JAMES RENWICK, LL.D.

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CHAPTER XV.

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Progress of the Canal Policy interrupted by the War. – Clinton tenders his Military Services to Governor Tompkins. – His Report on the Defence of the City of New-York. – Measures of the Corporation, and of the State and General Governments, in consequence. – Clinton is removed from his Office of Mayor. – He renews the Consideration of the Canal Question. – Meeting on that Subject in New-York. – Clinton draws the Memorial of that Meeting. – Examination of the Contents, and Effects of that Memorial.

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The declaration of war put an end to all immediate chance of proceeding with the construction of the New-York canals. The Legislature had indeed, on the 19^th of June, 1812, almost at the instant that the war began, passed an act further to provide for the improvement of the internal navigation of this state. By this act the board of commissioners were authorized to purchase the interest of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, and to borrow five millions of dollars as a fund for making the canal. This act was obtained by the exertion on the part of Clinton of the same powerful influence he had hitherto brought to bear in support of this great scheme. It was, therefore with no little regret that he saw any chance of its even being commenced postponed indefinitely by the hostilities with Great Britain; and the strenuous support which he afforded the government in all defensive measures, derives enhanced merit from this circumstance.

He had, in fact, when he visited Washington to solicit the aid of the general government to the canal, pledged his support and that of his friends to the government in case of a war with Great Britain; and this pledge he redeemed. On his return he sought to regain his relative rank in the militia, with a view of being in the way of active service. His own view of his claims was limited to the rank of brigadier; but the council of appointment, in consideration of his eminent standing in civil life, conferred on him the commission of major-general. As soon as it became necessary to call out the militia, he applied, through the intervention of Emmett, to Governor Tompkins for a command. He was compelled to make use of the channel of a mutual friend, as any familiar intercourse had ceased between him and the governor. Tompkins had been drawn from obscurity by the notice of Clinton, and owed to him his appointment as a judge, and his nomination as a candidate for governor in opposition to Governor Lewis. He was now opposed to Clinton on the presidential question, and gave the whole weight of his official influence to Madison. Clinton, therefore, could not avoid considering him as ungrateful. On the other hand, Tompkins affected to consider Clinton as an opponent of the war. It therefore did not suit him to bring Clinton forward in any active military employment, and the application of a command was rejected.

Clinton, however, was determined to be useful to his country in the capacity which he was still permitted to retain, that of mayor of the City of New-York. Feeling most sensibly the exposed position of this important place, he drew up and presented to the corporation a report on the measures necessary for its defence, and strong representations were in consequence made to the government.

It appeared by this report that, so culpable had been the administration, while that of England was sending out the army of Spain and Portugal to our coast, no more than 1600 men had been left for the defence of New-York. No other mode of attack had been anticipated than from shipping attempting to enter the Narrows. The state had made provision for fortifying the pass at Hellgate; but no preparation of any description had been made in case an army were to be landed on Long Island or in West Chester.

The report, after pointing out the exposed position of the city, proposed that fortified camps should be established at Brooklyn and Haerlem, and a sufficient body of militia called out to garrison them.

To attain these purposes, eight resolutions were appended to the report. By the first, a committee of the Common Council was directed to solicit the attention of the president to these objects; by the second, the governor of the state was requested, under the authority of the militia law, to call out a sufficient number of the militia to occupy the proposed camps, and a loan of $300,000 tendered him for the purpose. The other resolutions had reference to munitions of war, and to the mode of raising the money tendered.

The corporation at the time contained a majority of the opponents of the government, and political antagonists of Clinton, On this occasion, however, all party feeling was forgotten, and absolute unanimity prevailed in its deliberations. The occasion was seized by the politic Tompkins as a mode of increasing his popularity. Up to this time he had been busily engaged in pressing offensive measures on the frontiers of Canada, without being aware that the enemy saw that the surest mode of defending their colony was by aggressive acts on the coast of the United States. He now did more than was asked of him, and poured into the City of New-York militia contingents to double the number that the committee of the corporation had thought necessary. Of this force he assumed the command, obtaining from the general government its sanction. Clinton, in the mean time – the real projector of the measure, by which all risk of attack was avoided, and which preserved the city from the fate of Washington and Alexandria, or the panic experienced at Baltimore – was studiously kept in the background. The funds necessary for the pay and support of this imposing force far exceeded the amount furnished by the corporation. A severe trial of its patriotism was therefore to be made. The general government, which had sanctioned the call of such a force, had provided no means for the purpose of keeping it together. Its credit, from mismanagement of its vast resources, had fallen to so low an ebb, that its treasury notes were almost worthless in the market. To call the state legislature together would have been a tedious process, during which the troops would have been exposed to distress, or must have been disbanded. An opportunity was thus presented by which an adroit politician, without the semblance of improper motives, might have left the governor to his own resources, and thrown upon him the responsibility of collecting, for his own purposes, a force he was unable to pay or feed. Such, however, was not the course of the mayor and corporation of New-York. With the utmost readiness, and without a dissenting voice, that body, in pursuance of a report presented by Clinton, interposed its unimpeached credit in behalf of the government; and, procuring from the banks a loan, places $1,400,000 at the disposal of the governor.

In these patriotic exertions Clinton derived the most steady and efficient support from members of the corporation. Among these are particularly to be remembered Aldermen Fish, Mapes, and Lawrence. The first an old soldier of the revolution, and the brother in arms of Hamilton; the second, who, although a tradesman, exhibited in the discipline of a militia brigade, of which he was the commander, and which was called into the service, a high degree of military talent; the third a banker, who, by his judicious administration of the finances of the city, had raised its credit from a low ebb, until it was far superior to that of either the general or state governments.

In the negotiations which attended this loan, an incident which may here be cited as exhibiting the character of the man who speedily became the opponent and persecutor of Clinton, who had raised him from obscurity. The corporation had stipulated that it should receive United States’ treasury notes as vouchers for the loan thus made to the general government. The comptroller, Mr. Mercein, waited on the governor, by appointment, with one of the instalments. The notes were exhibited to him, wanting only the signature of Tompkins, who stated that a wish to be present at the approaching confinement of his lady compelled him to set off that afternoon for Albany, and that he would take it as a favour if the execution of these notes were postponed until his return. The comptroller, without hesitation, complied with the request; and there is not doubt that the governor did at the time intend to fulfil his promise. But, in the interval, other pressing demands arose, and the treasury notes were applied to other purposes. It now became a question of personal veracity between the governor and the comptroller; the former denying that he had given the promise, the latter asserting it. The general government, in the end, made good the amount, and the comptroller was relieved from his responsibility, so that the pecuniary part of the dispute was adjusted. In the denial, however, Tompkins had forgotten, what the comptroller was not aware of, that a witness was present at the conference, who can, even at this late period, bear his testimony to the correctness of the statement of the latter. A young officer, charged with exhibiting to the governor the report on the fortifications at Haerlem and Brooklyn, was in the room when the comptroller was announced, and was requested by the governor to take a seat, and wait until the business with the comptroller was transacted. The transaction, according to his recollection, was in all respects conformable to the statement of Mr. Mercein. It would therefore appear that the governor, when he applied the treasury notes to other purposes, and found he could not replace them, preferred the sacrifice of a political opponent to a controversy with the administration, into which he must have entered had he maintained, as he ought, the claims of the City of New-York.

The same weakness was the cause of a subsequent dispute in accounts between Tompkins and the comptroller of the State of New-York, in which the difference amounted to a very large sum. No one now believes that he was actually a defaulter, or had applied money to his own purposes; but he yielded to the necessities of the general government, and appropriated to its service moneys intrusted by the State of New-York; and the state, with a true sense of its dignity, forgave him the debt, although he had not taken the proper steps for enabling it to be recovered from the administration at Washington.

On another occasion, the influence of Clinton with the body over whose deliberations he presided was materially of use to the general government. A steam ship-of-war was building under the direction of Fulton, and the government was unable to supply the funds for continuing the work. An application was in consequence made to the corporation of New-York for aid; but the finance committee, looking into it only as a matter of business, had determined to report against a grant, because it would unnecessarily involve the city in debt. In this emergency Clinton interposed, and was successful in convincing the committee that the loan ought to be made.

We thus see that Clinton was in favour of a war with Great Britain; that no sooner was war declared than he gave the government his undivided support; that he was foremost in the measures of defence by which the City of New-York was rendered inaccessible to the marauding bands of Ross and Cockburn; and that he was the first mover in the measures by which the necessary funds were raised for the purpose. If, in the action of the corporation on the first two points, he was aided by his ancient opponents in that body, he was not less assisted in the financial part of the operation by many who had not yet abandoned the name and the party distinctions of federalists. Rufus King addressed a large assemblage of citizens at the Tontine Coffee House in aid of the contemplated loan; and a great number of citizens of the federal party enrolled themselves as volunteers.

On this occasion the old party lines were complete obliterated; no trace of affection for Great Britain remained in any mind, and the very name of federalist only exists to be used as a mode of discrediting a political adversary in the minds of the ignorant. The only wonder is, that, in a community where the means of education are so easily accessible to all, its good sense should not revolt at the employment of terms, the meaning of which has long been obliterated.

Governor Tompkins reaped the full fruit of his ingenious policy. Thirty thousand militia, including the flower of the youth of the state, and many of the most promising of the party opposed to the administration, were soon dispersed to carry throughout the state the tidings of the affability, the kindness, the devoted patriotism, and, as many faithfully believed, the great military talent of the governor, while the citizens of New-York hailed him as their champion and saviour. He was thus clothed with sufficient power to use it to the injury of Clinton, who was removed from his office of mayor in 1815. It was attempted to justify his removal on the grounds of his being originally an opponent of the war, and of being wanting in patriotism to support it. How futile such charges were, the facts we have cited will show. Nor were they believed by the community, as will speedily appear.

To show how completely all party lines had been obliterated by the war, and that opposition to the measures which led to it was not felt, however strongly it might be proclaimed as a disqualification, the successor of Clinton in the office of mayor, in 1815, was his federal opponent, Jacob Radcliff, who, on the temporary ascendency of his party in 1810, had already superseded Clinton in the same office.

In the mean time, the canal question slumbered. The commissioners, indeed, made a report in March, 1814, in which the plan of an inclined plane was in express terms abandoned; but, within the next month, the authority granted to them to contract for a loan was annulled by a clause in the supply bill, where it had been placed, as being there unlikely to attract attention or excite debate.

At the close of the war, Governor Tompkins had it in his power to renew, by an official suggestion, the attention of the public to the canal policy. No man could have exposed the necessity and importance of a system of internal communication in more exact accordance with his own particular views than he. These views were all warlike, and directed to preparation for renewed hostilities with Great Britain. He had seen cannon dragged by land from Washington to Sackett’s Harbour, to arm the fleet which disputed the command of Lake Ontario, and an enormous expense incurred in other ways for want of easy communications. This glorious opportunity of calling the attention of the public to canals, as the most efficient means of security against attack, or of collecting forces and material for offensive operations, was lost by him. He had it in his power to make himself the leader of that incontrollable spirit which speedily manifested itself, but he neglected it.

In the mean time, Clinton, removed from all official station, and abandoned by all political associates except a few personal friends, saw that the moment had arrived for renewing his exertions on behalf of the cause of canals. His means of success were immeasurably diminished from the time in which he led, in the councils of the state, the solid and disciplined party to whose command Tompkins had now succeeded, and could count on the patriotic concurrence of such men as Platt, Van Rensselaer, and Morris, the leaders of his opponents in all other measures. The diminution of his own immediate political resources did not dismay him. He trusted to the good sense and the sound patriotism of his fellow-citizens, satisfied that, could he obtain an impartial hearing, the cause of internal improvement must triumph. He therefore, in the autumn of 1815, called to his aid Platt, thus repaying the confidence which that gentleman had, on the former occasion, reposed in him, and with him that of William Bayard, who then stood at the head of the mercantile community in the city, of Thomas Eddy, his old associate in the canal commission, of John Swartwout, who forgot on this occasion their old strife even to blood, of Cadwallader D. Colden, and of several other influential and distinguished citizens. In conformity with a public call, a meeting was convened at the City Hotel, which, by the exertions of his coadjutors, was numerously attended. Before this meeting, a draught of a memorial, prepared by Clinton, was laid and unanimously adopted.

This memorial was then circulated throughout the state for signatures, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm and subscribed with avidity.

There have, in the course of American history, been a few instances in which a single able state paper, appealing to the patriotism and good sense of the people in opposition to the cry of party or the force of prejudice, has changed the whole course of public sentiment, or created a new impulse by which that sentiment was directed into channels before unexplored. Among such instances we may cite the proclamation of neutrality by Washington, and that in opposition to the doctrine of nullification by Jackson. The memorial in relation to the canals had a similar influence within a less extended sphere. It exhibited the practicability of the canal to Lake Erie in so clear a light, and demonstrated its advantages over the route by Lake Ontario so evidently, that the first was never again questioned even for political effect, and the last sunk into oblivion. It showed that the canal was not only practicable, but that the benefits it would confer on the state were such that it would be an advisable measure even were it to return no revenue. It entered at full length into an estimate of the cost of the canal, and demonstrated that the resources of the state were adequate to its construction even in default of any large income from tolls. Finally, with feelings of extended patriotism, it proceeded from the local benefits to be conferred on the State of New-York, to the influence of such a work upon the general prosperity of the nation, and its effect in drawing more closely the bonds of union among the states. The argument of this report was so convincing, its appeal to feelings of individual interest, of state pride, and national glory so irresistible, that for the moment all opposition to the scheme was silenced.

Had Clinton performed no other act in relation to the canal system than to compile the information collected in this memorial, digest its argument, and recommend it to public attention by the weight of his name and of his political and personal influence, he would have been entitled to stand first in the list of the promoters of this vast and useful enterprise. But when we consider that, in addition to the long and devoted attention which was necessary to prepare this report, the broad and statesman-like views which it exhibited, and the great authority of his name in procuring its consideration and extensive adoption, he from this time made the furtherance of the canal policy the prominent mark of his noble ambition, the services of all other persons, however, eminent, sink into insignificance. No other person ventured on the support of this policy the adherence of his friends, his well-earned reputation as a statesman, his character for prudence and foresight, and, finally, all his prospects of future elevation in political life: all these, and they were a mighty stake, Clinton committed to the hazard of the success or failure of the canal policy. The fears of his timid friends he allayed; the remonstrances of those who saw a surer way for him to regain his political influence he disregarded, even at the cost of seeing them join the ranks of his enemies; he was too well satisfied of the accuracy of his calculations to dread the judgment of posterity upon his prediction; and he willingly placed all his future hopes of rank and distinction upon the accomplishment of this single measure.

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Transcribed from the original text and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 12/10/99.