JAMES RENWICK, LL.D.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

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Objections to the old Constitution of the State. – All Parties concur in a desire for its Amendment. – Bill calling for a Convention returned by the Council of Revision. – Clinton’s Opinions on the subject. – A Law is passed by which the call of a Convention is submitted to a popular vote. – Alterations made in the old Constitution. – Clinton’s term of Office is abridged. – He declines to be a Candidate for re-election. – Accident to his leg. – His first Wife dies. – He visits the States of Jersey and Ohio. – He visits Pennsylvania. – He is examined before a Committee of the Legislature. – He is removed from his Office of Canal Commissioner. – Public Indignation on Consequence. – Attempt of the General Government to tax Vessels navigating the Canal. – Clinton is nominated by the Republican Convention at Utica, and again elected Governor. – He marries his second Wife.

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The strength of Clinton’s opponents in the Legislature placed him, in a short time after his second election, in the same position to which he had brought Jay, namely, in a minority of the council of appointment. At the same time, moderate men of all parties wished to see this obnoxious feature expunged from the Constitution. There was also a strong and influential body that desired the equalization of the elective franchise, which, under the old Constitution, was confined to the choice of governors and senators to freeholders alone. There were others who were satisfied of the inexpediency of that feature of the old Constitution which vacated the offices of chancellor and judges when the incumbents reached the age of sixty years. Finally, it was believed by many, that the fact of the judicial officers having in the council of revision a veto upon the laws passed by the Legislature, exposed them to the risk of being tempted, and thus impaired public confidence in the purity of the bench. All classes of men therefore united in a desire that a convention should be called to amend the Constitution.

The moderate and judicious seem to have desired that the council of appointment should be continued, to act as the advisers of the governor, not as his co-equals in this branch of executive authority; and it cannot be doubted that a similar provision in relation to the council of revision would have removed the objections to that body, and rendered it a most valuable part of the government. Experience seems to have proved since that it would have been better that the executive should have had a right to resort to the opinion of the united wisdom of the bench on questions of constitutional law, rather than to the advice of the attorney-general, who can rarely be independent of party bias. That judges should retire from office at an age when, if activity of body begins to decay, the mind is at its maturity, seems to be contrary to all natural reason, and reverses the practice of all countries.

In respect to the elective franchise the question is more difficult. Two opinions have been maintained with almost equal force: the one holds that the possession of at least a moderate property is a test of wisdom and intelligence well suited to be a standard of the qualifications of an elector, while the ownership of the soil gives him a personal interest in the stability of government and national prosperity, which he who has no such ties can never feel; nor, as it was maintained, could the vesting of power exclusively in such hands ever degenerate into an aristocracy, so long as the equal division of property among all the children of the same parents was maintained both by law and custom, and all possibility of creating entails was prevented. This opinion has been stigmatized as aristocratic, but has been defended as the true principle of freedom, and in its favour the example of Rome has been adduced, which retained its republican institutions so long as the comitia centuriata constituted the sovereignty, but fell first into anarchy, and finally into a military despotism, as soon as the distinctions arising from taxable property, which formed the basis of that mode of voting, were abolished.

On the other hand, it has been maintained, that as it is the very principle of American liberty that all men are born free and equal, any distinction in the right of voting is in opposition to it. Clinton, who, during his whole political course, placed the firmest reliance upon the virtue and intelligence of the people, was of the latter opinion, although it does not appear that he carried his views of the extension of the franchise to the length it has now reached. To the will of the public, expressed in their primary assemblies, he always appealed as the tribunal of last resort on political questions; and, next to the canal, the darling object of his later years was to bring the choice of electors of president immediately to the people.

In the general wish that the Constitution should be amended, Clinton participated, and the call of a convention for the purpose was recommended by him in his message. The Legislature, although in opposition to him, was obedient to the popular will, and a law directing the election of delegates to a convention was passed. In passing this law, the Legislature virtually assumed the sovereign power to be vested in it, and the convention would have acted under an authority having its source in the Senate and House of Assembly. In this view of the subject Clinton did not concur. He conceived that the sovereignty resided of right in the people, convened in their primary assemblies. When the bill, as passed by the Legislature, came before the council of revision, he pointed out this defect in its principle, and by his casting vote it was returned to the Legislature. Here it was recommitted, and a new law framed, by which the question whether a convention should be called was submitted to a direct vote at the popular elections.

This vote was in the affirmative by a large majority, and a convention was in consequence chosen, which assembled at Utica. The political opponents of Clinton took advantage of his act in the council of revision to represent him as opposed to all change; and, although, to all appearance, but little party spirit was manifested in the election of delegates, it was adroitly managed in such manner that but few of his immediate friends were chosen.

The convention numbered a great many persons who had been distinguished in the party warfare of the state, and several who had held important public stations during the prevalence as well of the federal, as of the democratic party. Between these it was supposed that a broad distinction existed in relation to the limit of the right of suffrage. The federal party, it was believed, held the doctrine of the English republicans, and which had been the basis of the arguments by which the American Revolution was justified; namely, that taxation and representation should be coextensive. It was, in consequence, expected that the members of the convention who had belonged to this party would have opposed any farther extension of the right of suffrage in the election of members of Assembly, and been reluctant to do away with the freehold qualification in the voters for governor and senators.

The democratic party, on the other hand, had secured its ascendency by avowed obedience to the popular will, and an effort on its part to deprive the freeholders of their particular privileges was to have been expected.

To the surprise of those who were not acquainted with the secret springs of action, all parties exhibited an anxiety to outbid each other for popularity, by extending the right of voting for all offices to the widest possible limit. More doubt and hesitation was shown at first by the old republicans than by those who had been counted as federalists; but the desire of appearing on the popular side prevailed with all, and no requisite was demanded in any voter except citizenship and residence.

The security of the institutions of the State of New-York, and of the life, liberty, and property of its inhabitants, must henceforth depend on the virtue and intelligence of a majority of its voters. It is not to be disguised, that many anxious patriots entertain forebodings that the experiment has been extended too far, and may not be successful. No doubt need be entertained of the permanence of the mere forms of republican institutions, but their fears point to a diminution in the sanctity of property, and of security for persons who may become obnoxious to popular displeasure from violence unauthorized by law. Such gloomy forebodings are, however, founded on a belief that the new classes of voters are ignorant and vicious; against which we have a sure remedy in the universal extension and beneficial influence of the common school system.

By the Constitution framed by this convention the council of appointment was abolished, the right of nomination being vested in the governor, and the concurrence of the Senate was rendered necessary. The council of revision was also abolished, and the veto vested in the governor, subject to a reversal by a vote of two thirds of the members of both houses. The objectionable feature in relation to the judges was retained, showing how, in such instances, party spirit and feelings of individual dislike may prevail over considerations of public good. The chancellor and judges had not joined the party in opposition to Clinton, and there was not sufficient manliness to point them out directly by allowing their offices to expire on their reaching the age to which the old Constitution had limited their term, and ordaining that their successors should remain on the bench to a more advanced period of life.

The convention mustered a decided majority of the opponents of Clinton. In spite of this, the canal policy, for which he had so long contended, was triumphant. Clinton’s belief in the correctness of the final judgment of the people was justified; and those who had on former occasions been the opponents of the canal, were now compelled, by public opinion or by their own convictions, to support its policy. The canal was made inalienable by any act of the Legislature; and the fund, which had before been pledged by law, was now established more firmly by a clause in the Constitution.

The new constitution, by changing the day on which the legal year began from the 4^th of July to the 1^st of January, abridged Clinton’s term of office; and it was believed by many that the desire to remove him had been the real object of this change.

A new division of parties had arisen, founded on the claims of different individuals to the presidential chair. Mr. Monroe had undertaken to govern without reference to the ancient divisions of party, and three candidates for the succession started from his own cabinet. General Jackson and Mr. Clay were also named; and there were not wanting many persons in other states who would gladly have given their suffrages for Clinton himself. In the State of New-York, Messrs. Crawford and Adams were the prominent candidates, and parties were formed in support of their respective pretensions. With neither of these would Clinton connect himself, and he would not appear as a candidate for the office himself. He therefore resolved not to be a candidate for the office of governor, which would have required his uniting himself to one of these parties, or coming forward as a candidate for the presidency.

The long sway of a party opposed to him in the Legislature, and the proscription to which all who avowed themselves his friend were exposed, had the effect of terrifying all aspirants for political influence or lucrative offices from his side; and the artful policy of his enemies, in adopting his favourite measures, had left him without the power of joining issue with them in an appeal to the popular voice. Joseph Yates was elected in his stead, overcoming a feeble opposition on the part of Solomon Southwick.

In the summer of 1818, Clinton met with an accident which caused the fracture of his leg. His recovery was slow and painful, and he was compelled for some time to use crutches; nor did he ever wholly overcome a slight lameness. This injury had an unfavourable effect upon his health, by rendering him unable any longer to take the exercises to which he had been accustomed, and in which he took pleasure. He had been in the habit of riding much on horseback, and was fond of field sports; from both of these he was now debarred; and to this change in his habits, from active to sedentary, may be ascribed the gradual approach of that disease, which carried him off in the zenith of his faculties.

This accident was preceded by a severe affliction in his family, the loss of his wife, who, in the language of his diary, "retired to another and better world with characteristic fortitude."

The retirement of Clinton from office did not cause him to cease from his exertions for the public good, but rather extended the sphere of his beneficial action. If, in his native state, there were those who doubted the importance of his agency in creating the canal policy, and others who, with better knowledge, denied him due honour, he was, in other parts of the Union, fully appreciated; and those who, with just views of duty, sought to extend to their own states the benefits of the policy so successful in New-York, appealed to his powerful aid.

In the State of New-Jersey an old project had been revived for the construction of the Raritan and Delaware Canal. The great importance of this measure, in a national point of view, had been developed in the report of Mr. Gallatin. At the same time, a novel and almost unexampled plan of a canal across the great Atlantic ridge from the Passaic to the Delaware had been brought forward. The friends of the latter measure requested Clinton to visit the region and inquire into its practicability. Having satisfied himself that the means proposed were feasible, he drew up a report on the subject, urging that this canal should be constructed by the state. Some weeks after, on the invitation of the state authorities, he visited Trenton. Here he not only enforced by personal communication the opinion he had already given, but exhorted the two rival sections of the state to union, and pointed out the advantages of making both canals at the expense of the state. In this instance his enlightened views did not prevail. The Legislature shrunk from the responsibility of undertaking both canals, and the partisans of each were too powerful to allow the adoption of the other as a state work. Subsequently, the two enterprises have been each intrusted to a chartered company, and the result of their operations has justified the prescience of Clinton. Enough has been done to show that, had the state executed them, both must have been profitable; while to the companies which have held them, from causes inseparably connected with the management of chartered companies, they have yielded no profit. The Delaware and Raritan Canal has imposed tolls so high as to exclude all transit of heavy commodities, while the Morris Canal, has, by a departure from its original plan, and deviations from the system on which Clinton’s opinion of its feasibility was founded, become so costly, that a trade as large as was anticipated does not pay an adequate dividend. The Legislature, too, in order to encourage capitalists to embark on this project, endowed the Morris Canal Company with banking privileges, and these have been so badly managed as to almost involve it in ruin.

He was also invited to visit Ohio. Here his views of policy prevailed. That state, after deliberate inquiry into the practicability of a canal from Lake Erie to the River Ohio, undertook its construction; and to Clinton the high compliment was assigned, although in no official capacity, and in the presence of the governor of the state, of removing the first earth of the excavation. His journey through Ohio was one continued triumph, and resembled more the progress of Lafayette than the travel of any native citizen of however exalted rank or extended popularity.

In the summer of 1824, Clinton, by invitation, visited the State of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of giving the aid of his high authority in the furtherance of the system of internal improvements projected in that state. A want of enterprise and exertion had hitherto characterized its Legislature, and it had intrusted to private companies some of the most important lines of communication within its limits. In its subsequent awakening to a sense of the importance of taking the public works into the hands of the state, a desire to meet the views of every interest has caused the expansion of the operations over too great a space. Partial efforts have been made in many places, and on these an amount of money has been expended, which, if applied to any single object, must have yielded adequate returns. These improvements do not even pay the interest on their cost; and, by a want of foresight, no adequate funds were provided in advance to meet such an emergency. The example of this great and opulent state, which is at present paralyzed in its exertions for the want of wise and decided measures, may serve to show of how great importance it was to the State of New-York that there was in it one person possessing sufficient weight and influence to direct its energies in a more skilful manner.

Clinton seemed born to illustrate in his own person the fickle character of attachments founded on political considerations. Up to the year 1812 he had been the idol of the democratic party in the State of New-York, and had been their almost unanimous nominee for the office of president of the United States; but when the influence of the general government was exerted against him, all the leading politicians, with rare exceptions, abandoned him. Nor were they content with this, but commenced attacks upon him until he was removed from the mayoralty. His subsequent elevation to the office of governor was a spontaneous act of the people, in which politicians by profession had little to do; but he was at once surrounded by those who had persecuted him in his adverse fortunes. The close of his second term as governor was attended by a similar desertion of political men; and in the Legislature which first met under the new Constitution, hardly a man was to be found bold enough to avow himself the adherent of his fortunes.

In the succeeding Legislature the case was still stronger, and to coldness was added direct injury. He was, in the first place, called before a committee of the Legislature to be examined on the subject of the canals. The examination, it is said, was not conducted with any of the courtesy to which the rank he had recently held in the state would have seemed to entitle him. It would appear to have been intended to afford grounds for the justification of an act which the leaders of the dominant party had resolved upon, but they failed in finding any. The act, however, was not, for that reason, left undone. On the last day of the session of 1824, a resolution was introduced into the Senate removing Clinton from his office as canal commissioner. This resolution was carried without debate, and with but three dissenting voices. In the House it prevailed by a vote of more than two thirds of the members; no speech was made in justification or explanation of it, and the only opposition in words was an eloquent and indignant speech, made on the spur of the occasion by Cunningham, of Montgomery county, a man whose honesty of purpose, independence of character, and promising talent were prematurely lost to the state.

At the time of this vote Clinton had been for fourteen years steadily engaged in promoting the cause of the internal navigation of the state, and, whether in or out of office, had received no compensation for these services. It seems to have been believed by the leaders in this unmerited insult, that Clinton had entirely lost all his popularity, and that it was only necessary to deprive him of the little influence which the office of canal commissioner gave him, in order to close his political career for ever. In both views of the subject they were mistaken. Clinton, although to appearance abandoned by all his mere political partisans, had lost none of his well-earned popularity with the people at large, and this act of the Legislature served to call this popularity into action. The news of his removal had no sooner reached the principal towns in the state, than meetings were called to express the popular indignation at the removal of Clinton from the office he had so long and worthily held. In the City of New-York, not less than ten thousand persons assembled at the call; and the proportionate numbers were much greater in other places, for the city still continued to be the seat of his most active opponents. Many of these, however, united in the proceedings, and the chairman of the city meeting was Colonel Few, who had long been opposed to him in politics.

The term of office of Governor Yates was about to expire, and a convention was assembled to nominate a candidate for the succession. At this convention, Clinton, much to the surprise of those who had considered him as completely fallen, was at once proposed as a fit person to be selected. A discussion arose, which ended in the retirement of the delegation of the City of New-York and a few others, amounting in all to twenty members. After the secession of this party, the nomination of Clinton was concurred in with absolute unanimity.

The overwhelming influence which was brought to bear upon this convention by the popular voice, arose in a great degree from a correct appreciation of the value of his services in securing the construction of the canal and the triumph of the policy of internal improvement. It was also aided by the strong interest which Clinton took in the question of the manner of choosing the electors of president. This had been hitherto done by the Legislature; and a strong effort, in which Clinton aided, was now making to give the choice directly to the people. Those politicians who, with the loudest professions of obedience to the popular will, held the power in their hands through a majority of the Legislature, were averse to parting with it, and the contrast between their professions and acts had no little effect in restoring the influence of Clinton.

An important question had also arisen in respect to the navigation of the canal. Its size was such that the vessels which navigate it fall within the description of those required to receive licenses from the custom-houses of the general government. Although the administration was in the hands of those professing an exclusive attachment to state rights, an attempt was made to extend the authority of the officers of the customs over the vessels navigating the canal. As the canal lies wholly within the limits of a single state, this attempt could not be justified upon the grant of powers to regulate either foreign commerce or that between the states. To have brought this plan into operation would have been a gross and unwarrantable usurpation, and as such it was considered by all those who had a proper feeling of the rights of their native state. There was, however, a moment when it appeared probable that the attempt to enforce this measure would be successful. It therefore became necessary to unite all the strength which could be collected in opposition to it. It was seen and felt that Clinton was the leader under whose direction this opposition might be most efficiently brought into action, and that in the office of governor alone he would have the power necessary to counteract the contemplated usurpation.

The party which had withdrawn from the convention did not submit quietly to its decisions, but nominated Colonel Young, the former colleague of Clinton in the canal board, as a candidate in opposition to him. His nomination, however, met with a signal defeat, and Clinton was elected governor by a majority over his opponent of upward of sixteen thousand votes.

We have in this place to speak of Clinton’s second marriage, which occurred before the close of his second term of service as governor. The lady whom he chose was Miss Catharine Jones, the daughter of Dr. Thomas Jones, an eminent physician in the City of New-York. It would appear, from passages and extracts in his common-place book, that the propriety of contracting a second marriage had been a subject of serious reflection, and that his judgment was fully satisfied that the step was an expedient one. Of this estimable lady, who still survives, feelings of delicacy will prevent us from saying more.

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