Volume I Part 10 (1/2)
When Clinton and Spencer finished their work a single Federalist, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, the attorney-general, remained in office, and he survived only until Ambrose Spencer could take his place. Soon afterward Spencer was advanced to the Supreme Court in place of Jacob Radcliff, a promotion that filled Federalists with the greatest alarm.
Looking back upon the distinguished career of Chief Justice Spencer, it seems strange, almost ridiculous, in fact, that his appointment to the bench should have given rise to such fears; but Spencer had been the rudest, most ferocious opponent of all. The Federalists were afraid of him because they believed with William P. Van Ness, the young friend of Burr, that he was ”governed by no principles or feelings except those which avarice and unprincipled ambition inspired.”[121] Van Ness wrote with a pen dipped in gall, yet, if contemporary criticism be accepted, he did not exaggerate the feeling entertained for Spencer by the Federalists of that day. Like DeWitt Clinton, he was a bad hater, often insolent, sometimes haughty, and always arbitrary. After he left the Federalist party and became a member of the celebrated Council of 1801, he seemed over-zealous in his support of the men he had recently persecuted, and unnecessarily severe in his treatment of former a.s.sociates. ”The animosity of the apostate,” said Van Ness, ”cannot be controlled. Savage and relentless, he thirsts for vengeance. Such is emphatically the temper of Ambrose Spencer, who, after his conversion, was introduced to a seat in the Legislature, by his new friends, for the express purpose of perplexing and persecuting his old ones.”[122] Spencer never got over being a violent partisan, but he was an impartial, honest judge.
The strength of his intellect no one disputed, and if his political affiliations seemed to warp his judgment in affairs of state, it was none the less impartial and enlightened when brought to bear on difficult questions of law.
[Footnote 121: _Letters of ”Aristides”_, p. 42.]
[Footnote 122: _Letters of ”Aristides”_, p. 42.]
The timely resignation of John Armstrong from the United States Senate made room for DeWitt Clinton, who, however, a year later, resigned the senators.h.i.+p to become mayor of New York. The inherent strength of the United States Senate rested, then as now, upon its const.i.tutional endowment, but the small body of men composing it, having comparatively little to do and doing that little by general a.s.sent, with no record of their debates, evidently did not appreciate that it was the most powerful single chamber in any legislative body in the world. It is doubtful if the framers of the Const.i.tution recognised the enormous power they had given it. Certainly DeWitt Clinton and his resigning colleagues did not appreciate that the combination of its legislative, executive, and judicial functions would one day practically dominate the Executive and the Congress, for the reason that its members are the const.i.tutional advisers of the President, without whose a.s.sent no bill can become a law, no office can be filled, no officer of the government impeached, and no treaty made operative.
In taking leave of the United States Senate, Clinton probably gave little thought to the character of the place, whether it was a step up or a step down to the mayoralty. Just then he was engaged in the political annihilation of Aaron Burr, and he felt the necessity of entering the latter's stronghold to deprive him of influence. Out of six or seven thousand appointments made by the Council of Appointment not a friend of Aaron Burr got so much as the smallest crumb from the well-filled table. Even Burr himself, and his friend, John Swartout, were forced from the directorate of the Manhattan Bank that Burr had organised. ”With astonishment,” wrote William P. Van Ness, ”it was observed that no man, however virtuous, however unspotted his life or his fame, could be advanced to the most unimportant appointment, unless he would submit to abandon all intercourse with Mr. Burr, vow opposition to his elevation, and like a feudal va.s.sal pledge his personal services to traduce his character and circulate slander.”[123]
[Footnote 123: _Letters of ”Aristides”_, p. 69.]
Governor Clinton feebly opposed this wholesale slaughter by refusing to sign the minutes of the Council and by making written protests against its methods; but greater emphasis would doubtless have availed no more, since the const.i.tutional convention had reduced the governor to the merest figurehead. His one vote out of five limited the extent of his prerogative. Power existed in the combine only, and so well did DeWitt Clinton control that when the famous Council of 1801 had finished its work nothing remained for succeeding Councils to do until Clinton, the prototype of the party boss, returned in 1806 to crush the Livingstons.
Occasionally a decapitated office-holder fiercely resented the Council's action, and, to make it sting the more, complimented the Governor for his patriotic and unselfish opposition. John V. Henry evidenced his disgust by ever after declining public office, though his party had opportunities of recognising his great ability and rewarding his fidelity. Ebenezer Foote, a bright lawyer, who took his removal from the clerks.h.i.+p of Delaware County very much to heart, opened fire on Ambrose Spencer, charging him with base and unworthy motives in separating from the Federalists. To this Spencer replied with characteristic rhetoric. ”Your removal was an act of justice to the public, inasmuch as the veriest hypocrite and the most malignant villain in the State was deprived of the power of perpetuating mischief. If, as you insinuate, your interests have by your removal been materially affected, then, sir, like many men more honest than yourself, earn your bread by the sweat of your brow.”[124]
[Footnote 124: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
1, p. 177.]
At Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson had rewarded friends as openly as DeWitt Clinton took care of them in Albany. In telling the story, James A.
Bayard of Delaware produced an oratorical sensation in the House of Representatives. ”And now, sir, let me ask the honourable gentleman,”
said the congressman, in reply to William Giles' defence of the Virginia President, ”what his reflections and belief will be when he observes that every man on whose vote the event of Mr. Jefferson's election hung has since been distinguished by presidential favour. Mr.
Charles Pinckney of South Carolina was one of the most active, efficient and successful promoters of the election of the present chief magistrate, and he has since been appointed minister plenipotentiary to the court of Madrid--an appointment as high and honourable as any within the gift of the Executive. I know what was the value of the vote of Mr. Claiborne of Tennessee; the vote of a State was in his hands. Mr. Claiborne has since been raised to the high dignity of governor of the Mississippi Territory. I know how great, and how greatly felt, was the importance of the vote of Mr.
Linn of New Jersey. The delegation of the State consists of five members; two of the delegation were decidedly for Mr. Jefferson, two were decidedly for Mr. Burr. Mr. Linn was considered as inclining to one side, but still doubtful; both parties looked up to him for the vote of New Jersey. He gave it to Mr. Jefferson; and Mr. Linn has since had the profitable office of supervisor of his district conferred upon him. Mr. Lyon of Vermont was in this instance an important man; he neutralised the vote of Vermont; his absence alone would have given the State to Mr. Burr. It was too much to give an office to Mr. Lyon; his character was low; but Mr. Lyon's son has been handsomely provided for in one of the executive offices. I shall add to the catalogue but the name of one more gentleman, Mr. Edward Livingston of New York. I knew well--full well I knew--the consequence of this gentleman. His means were not limited to his own vote; nay, I always considered more than the vote of New York within his power. Mr.
Livingston has been made the attorney for the district of New York; the road of preferment has been opened to him, and his brother has been raised to the distinguished place of minister plenipotentiary to the French Republic.”[125]
[Footnote 125: Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, pp. 294-5.]
Albert Gallatin, Jefferson's secretary of the treasury, thought Burr less selfish than either the Clintons or the Livingstons, and, on the score of office-seeking, Gallatin was probably correct. But Burr, if without relatives, had several devoted friends whom he pressed for appointment, among them John Swartout for marshal, Daniel Gelston for collector, Theodorus Bailey for naval officer, and Matthew L. Davis for supervisor. Swartout succeeded, but DeWitt Clinton, getting wind of the scheme, entered an heroic protest to Jefferson, who quickly concurred in Clinton's wishes without so much as a conference with Gallatin or Burr. The latter, hearing rumours of the secret understanding, sent a sharp letter to Gallatin, pressing Davis'
appointment on the ground of good faith, with a threat that he would no longer be trifled with; but Gallatin was helpless as well as ignorant, and the President silent. Davis' journey to Monticello developed nothing but Jefferson's insincerity, and on his return to New York the press laughed at his credulity.
This ended Burr's pretended loyalty to the Administration. On his return to Was.h.i.+ngton, in January, 1802, he quietly watched his opportunity, and two weeks later gave the casting vote which sent Jefferson's pet measure, the repeal of the judiciary act of 1801, to a select committee for delay, instead of to the President for approval.
Soon after, at a Federalist banquet celebrating Was.h.i.+ngton's birthday, Burr proposed the toast, ”The union of all honest men.” This was the fatal stab. The country didn't understand it, but to Jefferson and the Clintons it meant all that Burr intended, and from that moment DeWitt Clinton's newspaper, the _American Citizen and Watchtower_, owned by his cousin and edited by James Cheetham, an English refugee, took up the challenge thus thrown down, and began its famous attack upon the Vice President.
Burr's conduct during those momentous weeks when Federalists did their utmost to make him President, gave his rivals ample ground for creating the belief that he had evidenced open contempt for the principles of honest dealing. Had he published a letter after the Federalists decided to support him, condemning their policy as a conspiracy to deprive the people of their choice for President, and refusing to accept an election at their hands if tendered him, it must have disarmed his critics and smoothed his pathway to further political preferment; but his failure so to act, coupled with his well-known behaviour and the activity of his friends, gave opponents an advantage that skill and ability were insufficient to overcome.
James Cheetham handled his pen like a bludgeon. Even at this distance of time Cheetham's ”View of Aaron Burr's Political Conduct,” in which is traced the Vice President's alleged intrigues to promote himself over Jefferson, is interesting and exciting. Despite its bitter sarcasm and torrent of vituperation, Cheetham's array of facts and dates, the designation of persons and places, and the bold a.s.sumptions based on apparent knowledge, backed by foot-notes that promised absolute proof if denial were made, impress one strongly. There is much that is weak, much that is only suspicion, much that is fanciful.
A visit to an uncle in Connecticut, a call upon the governor of Rhode Island, a communication sent under cover to another, letters in cipher, pleasant notices in Federalist newspapers, a journey of Timothy Green to South Carolina--all these belong to the realm of inference; but the method of blending them with well established facts was so artful, the writer's sincerity so apparent, and the strokes of the pen so bold and positive, that it is easy to understand the effect which Cheetham's accusation, taken up and ceaselessly repeated by other papers, would have upon the political fortunes of Burr.
Nevertheless the Vice President remained silent. He did not feel, or seem to feel, newspaper criticism with the acuteness of a sensitive nature trying to do right. ”They are so utterly lost on me that I should never have seen even this,” he wrote Theodosia, ”but that it came inclosed to me in a letter from New York.” Still Cheetham kept his battery at work. After his ”Narrative” came the ”View,” and then, in 1803, ”Nine Letters on the Subject of Burr's Defection,” a heavier volume, a sort of siege-gun, brought up to penetrate an epidermis heretofore apparently impregnable. Finally, the Albany _Register_ took up the matter, followed by other Republican papers, until their purpose to drive the grandson of Jonathan Edwards from the party could no longer be mistaken.[126]
[Footnote 126: ”All the world knew that not Cheetham, but DeWitt Clinton, thus dragged the Vice President from his chair, and that not Burr's vices but his influence made his crimes heinous; that behind DeWitt Clinton stood the Virginia dynasty, dangling Burr's office in the eyes of the Clinton family, and lavis.h.i.+ng honours and money on the Livingstons. All this was as clear to Burr and his friends as though it was embodied in an Act of Congress.”--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, pp. 331, 332.]
Burr's coterie of devoted friends so understood it, and when the gentle Peter Irving, whose younger brother was helping the newly established _Chronicle_ into larger circulation by his Jonathan Oldstyle essays, showed an indisposition as editor of the Burrite paper to vituperate and lampoon in return, William P. Van Ness, the famous and now historic ”Aristides,” appeared in the political firmament with the suddenness and brilliancy of a comet that dims the light of stars.
Van Ness coupled real literary ability with political audacity, putting Cheetham's fancy flights and inferences to sleep as if they were babes in the woods. It was quickly seen that Cheetham was no match for him. He had neither the finish nor the venom. Compared to the sentences of ”Aristides,” as polished and attractive as they were bitter and ill-tempered, Cheetham's periods seemed coa.r.s.e and tame.
The letters of Junius did not make themselves felt in English political life more than did this pamphlet in the political circles of New York. It was novel, it was brilliantly able, and it drove the knife deeper and surer than its predecessors. What Taine, the great French writer, said of Junius might with equal truth be said of ”Aristides,” that if he made his phrases and selected his epithets, it was not from the love of style, but in order the better to stamp his insult. No one knew then, nor until long afterward, who ”Aristides”