Volume I Part 2 (2/2)
After the const.i.tutional convention adjourned in May, 1777, the Council of Safety immediately ordered the election of a governor, lieutenant-governor, and members of the Legislature. The selection of a governor by ballot interested the people. Although freeholders who could vote represented only a small part of the male population, patriots of every cla.s.s rejoiced in the subst.i.tution of a neighbour for a lord across the sea. And all had a decided choice. Of those suggested as fittest as well as most experienced Philip Schuyler, John Morin Scott, John Jay and George Clinton were the favourites. Just then Schuyler was in the northern part of the province, watching Burgoyne and making provision to meet the invasion of the Mohawk Valley; George Clinton, in command on the Hudson, was equally watchful of the movements of Sir Henry Clinton, whose junction with Burgoyne meant the destruction of Forts Clinton and Montgomery at the lower entrance to the Highlands; while Scott and Jay, as members of the Council of Safety, were directing the government of the new State.
Schuyler's public career began in the Provincial a.s.sembly of New York in 1768. He represented the people's interests with great boldness, and when the a.s.sembly refused to thank the delegates of the first Continental Congress, or to appoint others to a second Congress, he aided in the organisation of the Provincial Congress which usurped the a.s.sembly's functions and put all power into the hands of the people.
Chancellor Kent thought that ”in acuteness of intellect, profound thought, indefatigable activity, exhaustless energy, pure patriotism, and persevering and intrepid public efforts, Schuyler had no superior;” and Daniel Webster declared him ”second only to Was.h.i.+ngton in the services he rendered the country.”[14] But there was in Schuyler's make-up a touch of arrogance that displayed itself in letters as well as in manners. The soldierly qualities that made him a commander did not qualify him for public place dependent upon the suffrage of men. People respected but did not love him. If they were indignant that Gates succeeded him, they did not want him to govern them, however much it may have been in his heart to serve them faithfully.
[Footnote 14: While in command of the northern department, embracing the province of New York, Schuyler was known as ”Great Eye,” so watchful did he become of the enemy's movements; and although subsequently, through slander and intrigue, superseded by Horatio Gates, history has credited Burgoyne's surrender largely to his wisdom and patriotism, and has branded Gates with incompetency, in spite of the latter's gold medal and the thanks of Congress.]
John Morin Scott represented the radical element among the patriots.
By profession he was an able and wealthy lawyer; by occupation a patriotic agitator. John Adams, who breakfasted with him, speaks of his country residence three miles out of town as ”an elegant seat, with the Hudson just behind the house, and a rural prospect all around him.” But the table seems to have made a deeper impression upon the Yankee patriot than the picturesque scenery of the river. ”A more elegant breakfast I never saw--rich plate, a very large silver coffee-pot, a very large silver teapot, napkins of the very finest materials, toast and bread and b.u.t.ter in great perfection. Afterwards a plate of beautiful peaches, another of pears, another of plums, and a musk melon.” As a parting salute, this lover of good things spoke of his host as ”a sensible man, one of the readiest speakers upon the continent, but not very polite.”[15] This is what the Tories thought.
According to Jones, the Tory historian, Scott had the misfortune to graduate at Yale--”a college remarkable for its republican principles and religious intolerance,” he says, and to belong to a triumvirate whose purpose was ”to pull down church and state, and to raise their own government upon the ruins.”[16]
[Footnote 15: John Adams, _Life and Works_, Vol. 2, p. 349 (Diary).]
[Footnote 16: Thomas Jones, _History of New York_, Vol. 1, p. 3.]
Scott, no doubt, was sometimes mistaken in the proper course to pursue, but he was always right from his point of view, and his point of view was bitter hostility to English misrule. Whatever he did he did with all the resistless energy of a man still in his forties. He was of distinguished ancestry. His great-great-grandfather, Sir John Scott, baronet, of Ancrum, Scotland, had been a stalwart Whig before the revolution of 1688, and his grandfather, John Scott, coming to New York in 1702, had commanded Fort Hunter, a stronghold on the Mohawk.
Both were remarkable men. Tory blood was foreign to their veins. Young John, breathing the air of independence, scorned to let his life and property depend upon the pleasure of British lords and a British ministry, or to be excluded from the right of trial by a jury of his neighbours, or of taxation by his own representatives. In 1775 he went to the Continental Congress; in 1776, to the Provincial Congress of New York; and later he partic.i.p.ated in the battle of Long Island as a brigadier-general. After the adoption of the State Const.i.tution he became secretary of state, and from 1780 to 1783 served in the Continental Congress. He lived long enough to see his country free, although his strenuous life ended at fifty-four.
George Clinton possessed more popular manners than either Schuyler or Scott. Indeed, it has been given to few men in New York to inspire more pa.s.sionate personal attachment than George Clinton. A patriot never lived who was more bitter in his hostility to English misrule, or more uncompromising in his opposition to toryism. He was a typical Irishman--intolerant, often domineering, sometimes petulant, and occasionally too quick to take offence, but he was magnetic and generous, easily putting himself in touch with those about him, and ready, without hesitation, to help the poorest and carry the weakest.
This was the kind of man the people wanted for governor.
Clinton came of a good family. His great-grandfather, a too devoted adherent of Charles I., found it healthful to wander about Europe, and finally to settle in the north of Ireland, out of reach of Cromwell's soldiers, and out of sight of his ancestral patrimony. By the time Charles II. came to the throne, the estate was lost, and this friend of the Stuarts lived on in the quiet of his secluded home, and after him, his son; but the grandson, stirred by the blood of a Puritan mother, exchanged the North Sea sh.o.r.e for the banks of the Hudson, where his son breathed the air that made him a leading spirit in the war for American independence. Clinton's youth is one record of precocity. Before the war began he pa.s.sed through a long, a varied, even a brilliant career, climbing to the highest position in the State before he had reached the age when most men begin to fill responsible places. At fifteen he manned an American privateer; at sixteen, as a lieutenant, he accompanied his father in a successful a.s.sault upon Fort Frontenac; at twenty-six, in the colonial legislature, he became the rival of Philip Schuyler in the leaders.h.i.+p and influence that enabled a patriotic minority to resist the aggressions of Great Britain; at thirty-six, holding a seat in the Second Continental Congress, he voted for the Declaration of Independence, and commanded a brigade of Ulster County militia.
The election which occurred in June was not preceded by a campaign of speaking. People were too busy fighting to supplement a campaign of bullets with one of words. But Jay sent out an electioneering letter recommending Philip Schuyler for governor and George Clinton for lieutenant-governor. This was sufficient to secure for these candidates the conservative vote. It showed, too, Jay's unconcern for high place. He was modest even to diffidence, an infirmity that seems to have depressed him at times as much as it did Nathaniel Hawthorne in a later day.
The returns were made to the Council of Safety, and Jay carefully scanned them as they came in. On June 20 he wrote Schuyler: ”The elections in the middle district have taken such a turn as that, if a tolerable degree of unanimity should prevail in the upper counties, there will be little doubt of having, ere long, the honour of addressing a letter to your excellency. Clinton, being pushed for both offices, may have neither; he has many votes for the first and not a few for the second. Scott, however, has carried a number from him, and you are by no means without a share. You may rely on receiving by express the earliest notice of the event alluded to.”[17] When the voters from Orange and other southern counties came in, however, Jay discovered that the result did not follow the line either of his wishes or of his suggestions. On the contrary, Clinton was elected to both offices by a considerable plurality.[18]
[Footnote 17: John Jay, _Correspondence and Public Papers_, Vol. 1, p.
142.]
[Footnote 18: ”A fragment of the canva.s.s of 1777 shows the returns from Albany, c.u.mberland, Dutchess, Tryon, and Westchester, as follows: Clinton, 865; Scott, 386; Schuyler, 1012; Jay, 367; Philip Livingston, 5; Robert R. Livingston, 7. The votes from Orange and other southern counties gave the election to Clinton.”--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1886), p. 164. Subsequently, when the Legislature met at Kingston on September 1, Pierre Van Cortlandt as president of the Senate performed the duties of lieutenant-governor.]
The result of the election proved a great surprise and something of a humiliation to the ruling cla.s.ses. ”Gen. Clinton, I am informed, has a majority of votes for the Chair,” Schuyler wrote to Jay, on June 30.
”If so he has played his cards better than was expected.”[19] A few days later, after confirmation of the rumour, he betrayed considerable feeling. ”Clinton's family and connections do not ent.i.tle him to so distinguished a pre-eminence,” he wrote, showing that Revolutionary heroes were already divided into more democratic and less democratic whigs, and more aristocratic and less aristocratic patriots; but the division was still in the mind rather than in any settled policy. ”He is virtuous and loves his country,” added Schuyler, in the next line; ”he has ability and is brave, and I hope he will experience from every patriot support, countenance and comfort.”[20] Was.h.i.+ngton understood his merits. ”His character will make him peculiarly useful at the head of your State,” he wrote the Committee of Safety.
[Footnote 19: John Jay, _Correspondence and Public Papers_, Vol. 1, p.
144.]
[Footnote 20: John Jay, _Correspondence and Public Papers_, Vol. 1, p.
146.]
Clinton's inauguration occurred on July 30, 1777. He stood in front of the courthouse at Kingston on top of the barrel from which the Const.i.tution had been published in the preceding April, and in the uniform of his country, with sword in hand, he took the oath of office. Within sixty days thereafter Sir Henry Clinton had carried the Highland forts, scattered the Governor's troops, dispersed the first Legislature of the State, burned Kingston to the ground, and very nearly captured the Governor himself, the latter, under cover of night, having made his escape by crossing the river in a small rowboat. Among the captured patriots was Colonel McClaughry, the Governor's brother-in-law. ”Where is my friend George?” asked Sir Henry. ”Thank G.o.d,” replied the Colonel, ”he is safe and beyond the reach of your friends.h.i.+p.”
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