon of New Hampshire 9, and Madison and Monroe three each, the votes of Judge Spencer and his five a.s.sociates.
Within a twelvemonth DeWitt Clinton had plainly made a series of serious mistakes. He had opposed the embargo, he had antagonised Madison, who still resented the Clintons" opposition to the Federal Const.i.tution, and he had forced a discovery of Tompkins" superior management and political wisdom. To add to his embarra.s.sment, the Lewisites, the Burrites, and the Martling Men now openly charged him with hostility to Madison and with insincere support of Jefferson and Tompkins, since he continued on friendly terms with Cheetham, who still bitterly opposed the embargo. If these three political groups of men, having a bond of union in their common detestation of DeWitt Clinton, could have found a leader able to marshal them, they must have compa.s.sed the latter"s political overthrow long before he prostrated himself. Already it was whispered that Tompkins approved their attacks, a suspicion that found many believers, since Minthorne had set to work to destroy Clinton. But the Governor was too wise to be drawn openly into gladiatorial relations with DeWitt Clinton at this time, although, as it afterward appeared, Madison and Tompkins even then had an understanding to which Clinton was by no means a stranger.
Clinton, however, continued seemingly on good terms with Tompkins; and to disprove the attacks of the Martling Men he introduced a series of resolutions in the State Senate, to which he had been elected in the preceding April, approving the administration of President Madison and pledging support to Governor Tompkins. To make his defence the more complete, he backed the resolutions with an elaborately prepared speech, in which he bitterly a.s.sailed the Federalists, who, he declared, thought it "better to reign in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven."
Clinton may be excused for getting in accord with his party; but since his change disclosed an absence of principle, it was bad manners, to say the least, to denounce, with Miltonic quotation, those who consistently held to the views formerly entertained by himself. Of Clinton it could scarcely be said, that he was a favourite in the Legislature. He frequently allowed his fierce indignation to get the better of his tongue. His sharp sarcasms, his unsparing ridicule, and his heedless personalities, sometimes withered the effect of his oratory; yet it is quite certain that the fury of his a.s.saults and the exuberance of his anger aroused the keenest interest, and that when the Martling Men finally prevented his return to the Legislature his absence was generally regretted.
Clinton"s speech did not convince Federalists that embargo was the product of profound statesmanship. Abraham Van Vechten, the leader of the Federalists in the Legislature, was a powerful and logical reasoner, and an orator of singular eloquence. His success as an advocate at the bar followed him to the a.s.sembly, and in every debate he proved a formidable antagonist. He had a gift of sarcasm that made an adversary exceedingly uncomfortable; and as he shattered the reasoning of Clinton, he exposed the imperious and domineering trimmer to ridicule and jest. Van Vechten ranked among the ablest men of New York. His tall, erect, and dignified figure was well known throughout the State, and although he did not a.s.sume to lead his party, the Federalists recognised his right to share in its leadership. Governor Jay offered him a place on the Supreme bench; but he preferred the bar and the brief sessions of the Legislature.
By the side of Van Vechten sat Daniel Cady, at that time thirty-six years of age, already renowned as a lawyer, the rival of Ogden Hoffman and Marcus T. Reynolds, and, in the estimation of his contemporaries, one of the most generous and gifted men of his time. Three terms in the Legislature and one in Congress measured, until his election to the Supreme Court in 1847, his career in public life; but brief as was this service, his great ability adorned the State and strengthened his party. His distinguished daughter, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, whose achievements covered more than half of the last century, represented in a marked degree his gifts, his accomplishments, and the sweetness of his nature.
Under the lead of Van Vechten and Cady, the Federalists tormented DeWitt Clinton and the friends of embargo, by contrasting the busy wharves in 1807, covered with bales of cotton, barrels of flour, and hogsheads of sugar, with the stagnation that characterised all avenues of commerce in 1809. Ropewalks were deserted, sailmakers idle, draymen without business, and sailors without bread. If England bled, they declared, the United States bled faster. An ocean whitened with American sails had been turned over to British ships which were absorbing the maritime trade. France showed an indifference to America"s commerce and England boasted an independence of America"s trade. As a weapon of coercion, exclaimed Cady, embargo has been a failure--as a measure of defence it has been suicidal. What would happen if our ships were suffered to go to Europe and the Indies? Some would reach Europe and find a market; others would go to England, obtain a license to sail to a Baltic port, and then sell at great profit. Out of a hundred ships, two would probably be seized by the French. Better to lose two by seizure than the destruction of all by embargo.
Obadiah German had much to say in defence of the justice and prudence of the embargo. There was nothing brilliant about German; but ample evidence of his parliamentary ability lines the pathway of his public career. Without eloquence or education, he had the full courage of his convictions and an intellectual vigour sufficient to back them. He came to the Legislature in 1798, and, in 1809, very unexpectedly succeeded Samuel L. Mitchill as United States senator. Later he served one term as speaker of the a.s.sembly. Just now he was the recognised leader of the Republican majority in that body, and in his wise, uncouth way dealt many a hard blow with telling effect.
Nathan Sanford also a.s.sisted in repelling the a.s.saults of Cady and Van Vechten. Sanford was the pet of the Martling Men and the enemy of DeWitt Clinton. He had been appointed United States attorney upon the resignation of Edward Livingston in 1803, holding the office until his election to the United States Senate to succeed Obadiah German in 1815. In the meantime he served two terms in the a.s.sembly, one of them as speaker, and three terms in the State Senate. Afterward, he became chancellor for two or three years, and then took another term as United States senator. His activity gave him strength, and his loyalty to the Martling Men, now known as Tammany, supplied him with backers enough to keep him continuously in office for thirty years. Despite his t.i.tles of Senator and Chancellor, however, and his long public service, he did not leave a memory for eloquence, scholarship, or for great ability; though he was a ready talker and a willing friend, quick to catch the favouring breeze and ready to adopt any political method that promised success. In upholding embargo, Sanford admitted its seriousness, but emphasised its necessity. He recalled how England had searched our ships, impressed our seamen, killed our citizens, and insulted our towns. The ocean, he argued, had become a place of robbery and national disgrace, since Great Britain, by its orders in Council, had provoked France into promulgating the Berlin Decree of November, 1806, and the Milan Decree of December, 1807, which denationalised any ship that touched an English port, or suffered an English search, or paid an English tax--whether it entered a French port, or fell into the power of a French privateer. Thus, since England had blockaded one-half of Europe and France the other half, he thought it time for dignified retirement, until England felt the need of additional supplies, and France awoke to the loss of its luxuries.
At the close of the spirited debate, DeWitt Clinton"s resolutions were adopted by both houses--in the Senate without a division; in the a.s.sembly by a vote of sixty-one to forty-one. But almost before the result was announced, American wheat dropped from two dollars to seventy cents a bushel, turning the election of April, 1809, into a Federalist victory. It was a great surprise to Tompkins and his party, whose only gleam of hope grew out of the failure of the Federalists to return senators from the middle and eastern districts, thus preventing, as they a.s.sumed, a Federalist majority in the new Council of Appointment and a wholesale removal of Republican officials. But the Federalists understood their work. After welcoming to the speakership their old friend, William North of Duansburgh, who had served in the same capacity in 1795 and again in 1796, the a.s.sembly elected to the Council, two Federalists and two Republicans, including Robert Williams of the middle district. Williams had been a Lewisite, a Burrite, and a Clintonian. With the help of a Federalist governor in 1799, he became sheriff of Dutchess County, and, although he bore the reputation of a trimmer, he seems to have concealed the real baseness of his character until the meeting of the new Council, when his casting vote turned out of office every Republican in the State. By this treachery his son-in-law, Thomas J. Oakley, of whom we shall hear much hereafter, became surrogate of Dutchess County; Jacob Radcliff, the great chancery lawyer, mayor of New York; Abraham Van Vechten, attorney-general, and Abraham G. Lansing, treasurer of state. From the moment of his apostacy Robert Williams, cla.s.sified by his neighbours with Judas Iscariot and ignored by men of all parties, pa.s.sed into obscurity.
CHAPTER XV
TOMPKINS DEFEATS JONAS PLATT
1810
Though DeWitt Clinton again lost the mayoralty of New York, he was still in the Senate; and to maintain an appearance of friendship with the Governor, he wrote the address to the people, signed by the Republican members of the Legislature, placing Tompkins in the race for re-election. The Federalists, encouraged by their gains in April, 1809, had with confidence nominated Jonas Platt for governor, and Nicholas Fish for lieutenant-governor. Fish is little known to the present generation except as the father of Hamilton Fish, the able secretary of state in President Grant"s Cabinet; but in his day everybody knew of him, and everybody admitted his capacity and patriotism. His distinguished gallantry during the Revolution won him the confidence of Washington and the intimate friendship of Hamilton, after whom he named his ill.u.s.trious son. For many years he was adjutant-general of the State, president of the New York Society of the Cincinnati, and a representative Federalist. It is said that Aaron Burr felt rebuked in his presence, because he recognised in him those high qualities of n.o.ble devotion to principle which the grandson of Jonathan Edwards well knew were wanting in his own character. Just now Fish was fifty-two years old, a member of the New York Board of Aldermen, and an inveterate opponent of Republicanism, chafing under DeWitt Clinton"s dictatorship in the State and Tammany"s control in the city.
Jonas Platt had borne an important part in propping up falling Federalism. He was a born fighter. Though somewhat uncouth in expression and unrefined in manner, he had won for himself a proud position at the bar of his frontier home, and was rapidly writing his name high on the roll of New York statesmen. He had proved his popularity by carrying his senatorial district in the preceding election; and he had demonstrated his ability as a debater by replying to the arguments of DeWitt Clinton with a power that comes only from wide information and a consciousness of being in the right. He could not be turned aside from the real issue. Whatever or whoever had provoked the British Orders in Council, he declared, one thing was certain, those orders could not have driven American commerce from the ocean had not the embargo established British commerce in its place.
This was the weak point in the policy of Jefferson, and the strong point in the argument of Jonas Platt. Five hundred and thirty-seven vessels, aggregating over one hundred and eighty thousand tons, had been tied up in New York alone; and the public revenues collected at its custom house had dropped from four and a half millions to nothing.
History concedes that embargo, since it required a much greater sacrifice at home than it caused abroad, utterly failed as a weapon for coercing Europe; and with redoubled energy and prodigious effect, Platt drove this argument into the friends of the odious and profitless measure, until the Governor"s party in the election of 1809 had gone down disastrously.
To Obadiah German, a living embodiment of the Jeffersonian spirit, the most extravagant arguments in support of the embargo came naturally and clearly. To a man of DeWitt Clinton"s high order of intellect, however, it must have been difficult, in the presence of Jonas Platt"s logic, backed as it was by an unanswerable array of facts, to believe that the arguments in favour of embargo were those which history would approve. As if, however, to establish Platt"s position, Congress, in the midst of the New York campaign, voted to remove the embargo, and to establish in its stead, non-intercourse with Great Britain and France--thus reopening trade with the rest of Europe and indulging those merchants who desired to take the risks of capture. For the moment, this was a great blow to Clinton and a great victory for Platt, giving him a prestige that his party thought ent.i.tled him to the governorship.
In the legislative session of 1810, however, Jonas Platt developed neither the strength nor the shrewdness that characterised his conduct on the stump during the campaign of 1809. William Erskine, the British minister, a son of the distinguished Lord Chancellor, whose attachment to America was strengthened by marriage, had negotiated a treaty with the United States limiting the life of the Orders in Council to June 10, 1809. This treaty had been quickly disavowed by the English government, and, in referring to it in his message, Governor Tompkins accused England of wilfully refusing to fulfil its stipulations. "With Great Britain an arrangement was effected in April last," wrote the Governor, "which diffused a lively satisfaction through the nation, and presaged a speedy restoration of good understanding and harmony between the two countries. But our hopes were blasted by an unexpected disavowal of the agreement, and an unqualified refusal to fulfil its stipulations on the part of England. Since the recall of the minister who negotiated the arrangement, nothing has occurred to brighten the prospect of an honourable adjustment of our differences. On the contrary, instead of evincing an amicable disposition by subst.i.tuting other acceptable terms of accommodation in lieu of the disavowed arrangement, the new minister has persisted in impeaching the veracity of our Administration, which a sense of respect for themselves, and for the dignity of the nation they represent, forbade them to brook."
There was nothing in this statement to rebuke. Young Erskine had been displaced by an English minister who had acquired the reputation of being an edged-tool against neutral nations, a curiously narrow, hide-bound politician, whose language was as insolent as his manners were offensive. The Governor"s reference, therefore, had not been too severe, nor had his statement overleaped the truth; yet Jonas Platt attacked it with great asperity, arraigning the national administration and charging that the country had more cause for war with France than with Great Britain. This was both unwise and untenable. The Governor had aimed his criticism at France as well as at England. He spoke of one as controlling the destinies of the European continent, of the other as domineering upon the ocean, and of both as overleaping "the settled principles of public law, which const.i.tuted the barriers between the caprice, the avarice, or the tyranny of a belligerent, and the rights and independence of a neutral." But Jonas Platt, betrayed by his prejudices against Jefferson and France, went on with an argument well calculated to give his opponents an advantage. His language was strong and clear, his sarcasm pointed; but it gave DeWitt Clinton the opportunity of charging Federalists with taking sides with the British against their own country.
There never was a time when the Federalists, as a national party, were willing to join hands with England to the disadvantage of their country. They had the same reasons for disliking England that animated their opponents. But their antipathy to Jacobins and to Jefferson, and the latter"s partiality for France, drove them into sympathy with Great Britain"s struggle against Napoleon, until the people suspected them of too great fondness for English inst.i.tutions and English principles. Several events, too, seemed to justify such a suspicion, notably the adherence of British Tories to the Federalist party, and the latter"s zeal to allay hostile feelings growing out of the Revolutionary war. To such an extent had this sentimental sympathy been carried, that, in the summer of 1805, the Federalists of Albany, having a majority in the common council, foolishly refused to allow the Declaration of Independence to be read as a part of the exercises in celebration of the Fourth of July. Naturally, such a policy quickly aroused every inherited and cultivated prejudice against the British, strengthening the belief that the Federalists, as a party, were willing to suppress the patriotic utterances of their own countrymen rather than injure the feelings of America"s hereditary foe.
When DeWitt Clinton, therefore, charged the party of Jonas Platt with taking the side of the British against their own country, the debate revived old tales of cruelty and ma.s.sacre, growing out of England"s alliance with the Indians in the early days of the Revolution; and it gave John Taylor opportunity to recount the horrors which he had witnessed in the days of his country"s extreme peril. Taylor was sixty-eight years old. For nearly twenty years he had been a member of the Legislature, and was soon to be lieutenant-governor for nearly ten years more. Before the Revolutionary war, he served in the Provincial Congress; and in Arnold"s expedition to Canada, in 1775, he had superintended the commissary department, contributing to the comfort of the shattered remnant who stood with Montgomery on the Plains of Abraham on that ill-fated last day of the year.
Taylor was a man of undoubted integrity and great political sagacity.
His character suffered, perhaps, because a fondness for money kept growing with his growing years. "For a good old gentlemanly vice,"
says Byron, "I think I must take up with avarice." Taylor did not wait to be an old gentleman before adopting "the good old gentlemanly vice," but it did not seem to hurt him with the people, for he kept on getting rich and getting office. He was formed to please. His tall, slender form, rising above the heads of those about him, made his agreeable manners and easy conversation the more noticeable, gaining him the affection of men while challenging their admiration for his ability.
In 1760, Taylor had followed the British army to Oswego, and there acquired a knowledge of the Indian language. He knew of the alliance between the British and Indians in 1776, and had witnessed the horrible ma.s.sacres growing out of these treaty relations. The most tragic stories of Indian atrocities begin with the payment of bounties by the British for the scalps of women and children, and for the capture of men and boys who would make soldiers. Often guided by Tories, the fierce Mohawks sought out the solitary farmhouse, scalped the helpless, and, with a few prisoners, started back on their lonely return journey to Canada, hundreds of miles through the forest, simply to receive the promised reward of a few Spanish dollars from their British allies. When DeWitt Clinton, therefore, charged the Federalists with loving the English more than their own country, John Taylor won the Senate by recalling Indian atrocities set on foot by British officers, and often carried out with the a.s.sistance of British Tories, now members of the Federalist party. Daniel Parrish, a senator from the eastern district, having more courage than eloquence, came to Platt"s support with the most exact and honest skill, repelling the insinuations of Clinton, and indignantly denying Taylor"s tactful argument. But when Taylor, pointing his long, well-formed index finger at the eastern senator, expressed surprise and grief to hear one plead the English cause whose father had been foully murdered by an Indian while under British pay and British orders, Parrish lost his temper and Platt his cause.
It was a sad day for Platt. So successfully did Taylor revive the old Revolutionary hatred of the British that the Herkimer statesman"s arraignment of Governor Tompkins, offered as a subst.i.tute for DeWitt Clinton"s friendly answer, was rejected by a vote of twenty-three to six. Coming as it did on the eve of the gubernatorial election it was too late to retrieve his lost position. Moreover, the repeal of the embargo had materially weakened the Federalists and correspondingly strengthened the Republicans, since the commerce of New York quickly revived, giving employment to the idle and bread to the hungry. The conviction deepened, also, that a Republican administration was sincerely impartial in sentiment between the two belligerents, and that the present foreign policy, ineffective as it might be, fitted the emergency better than a bolder one. Added to this, was the keen desire of the Republicans to recover the offices which had been lost through the apostacy of Robert Williams; and although the Federalists struggled like drowning men to hold their ill-gotten gains, the strong anti-British sentiment, backed by a determination to approve the policy of Madison, swept the State, re-electing Governor Tompkins by six thousand majority[156] and putting both branches of the Legislature in control of the Republicans. Surely, Jonas Platt was never to be governor.
[Footnote 156: Daniel D. Tompkins, 43,094; Jonas Platt, 36,484.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]
In the heated temper of the triumphant party, the new Council of Appointment, chosen soon after the Legislature convened in January, 1811, began removing officials with a fierceness that in our day would have brought shame and ruin upon any administration. It was a Clinton Council, and only Clintonians took office. Jacob Radcliff again turned over the New York mayoralty to DeWitt Clinton; Abraham Van Vechten gave up the attorney-generalship to Matthias B. Hildreth; Daniel Hale surrendered the secretaryship of state to Elisha Jenkins; Theodore V.W. Graham bowed his adieus to the recordership of Albany as John Van Ness Yates came in; and James O. Hoffman, Cadwallader D. Colden, and John W. Mulligan, as recorder, district attorney, and surrogate of New York, respectively, hastened to make way for their successors. As soon as an order could reach him, Thomas J. Oakley, surrogate of Dutchess County, vacated the office that the treachery of his father-in-law had brought him. It was another clean sweep throughout the entire State.
Even Garrett T. Lansing, because he once belonged to the Lewisites, found the petty office of master in chancery catalogued among the "spoils."
CHAPTER XVI
DeWITT CLINTON AND TAMMANY
1789-1811
The death of Lieutenant-Governor Broome, in the summer of 1810, created a vacancy which the Legislature provided should be filled at the following election in April. John Broome had been distinguished since the olden days when the cardinal policy of New York was the union of the Colonies in a general congress. He had belonged to the Committee of Fifty-one with John Jay, to the Committee of One Hundred with James Duane, and to the Committee of Observation with Philip Livingston. After the Revolution, he became president of the Board of Aldermen, treasurer of the Chamber of Commerce, and, in 1789, had stood for Congress against James Lawrence, the trusted adjutant-general of Washington. Although Broome"s overwhelming defeat for Congress in no wise reflected upon his character as a patriot and representative citizen, it kept him in the background until the Federalists had frittered away their power in New York City. Then he came to the front again, first as state senator, and afterward, in 1804, as lieutenant-governor; but he never reached the coveted governorship. In that day, as in this, the office of lieutenant-governor was not necessarily a stepping stone to higher preferment. Pierre Van Cortlandt served with fidelity for eighteen years without getting the long wished-for promotion; Morgan Lewis jumped over Jeremiah Van Rensselaer in 1804; and Daniel D. Tompkins was preferred to John Broome in 1807. Indeed, with the exception of Enos T. Throop, Hamilton Fish, David B. Hill, and Frank W. Higgins, none of the worthy men who have presided with dignity over the deliberations of the State Senate have ever been elected governor.
DeWitt Clinton now wished to succeed Broome; and a large majority of Republican legislators quickly placed him in nomination. Clinton had first desired to return to Albany as senator, as he would then have possessed the right to vote and to partic.i.p.ate in debate. But the Martling Men, who held the balance of power, put forward Morgan Lewis, his bitterest enemy. It was a clever move on the part of the ex-Governor. Clinton had literally driven Lewis from the party, and for three years his name remained a reminiscence; but, with the a.s.sistance of Tammany, he now got out of obscurity by getting onto the ticket with Governor Tompkins. To add, too, to Clinton"s chagrin, Tammany also put up Nathan Sanford for the a.s.sembly, and thus closed against him the door of the Legislature. But to carry out his ambitious scheme--of mounting to the Presidency in 1812--Clinton needed to be in Albany to watch his enemies; and, although he cared little for the lieutenant-governorship, the possession of it would furnish an excuse for his presence at the state capital.
The announcement of DeWitt Clinton"s nomination raised the most earnest outcries among the Martling Men. They had endeavoured to defeat his reappointment to the mayoralty; but their wild protests had fallen upon deaf ears. Indeed, the hatred of Minthorne, the intriguing genius of Teunis Wortman, and the earnestness of Matthew L. Davis, seemed only to have been agencies to prepare the way for Clinton"s triumphant restoration. Now, however, these accomplished political gladiators proposed to give battle at the polls, and if their influence throughout the State had been as potent as it proved within the wards of New York City, the day of DeWitt Clinton"s destiny must have been nearly over.
Since its organisation in 1789, the Society of St. Tammany had been an influential one. It was founded for charitable purposes; its membership was made up mostly of native Americans, and its meetings were largely social in their character.