This parting shot at Cheetham penetrated the most secret corners of private life, and leaves an impression that Cicero's denunciation of Catiline had delighted the youth of "Aristides." It would be fruitless to attempt the separation of the truth from the undeserved reproaches of Van Ness, but at the end of the discussion, Burr's character had not benefited. However unscrupulous and selfish the Clintons and the Livingstons might be, Burr's unprincipled conduct was fixed in the mind of his party, not by Cheetham's indulgence in fancy and inference, but by the well known and well established facts of history, which no rhetoric could wipe out, and no denunciation strengthen.

In the days of the duello such a war of words could hardly go on for two or three years without a resort to the pistol. Cheetham's pen had stirred up the tongues of men who resented charge with countercharge, and the high spirited United States marshal, John Swartout, the only friend of Burr in office, was quick to declare that DeWitt Clinton's opposition to the Vice President was based upon unworthy and selfish motives. Clinton answered promptly and passionately. The Governor's nephew displayed a fondness for indulging the use of epithets even in mature years, after he had quarrelled with William L. Marcy and Martin Van Buren. In those calmer days when age is supposed to bring a desire for peace, he was accustomed to call Erastus Root "a bad man," Samuel Young "much of an imbecile," Marcy "a scoundrel," and Van Buren "the prince of villains." Just now, however, Clinton was younger, only thirty-two years old, about the age of Swartout, and on hearing of the latter's criticism he trebled his epithets, pronouncing him "a liar, a scoundrel and a villain." Swartout quickly demanded a retraction, which Clinton declined unless the Marshal first withdrew his offensive words. Thereupon, the latter sent a challenge, and Clinton, calling in his friend, Richard Riker, the district attorney, met his adversary the next day at Weehawken and exchanged three shots without effect. On the fourth Clinton's bullet struck Swartout's left leg just below the knee, and while the surgeon was cutting it out, the Marshal renewed his demand for an apology. Clinton still refused, although expressing entire willingness to shake hands and drop the matter. On the fifth shot, the Marshal caught Clinton's ball in the same leg just above the ankle. Still standing steadily at his post and perfectly composed, Swartout demanded further satisfaction; but Clinton, tired of filling his antagonist with lead, declined to shoot again and left the field. In the gossip following the duel, Riker reported Clinton as saying in the course of the contest, "I wish I had the principal here."[127] The principal, of course, was Burr, to whose house the wounded Swartout was taken. "No one ever explained," says Henry Adams,[128] "why Burr did not drag DeWitt Clinton from his ambush and shoot him, as two years later he shot Alexander Hamilton with less provocation."

[Footnote 127: Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. 1, p. 332.]

[Footnote 128: Ibid., 332.

Writing to Henry Post of the duel, Clinton (using the name, "Clinton," instead of the pronoun "I") said: "The affair of the duel ought not to be brought up. It was a silly affair. Clinton ought to have declined the challenge of the bully, and have challenged the principal, who was Burr. There were five shots, the antagonist wounded twice, and fell. C. behaved with cool courage, and after the affair was over challenged Burr on the field."—Harper's Magazine, Vol. 50, p. 565. "How Clinton should have challenged Burr on the field," writes John Bigelow, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine for May, 1875, "without its resulting in a meeting is not quite intelligible to us now. Though not much given to the redress of personal grievances in that way, Burr was the last man to leave a hostile message from an adversary like Clinton, then a Senator of the United States, unanswered."]

Out of this quarrel grew another, in which Robert Swartout, John's younger brother, fought Riker, wounding him severely. William Coleman of the Evening Post, in letting fly some poisoned arrows, also got tangled up with Cheetham. "Lie on Duane, lie on for pay, and Cheetham, lie thou too; more against truth you cannot say, than truth can say 'gainst you." The spicy epigrams ended in a challenge, but Cheetham made such haste to adjust matters that a report got abroad of his having shown the white feather. Harbour-Master Thompson, an appointee of Clinton, now championed Cheetham's cause, declaring that Coleman had weakened. Immediately the young editor sent him a challenge, and, without much ado, they fought on the outskirts of the city, now the foot of Twenty-first Street, in the twilight of a cold winter day, exchanging two shots without effect. Meantime, the growing darkness compelled the determined combatants to move closer together, and at the next shot Thompson, mortally wounded, fell forward into the snow.[129]

[Footnote 129: "Thompson was brought," says William Cullen Bryant in Reminiscences of the Evening Post, "to his sister's house in town; he was laid at the door; the bell was rung; the family came out and found him bleeding and near his death. He refused to name his antagonist, or give any account of the affair, declaring that everything which had been done was honourably done, and desired that no attempt should be made to seek out or molest his adversary."]



CHAPTER XII

DEFEAT OF BURR AND DEATH OF HAMILTON

1804

The campaign for governor in 1804 was destined to become historic. Burr was driven from his party; George Clinton, ambitious to become Vice President, declined re-election;[130] and the Federalists, beaten into a disunited minority, refused to put up a candidate. This apparently left the field wide open to John Lansing, with John Broome for lieutenant-governor.

[Footnote 130: "DeWitt Clinton was annoyed at his uncle's conduct, and tried to prevent the withdrawal by again calling Jefferson to his aid and alarming him with fear of Burr. But the President declined to interfere. No real confidence ever existed between Jefferson and the Clintons."—Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. 2, pp. 173, 174.]

For many years the Lansing family had been prominent in the affairs of the State and influential in the councils of their party. The Chancellor, some years younger than Livingston, a large, handsome, modest man, was endowed with a remarkable capacity for public life. The story of his career is a story of rugged manhood and a tragic, mysterious death. He rose by successive steps to be mayor of Albany, member of the Assembly of which he was twice speaker, member of Congress under the Confederation, judge and chief justice of the Supreme Court, and finally chancellor. Indeed, so long as he did the bidding of the Clintons he kept rising; but the independence that early characterised his action at Philadelphia in 1787 and at Poughkeepsie in 1788 became more and more pronounced, until it separated him at last from the faction that had steadily given him support. Perhaps his nearest approach to a splendid virtue was his stubborn independence. Whether this characteristic, amounting almost to stoical indifference, led to his murder is now a sealed secret. All that we know of his death is, that he left the hotel, where he lived in New York, to mail a letter on the steamer for Albany, and was never afterward seen. That he was murdered comes from the lips of Thurlow Weed, who was intrusted with the particulars, but who died with the secret untold. Lansing disappeared in 1829 and Weed died in 1882, yet, after the lapse of half a century, the latter did not feel justified in disclosing what had come to him as a sort of father confessor, years after the tragedy. "While it is true that the parties are beyond the reach of human tribunals and of public opinion," he said, "yet others immediately associated with them, and sharing in the strong inducement which prompted the crime, survive, occupying high positions and enjoying public confidence. To these persons, should my proof be submitted, public attention would be irresistibly drawn."[131]

[Footnote 131: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 35.]

Lansing had the instinct, equipment, and training for a chancellor. It has been truly said of him that he seemed to have no delights off the bench except in such things as in some way related to the business upon it. He had the unwearied application of Kent, coupled with the ability to master the most difficult details, and, although he lacked Livingston's culture, he was as resolute, and, perhaps, as restless and suspicious; but it is doubtful if he possessed the trained sagacity, the native shrewdness, and the diplomatic zeal to have negotiated the Louisiana treaty. Lansing began the study of law in 1774, and from that moment was wedded to its principles and constant in his devotions. His mysterious murder must have been caused by an irresistible longing to trace things to their source, bringing into his possession knowledge of some missing link or defective title, which would throw a great property away from its owner, but which, by his death, would again be buried from the ken of men. This, of course, is only surmise; but Weed indicates that property prompted the crime, and that the heirs of the murderer profited by it. Lansing was in his seventy-sixth year when the fatal blow came, yet so vigorous that old age had not set its seal upon him.

In 1804 Lansing hesitated to exchange the highest place on the bench, which would continue until the age limit set him aside in 1814, for a political office that would probably end in three years; but he finally consented upon representations that he alone could unite his party. Scarcely, however, had his name been announced before a caucus of Republican legislators named Aaron Burr, with Oliver Phelps of Ontario for lieutenant-governor—nominations quickly ratified at public meetings in New York and Albany. Among Burr's most conspicuous champions were Erastus Root of Delaware, James Burt of Orange, Peter B. Porter of Ontario, and Marinus Willett of New York.

If it is surprising that these astute and devoted friends did not appreciate, in some measure, at least, the extent to which popular esteem had been withdrawn from their favourite, it is most astonishing that Burr himself did not recognise the strength of the Clinton-Livingston-Spencer machine as it existed in 1804. Its managers were skilled masters of the political art, confident of success, fearless of criticism, unscrupulous in methods, and indefatigable in attention to details. They controlled the Council of Appointment, its appointees controlled the Assembly, and the Assembly elected the Council, an endless chain of links, equally strong and equally selfish. To make opposition the more fruitless, the distrust of Burr, hammered into the masses by Cheetham's pen, practically amounted to a forfeiture of party confidence. One cannot conceive a more inopportune time for Burr to have challenged a test of strength, yet Lansing's selection had hardly sounded in the people's ears before Burr's "Little Band," burning with indignation and resentment at his treatment, gathered about the tables in the old Tontine Coffee House at Albany and launched him as an independent candidate.

Rarely has a candidate for governor encountered greater odds; but with Burr, as afterward with DeWitt Clinton, it was now or never. In one of his dramas Schiller mourns over the man who stakes reputation, health, everything upon success—and no success in the end. Even Robert Yates, the coalition candidate in 1789, started with the support of a Federalist machine and the powerful backing of Hamilton. But in 1804 Burr found himself without a party, without a machine, and bitterly opposed by Hamilton.

When the sceptre passed from Federalist to Republican in 1801, Hamilton gave himself to his profession with renewed zeal, earning fifteen thousand dollars a year, and a reputation as a lawyer scarcely surpassed by Daniel Webster. "In creative power Hamilton was infinitely Webster's superior," says Chief Justice Ambrose Spencer, before whom both had practised.[132] Erastus Root, possibly looking through the eyes of Theodosia, thought Burr not inferior to Hamilton as a lawyer, although other contemporaries who knew Burr at his best, regarded him as an indefatigable, tireless, adroit lawyer rather than a profound and learned one. This put him in a different class from Hamilton. As well might one compare Offenbach with Mozart as Burr with Hamilton.

[Footnote 132: H.C. Lodge, Life of Alexander Hamilton, pp. 276-7.]

Hamilton journeyed to Albany in February, 1804, to argue the case of Harry Croswell, so celebrated and historic because of Hamilton's argument. Croswell, the editor of the Balance, a Federalist newspaper published at Hudson, had been convicted of libelling President Jefferson. Chief Justice Lewis, before whom the case was originally tried, declined to permit the defendant to prove the truth of the alleged libel. To this point, in his argument for a new trial, Hamilton addressed himself, contending that the English doctrine was at variance with common sense, common justice, and the genius of American institutions. "I have always considered General Hamilton's argument in this cause," said his great contemporary, Chancellor Kent, "as the greatest forensic effort he ever made. He had come prepared to discuss the points of law with a perfect mastery of the subject. He believed that the rights and liberties of the people were essentially concerned. There was an unusual solemnity and earnestness on his part in this discussion. He was at times highly impassioned and pathetic. His whole soul was enlisted in the cause, and in contending for the rights of the jury and a free press, he considered that he was establishing the surest refuge against oppression. He never before in my hearing made any effort in which he commanded higher reverence for his principles, nor equal admiration of the power and pathos of his eloquence."[133] Such a profound impression did his argument make, that, although the Court declined to depart from the settled rule of the common law, the Legislature subsequently passed a statute authorising the truth to be given in evidence, and the jury to be the judges of the law as well as of the facts in libel cases.

[Footnote 133: H.C. Lodge, Life of Alexander Hamilton, pp. 240-1.]

It was during the argument of this case at Albany that Hamilton, joining his Federalist friends at Lewis' Tavern, gave his reasons for preferring Chancellor Lansing to Aaron Burr for governor. There was something new in these reasons. In 1801 he preferred Jefferson to Burr because the latter, as he wrote Gouverneur Morris, "has no principles, public or private; could be bound by no argument; will listen to no monitor but his ambition; and for this purpose will use the worst portion of the community as a ladder to climb to permanent power, and an instrument to crush the better part. He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing."[134]

[Footnote 134: Hamilton's Works (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 570.]

Nothing had occurred in the intervening years to change this opinion, but much was now happening to strengthen it. A Federalist faction in New England, led by Pickering in the United States Senate and Roger Griswold in the House, thought a dissolution of the Union inevitable to save Federalism, and for months the project had been discussed in a stifled, mysterious manner. "It (separation) must begin in Massachusetts," wrote Pickering to George Cabot, "but New York must be the centre of the confederacy."[135] To Rufus King, Pickering became more specific. "The Federalists have in general anxiously desired the election of Burr—and if a separation should be deemed proper, the five New England States, New York and New Jersey, would naturally be united."[136] But King disapproved disunion. "Colonel Pickering has been talking to me about a project they have for a separation of the States and a northern confederacy," he said to Adams of Massachusetts; "and he has also been this day talking with General Hamilton. I disapprove entirely of the project, and so, I am happy to tell you, does General Hamilton."[137] But the conspirators were not to be quieted by disapproving words. Griswold, in a letter to Oliver Wolcott, declared Burr's election and consequent leadership of the Federalist party "the only hope which at this time presents itself of rallying in defence of the Northern States,"[138] and in order not to remain longer inactive, he entered into a bargain with Burr, of which he wrote Wolcott fully. Wolcott sent the letter to Hamilton.[139]

[Footnote 135: January 29, 1804; Lodge's Cabot, p. 337.]

[Footnote 136: Ibid., p. 447.]

[Footnote 137: New England Federalism, p. 148.]

[Footnote 138: Hamilton's History, Vol. 7, p. 781; New England Federalism, p. 354.]

[Footnote 139: Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 180. "Pickering and Griswold could win their game only by bartering their souls; they must invoke the Mephistopheles of politics, Aaron Burr. To this they had made up their minds from the beginning. Burr's four years of office were drawing to a close. He had not a chance of regaining a commanding place among Republicans, for he was bankrupt in private and public character."—Ibid., p. 171.]

It was plain to Hamilton that these timid conspirators wanted a bold chief to lead them into secession, and that since he would have nothing to do with them, they had invoked the aid of Aaron Burr. Thus, to his former desire to defeat Burr, was now added a determination to defeat incipient disunion, and in the Lewis Tavern conference he argued that Burr, a Democrat either from principle or calculation, would remain a Democrat; and that, though detested by leading Clintonians, it would not be difficult for a man of his talents, intrigue and address, possessing the chair of government, to rally under his standard the great body of the party, and such Federalists as, from personal goodwill or interested motives, may give him support. The effect of his elevation, with the help of Federalists would, therefore, be to reunite, under a more adroit, able and daring chief, not only the now scattered fragments of his own party, but to present to the confidence of the people of Federalist New England the grandson of President Edwards, for whom they had already a strong predilection. Thus he would have fair play to disorganise the party of Jefferson, now held in light esteem, and to place himself at the head of a northern party favouring disunion.

"If he be truly, as the Federalists have believed, a man of irregular and insatiable ambition," continued Hamilton, "he will endeavour to rise to power on the ladder of Jacobin principles, not leaning on a fallen party, unfavourable to usurpation and the ascendancy of a despotic chief, but rather on popular prejudices and vices, ever ready to desert a government by the people at a moment when he ought, more than ever, to adhere to it. On the other hand, Lansing's personal character affords some security against pernicious extremes, and, at the same time, renders it certain that his party, already much divided and weakened, will disintegrate more and more, until in a recasting of parties the Federalists may gain a great accession of force. At any rate it is wiser to foster schism among Democrats, than to give them a chief, better able than any they have yet had, to unite and direct them."[140]

[Footnote 140: Hamilton's Works (Lodge), Vol. 7, p. 325. "The struggle for control between Hamilton and the conspirators lasted to the eve of the election,—secret, stifled, mysterious; the intrigue of men afraid to avow their aims, and seeming rather driven by their own passions than guided by lofty and unselfish motives."—Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 184.]

Within a week after the Lewis Tavern conference Burr's chances brightened by the sudden withdrawal of Lansing, because the latter would not allow the Clintons to dictate his appointments. This was a great surprise to Republicans and a great grief to Hamilton—the more so since it was not easy to find an available successor. The mention of DeWitt Clinton raised the cry of youth; Ambrose Spencer had too recently come over from the Federalists; Morgan Lewis lacked capacity and fitness. Thus the contention continued, but with a leaning more and more toward Morgan Lewis, a brother-in-law of Chancellor and Edward Livingston.

Lewis' youth had promised a brilliant future. He graduated with high honours at Princeton, and when the guns of Bunker Hill waked the country he promptly exchanged John Jay's law office for John Jay's regiment. In the latter's absence he retained command as major until ordered to the northern frontier, when he suddenly dropped into a place as assistant quartermaster-general, useful and important enough, but stripped of the glory usually preferred by the hot blood of a gallant youth. In time, the faithful, efficient quartermaster became a plodding, painstaking lawyer, a safe, industrious attorney-general, and a dignified, respectable judge; but he had not distinguished himself, nor did he possess the striking, showy characteristics of mind or manner often needed in a doubtful and bitterly contested campaign. Heretofore place had sought him by appointment. He became attorney-general when Aaron Burr gave it up for the United States Senate; and a year later, by the casting vote of Governor Clinton, the Council made him a Supreme Court judge. In 1801 the chief-justiceship dropped into his lap when Livingston went to France and Lansing became chancellor, just as the chancellorship would probably have come to him had Lansing continued a candidate for governor. In 1803 he wanted to be mayor of New York.

But with all his ordinariness no one else in sight seemed so available a candidate for governor. The Livingstons, already jealous of DeWitt Clinton's growing influence, secretly nourished the hope that Lewis might develop sufficient independence to check the young man's ambition. On the other hand, DeWitt Clinton, equally jealous of the power wielded by the Livingstons, thought the Chief Justice, a kind, amiable man of sixty, without any particular force of character, sufficiently plastic to mould to his liking. "From the moment Clinton declined," wrote Hamilton to Rufus King, "I began to consider Burr as having a chance of success. It was still my reliance, however, that Lansing would outrun him; but now that Chief Justice Lewis is his competitor, the probability, in my judgment, inclines to Burr."[141]

[Footnote 141: Hamilton's Works (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 608.]

Burr's friends, knowing his phenomenal shrewdness in cloaking bargains and intrigues until the game was bagged, now relied upon him with confidence to bring victory out of the known discord and jealousy of his opponents, and for a time it looked as if he might succeed. Lansing's withdrawal and Hamilton's failure to put up Rufus King as he contemplated, gave Burr the support of Lansing's sympathy and a clear field among Federalists, except as modified by Hamilton's influence. In addition, his friends cited his ability and Revolutionary services, his liberal patronage of science and the arts, his distinguished and saintly ancestry, his freedom from family connections to quarter upon the public treasury, and his honest endeavour to free himself from debt by disposing of his estate. Especially in New York City did he meet with encouragement. His headquarters in John Street overflowed with ward workers and ward heelers, eager to elect the man upon whom they could rely for favours and with whom they doubtless sincerely sympathised. It was the contest of April, 1800, over again, save that Hamilton did not speak or openly oppose.

As the fight continued it increased in bitterness. Cheetham pounded Burr harder than ever, accusing him of seduction and of dancing with a buxom wench at a "nigger ball" given by one of his coloured servants at Richmond Hill. Jefferson was quoted as saying that Burr's party was not the real democracy, a statement that the American Citizen printed in capitals and kept standing during the three days of the election. With great earnestness Hamilton quietly warned the Federalists not to elevate a man who would use their party only to strengthen their opponents. In the up-counties, where the influence of the Clinton-Livingston-Spencer combine held the party together with cords of steel, every appointee, from judge of the Supreme Court to justice of the peace, was ranged on the side of Livingston's brother-in-law.

But Burr, too, had powerful abettors. In Orange and Dutchess he had always been a favourite; in Delaware, Erastus Root gave all his influence and all his gifts with the devotion that animated John Swartout and Marinus Willett in New York; in Ontario, Oliver Phelps, the great land speculator, endowed with an unconquerable energy and the strategy of a tactician, was backed by Peter B. Porter, the young and exceedingly popular clerk of that county, soon to be dismissed for his independence; in Albany, John Van Ness Yates, remembering Burr's support of his father's candidacy in 1789, also came to his assistance. Zealous and active, however, as these and other friends were, they were few and weak compared to the army of office-holders shouting and working for Morgan Lewis. When the returns, therefore, were in, although Burr carried New York by one hundred, he lost the State by over eight thousand.[142] A comparison of the vote with the senatorial returns of 1803 showed that for every Republican voting for Burr, a Federalist, influenced by Hamilton, voted for Lewis.

[Footnote 142: Morgan Lewis, 30,829; Aaron Burr, 22,139.—Civil List, State of New York (1887), p. 166.]

It was Burr's Waterloo. He had staked everything and lost. Bankrupt in purse, disowned by his party, and distrusted by a large faction of the leading Federalists, he was without hope of recovery so long as Hamilton blocked the way. There is no evidence that Burr ever saw Hamilton's confidential letters to Morris and other trusted Federal leaders, or knew their contents, but he did know that Hamilton bitterly opposed him, and that his influence was blighting. To get rid of him, therefore, Burr now seems to have deliberately determined to kill him.[143]

[Footnote 143: "That all Hamilton's doings were known to Burr could hardly be doubted. He was not a vindictive man, but this was the second time Hamilton had stood in his way and vilified his character. Burr could have no reason to suppose that Hamilton was deeply loved; for he knew that four-fifths of the Federal party had adopted his own leadership when pitted against Hamilton's in the late election, and he knew, too, that Pickering, Griswold, and other leading Federalists had separated from Hamilton in the hope of making Burr himself the chief of a Northern confederacy. Burr never cared for the past,—the present and future were his only thoughts; but his future in politics depended on his breaking somewhere through the line of his personal enemies; and Hamilton stood first in his path, for Hamilton would certainly renew at every critical moment the tactics which had twice cost Burr his prize."—Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. 2, pp. 185, 186.]

While in Albany in February to argue the Croswell case, Hamilton had dined with John Taylor, in company with Dr. Charles D. Cooper, who wrote a friend that, in the course of the dinner, Hamilton had declared, in substance, that he looked upon Burr as a dangerous man—one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government. "I could detail to you," continued Cooper, "a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." This letter found its way into the newspapers, and in a note, dated June 18, 1804, Burr called Hamilton's attention to the words "more despicable," and added: "You must perceive, sir, the necessity of a prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial of the use of the expression which could warrant the assertions of Dr. Cooper."[144] This note, purposely offensive in its tone, was delivered by William P. Van Ness, a circumstance clearly indicating an intention to follow it with a challenge. Two days later, Hamilton replied, declining to make the acknowledgment or denial, since he could attach no meaning to the words used in the letter, nor could he consent to be interrogated as to the inferences drawn by third parties, but he was ready to avow or disavow any definite opinion with which he might be charged. "I trust on further reflection," concluded Hamilton, "you will see the matter in the same light with me. If not, I can only regret the circumstances and must abide the consequences."[145]

[Footnote 144: Hamilton's Works (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 617.]

[Footnote 145: Hamilton's Works (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 618.]

Burr's answer, which plainly shows the rhetoric of "Aristides," was more offensive than his initial letter. After replying to it, Hamilton prepared a note to be informally communicated to Burr, in which he stated that if the latter chose to inquire into the purport of any conversation between himself and Dr. Cooper, he would be able to reply with truth that it turned wholly on political topics, and had no relation to Burr's private character, adding that he was ready to make an equally frank answer with regard to any other conversation which Burr would specify.[146] When Burr pronounced this honourable proposition "a mere evasion," his purpose was as evident as it became on June 27th, the day he sent the challenge.

[Footnote 146: Ibid., p. 621.]

Hamilton's acceptance of the challenge was inevitable. For a hundred years men have regretted and mourned that he did not dare to stand alone against duelling, as he had dared to stand alone for economic and patriotic principles against the clamour of mobs and the malice of enemies. But absurd and barbarous as was the custom, it flourished in Christian America, as it did in every other Christian country, in spite of Christian ethics; and it would not permit a proud, sensitive nature, jealous of his honour, especially of his military honour, to ignore it. Lorenzo Sabine's list of duellists includes a score of prominent Englishmen, Frenchmen and Americans, many of them contemporary with Hamilton, and some of them as profoundly admired, who succumbed to its tyranny. Proof of his valour at Monmouth and at Yorktown would no more placate the popular contempt and obloquy sure to follow an avoidance of its demands than would the victory at Waterloo have excused Wellington had he declined to challenge Lord Winchilsea. All this did not make duelling right, but it excuses a noble soul for yielding "to the force of an imperious custom," as Dr. Knott put it—a custom that still exists in France and Germany, and in some parts of America, perhaps, though now universally execrated by Christian people and pronounced murder by their laws. Even at that time Hamilton held it in abhorrence. In a paper drawn for publication in the event of death, he announced his intention of throwing away his fire, and in extenuation of yielding, he adds: "To those who, with me, abhorring the practice of duelling, may think that I ought on no account to have added to the number of bad examples, I answer that my relative situation, as well in public as in private, enforcing all the considerations which constitute what men of the world denominate honour, imposed on me, as I thought, a peculiar necessity not to decline the call. The ability to be in the future useful, whether in resisting mischief, or effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular."[147] The pathway of history is strewn with the wrecks of customs and superstitions which have held men in their grip, compelling obedience and demanding regularity; but no custom ever had a firmer hold upon gifted men than duelling, making them its devotees even when their intellects condemned it, their hearts recognised its cruelty, and their consciences pronounced it wrong.

[Footnote 147: Hamilton's Works (Lodge), Vol. 8, pp. 626-8.]

Because of Hamilton's engagements in court, the hostile meeting was deferred until Wednesday, July 11th. In the meantime the principals went about their vocations with apparent indifference to the coming event. On the evening of July 4th, Hamilton and Burr attended the annual dinner of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which the former had succeeded Washington as president. The occasion was remembered as the gayest and most hilarious in the society's history. Hamilton leaped upon the table and sang "The Drum," an old camp song that became historic because of his frequent rendition of it. It was recalled afterward that Burr withdrew before the festivities had ended. On Saturday evening Hamilton dined Colonel Trumbull, one of Washington's first aides, and on Monday attended a reception given by Oliver Wolcott, John Adams' secretary of the treasury. Tuesday evening he prepared the paper already quoted, and addressed a letter to Theodore Sedgwick, one of Pickering's sternest conspirators, warning him against disunion. "Dismemberment of our empire," he said, "will be a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages, without any counterbalancing good; administering no relief to our real disease, which is democracy—the poison of which, by a subdivision, will only be the more concentred in each part, and consequently the more virulent."[148]

[Footnote 148: Hamilton's Works (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 615. Letter to Theo. Sedgwick.]

Meantime the secret had been confined to less than a dozen persons, and to none of Hamilton's intimate friends. Troup remained with him until a late hour Monday night without suspecting anything, the gaiety of his manner leading his friend to think his health was mending. Had Troup divined the hostile meeting, it might not have occurred. When John Swartout entered Burr's room at daylight on that fatal 11th of July, he found him sound asleep.

It was seven o'clock Wednesday morning, a hot July day, that Hamilton crossed the Hudson to Weehawken, with Pendleton, his second, and Dr. Hosack, Burr and Van Ness having preceded them. It took but a moment to measure ten paces, load the pistols, and place the principals in position. As the word was given, Burr took deliberate aim and fired. Instantly Hamilton reeled and fell forward headlong upon his face, involuntarily discharging his pistol. "This is a mortal wound, Doctor," he gasped, and immediately sank into a swoon. An examination showed that the ball had penetrated the right side. Burr, sheltered by Van Ness under an umbrella, hurried from the scene, while Hamilton, conveyed in his boat to the city, gradually recovered consciousness. "My vision is indistinct," he murmured; but soon after, catching sight of a pistol near him, cautioned them to take care of it. "It is undischarged and still cocked," he said; "it may go off and do harm. Pendleton knows I did not intend to fire at him." As the boat neared the wharf, he asked that Mrs. Hamilton be sent for. "Let the event be gradually broken to her," he said, "but give her hopes." Thus he lingered for thirty-one hours in great agony, but retaining his self-command to the last, and dying in the midst of his stricken family and sorrowing friends.

If Washington and Lincoln be excepted, it is doubtful if an American was ever more deeply mourned. Had he been President, he could not have been buried with greater pomp, or with manifestations of more profound sorrow. Although he had been hated by his enemies, and at times misunderstood by some of his friends, at his death the people, without division, instantly recognised that his life had been passionately devoted to his country, and they paid him the tribute only accorded the memory of a most illustrious patriot. Such demonstrations were not confined to New York. The sorrow became national; speeches, sermons, and poems without number, were composed in his honour; in every State, some county or town received his name; wherever an American lived, an expression of sympathy found record. It was the consensus of opinion that the life which began in January, 1757 and ended in July, 1804, held in the compass of its forty-seven years the epitome of what America meant for Americans in the days of its greatest peril and its greatest glory. "Had he lived twenty years longer," said Chancellor Kent, "I have very little doubt he would have rivalled Socrates or Bacon, or any other of the sages of ancient or modern times, in researches after truth and in benevolence to mankind. The active and profound statesman, the learned and eloquent lawyer, would probably have disappeared in a great degree before the character of the sage and philosopher, instructing mankind by his wisdom, and elevating the country by his example."[149]

[Footnote 149: William Kent, Life of James Kent, appendix, p. 328.]

Burr became a name of horror.[150] When Hamilton's death was announced there came a cry of execration on his murderer, which the publication of the correspondence intensified. A coroner's jury pronounced him a murderer, the grand jury instructed the district attorney to prosecute, and the Vice President found it necessary to take refuge in concealment until the first fury of the people had subsided. Cheetham's pen, following him remorselessly, charged that he ransacked the newspapers for the grounds of a challenge; that for three months he daily practised with a pistol; and that while Hamilton lay dying, he sat at the table drinking wine with his friends, and apologising that he had not shot him through the heart.

[Footnote 150: "Orators, ministers, and newspapers exhausted themselves in execration of Burr."—Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 190.]

Within two years Burr was arrested for treason, charged with an attempt to place himself at the head of a new nation formed from the country of the Montezumas and the valley of the Mississippi, and, although he was acquitted, his countrymen believed him guilty of a treasonable ambition. In the State where he had found his chief support, he ever after ranked in infamy next to Benedict Arnold. Thenceforth he became a stranger and a wanderer on the face of the earth. His friends left him and society shunned him. "I have not spoken to the damned reptile for twenty-five years," said former Governor Morgan Lewis, in 1830.[151]

[Footnote 151: Autobiography of Thurlow Weed, p. 370.]

For the moment, one forgets the horrible tragedy of July 11, 1804, and thinks only of the lonely man who lived to lament it. He was in his eighty-first year when he died. On his return from Europe in 1812, only one person welcomed him. This was Matthew L. Davis, his earliest political friend and biographer. Burr made Davis his literary executor, and turned over to him the confidential female correspondence that had accumulated in the days of his popularity as United States senator and Vice President, and that he had carefully filed and indorsed with the full name of each writer. The treachery, falsehood, and desertion with which these letters charged him, seemed to this unnatural man to add to their value, and he gave them to his executor without instructions, that the extent of his gallantries, his power of fascination, and the names of the gifted and beautiful victims of his numerous amours might not become a secret in his grave. One can conceive nothing baser. The preservation of letters to satisfy an erotic mind is low enough, but deliberately to identify each anonymous or initialled letter with the full name of the writer, for the use of a biographer, is an act of treachery of which few men are capable. To the credit of Davis, these letters were either returned to their writers or consigned to the flames.

Burr was a politician by nature, habit and education. In his younger days he easily enlisted the goodwill and sympathy of his associates, surrounding himself with a large circle of devoted, obedient friends; and, though neither a great lawyer nor a brilliant speaker, his natural gifts, supplemented by industry and perseverance, and a very attractive presence, made him a conspicuous member of the New York bar and of the United States Senate. He was, however, the ardent champion of nothing that made for the public good. Indeed, the record of his whole life indicates that he never possessed a great thought, or fathered an important measure. Throughout the long, and, at times, bitter controversy over the establishment of the Union, his silence was broken only to predict its failure within half a century.

It is doubtful if he was ever a happy man. In the very hours when he was the most famous and the most flattered, he described himself as most unhappy. So long, though, as Theodosia lived, he was never alone. When she died, he suffered till the end. There has hardly ever been in the world a more famous pair of lovers than Burr and his gifted, noble daughter, and there is nothing in history more profoundly melancholy than the loss of the ship, driven by the pitiless wind of fate, on which Theodosia had taken passage for her southern home. Yet one is shocked at the unnatural parent who instructs his daughter to read, in the event of his death in the duel with Hamilton, the confidential letters which came to him in the course of his love intrigues and affairs of gallantry. It imports a moral obliquity that, happily for society, is found in few human beings. As he lived, so he died, a strange, lonely, unhappy man, out of tune with the beautiful world in which he was permitted to exist upward of four score years. He had done a great deal of harm, and, except as a Revolutionary soldier, no good whatever.



CHAPTER XIII

THE CLINTONS AGAINST THE LIVINGSTONS

1804-1807

When Morgan Lewis began his term as governor tranquillity characterised public affairs in the State and in the nation. The Louisiana Purchase had strengthened the Administration with all classes of people; Jefferson and George Clinton had received 162 electoral votes to 14 for Pinckney and Rufus King; Burr had gone into retirement and was soon to go into obscurity; the Livingstons, filling high places, were distinguishing themselves at home and abroad as able judges and successful diplomatists; DeWitt Clinton, happy and eminently efficient as the mayor of New York, seemed to have before him a bright and prosperous career as a skilful and triumphant party manager; while George Clinton, softened by age, rich in favouring friends, with an ideal face for a strong, bold portrait, was basking in the soft, mellow glow that precedes the closing of a stormy life. Never before, perhaps never since, did a governor enter upon his duties, neither unusual nor important, under more favourable auspices; yet the story of Lewis' administration is a story of astonishing mistakes and fatal factional strife.

The Governor inaugurated his new career by an unhappy act of patronage. The appointment of Maturin Livingston, his son-in-law, and the removal of Peter B. Porter, the friend of Burr, showed a selfish, almost malevolent disregard of public opinion and the public service, a trait that, in a way, characterised his policy throughout. Livingston was notoriously unfitted for recorder of New York. He was unpopular in his manners, deficient in a knowledge of law, without industry, and given to pleasure rather than business, but, because of his relationship, the Governor forced him into that responsible position. In like manner, although until then no change had occurred within the party for opinion's sake, Lewis voted for the removal of Peter B. Porter, the young and popular clerk of Ontario County. Porter's youth indicated an intelligence that promised large returns to his country and his party, and the Governor lived long enough to see him honourably distinguished in Congress, highly renowned when his serious career began on the Niagara frontier in the War of 1812, and, afterward, richly rewarded as secretary of war in the Cabinet of John Quincy Adams. But in 1805 the Governor cheerfully voted for his removal, thus establishing the dangerous precedent that a member of one's political household was to be treated with as little consideration as a member of the opposite party.

Although Lewis' conduct in the case of Maturin Livingston and Peter B. Porter was not the most foolish act in a career of folly, it served as a fitting preface to his policy in relation to the incorporation of the Merchants' Bank of New York, a policy that proved fatal to his ambition and to the influence of the Livingstons. Already doing business under the general laws, two Republican Legislatures had refused to incorporate the Merchants' Bank. But during the legislative session of 1805 the bank people determined to have their way, and in the efforts that followed they used methods and means common enough afterward, but probably unknown before that winter. Although in no wise connected with the scandal growing out of the controversy, Lewis favoured the incorporation of the bank. On the other hand, DeWitt Clinton opposed it, maintaining that two banks in New York City were sufficient. However, the Governor, backed by the Federalists and a small Republican majority, was successful. In the Council of Revision, Ambrose Spencer opposed the act of incorporation on the ground that existing banks, possessing five million dollars of capital, with authority to issue notes and create debts to the amount of fifteen million more, were sufficient, especially as the United States had suffered an alarming decrease of specie, and as no one save a few individuals, inspired solely by cupidity, had asked for a new bank. Spencer, however, relied principally in his attack upon affidavits of Obadiah German, the Republican leader of the Assembly, and Stephen Thorn of the same body, charging that Senator Ebenezer Purdy, the father of the measure, had offered them large rewards for their votes, German having Purdy's admission that he had become convinced of the propriety of incorporating the bank after a confidential conference with its directors. From this it was to be inferred, argued Spencer, that before such improper means were made use of, Purdy himself, whose vote was necessary to its passage, was averse to its incorporation. "To sanction a bill thus marked in its progress through one branch of the Legislature with bribery and corruption," concluded the Judge, "would be subversive of all pure legislation, and become a reproach to a government hitherto renowned for the wisdom of its councils and the integrity of its legislatures."[152] But Spencer's opposition and Purdy's resignation, to avoid an investigation, did not defeat the measure, which had the support of Chief Justice Kent, a Federalist, and two members of the Livingston family, a majority of the Council.

[Footnote 152: Alfred B. Street, New York Council of Revision, p. 429.]

DeWitt Clinton had not approved the Governor's course. The flagrant partiality shown Lewis' family in the unpopular appointment of Maturin Livingston, his son-in-law, displeased him, and the removal of Porter seemed to him untimely and vindictive. In killing Hamilton, Clinton reasoned, Burr had killed himself politically, and out of the way himself there was no occasion to punish his friends who would now rejoin and strengthen the Republican party. Clinton, however, remained passive in his opposition until the incorporation of the bank furnished a plausible excuse for an appeal to the party; then, with a determination to subjugate the Livingstons, he caused himself and his adherents to be nominated and elected to the State Senate upon the platform that "a new bank has been created in our city, and its charter granted to political enemies." It was a bold move, as stubborn as it was dangerous. Clinton had little to gain. The Livingstons were not long to continue in New York politics. Maturin was insignificant; Brockholst was soon to pass to the Supreme Court of the United States; Edward had already sought a new home and greater honours in New Orleans; and the Chancellor, having returned from France, was without ambition to remain longer in the political arena. Even the brothers-in-law were soon to disappear. John Armstrong was in France; Smith Thompson, who was to follow Brockholst upon the bench of the United States Supreme Court, refused to engage in party or political contests, and the gifts of Tillotson and Lewis were not of quality or quantity to make leaders of men. On the other hand, Clinton had much to lose by forcing the fight. It condemned him to a career of almost unbroken opposition for the rest of his life; it made precedents that lived to curse him; and it compelled alliances that weakened him.

Lewis resented Clinton's imperious methods, but he made a fatal mistake in furnishing him such a pretext for open opposition. He ought to have known that in opposing the Merchants' Bank, Clinton represented the great majority of his party which did not believe in banks. Undoubtedly Clinton's interest in the Manhattan largely controlled his attitude toward the Merchants', but the controversy over the latter was so old, and its claims had been pressed so earnestly by the Federalists in their own interest, that the question had practically become a party issue as much as the contest over the Bank of the United States. Already two Republican Legislatures had defeated it, and in a third it was now being urged to success with the help of a solid Federalist vote and a system of flagrant bribery, of which the Governor was fully advised. A regard for party opinion, if no higher motive, therefore, might well have governed Lewis' action. After the fight had been precipitated, resulting in a warfare fatal to Lewis, the Governor's apologists claimed that in favouring the bank he had simply resisted Clinton's domination. The Governor may have thought so, but it was further evidence of his inability either to understand the sentiment dominating the party he sought to represent, or successfully to compete with Clinton in leadership. DeWitt Clinton, with all his faults, and they were many and grave, had in him the gifts of a master and the capacity of a statesman. Lewis seems to have had neither gifts nor capacity.

In January, 1806, DeWitt Clinton, securing a majority of the Council of Appointment by the election of himself and two friends, sounded the signal of attack upon the Governor and his supporters. He substituted Pierre C. Van Wyck for Maturin Livingston and Elisha Jenkins for Thomas Tillotson. The Governor's friends were also evicted from minor office, only men hostile to Lewis' re-election being preferred. Nothing could be less justifiable, or, indeed, more nefarious than such removals. They were discreditable to the Council and disgraceful to DeWitt Clinton; yet sentiment of the time seems to have approved them, regarding Clinton's conduct merely as a stroke of good politics. In the midst of this wretched business it is pleasant to note that Jenkins' transfer from comptroller to secretary of state opened a way for the appointment of Archibald McIntyre, whose safe custody of the purse in days when economies and husbandries were in order, distinguished him as a faithful official, and kept him in office until 1821.

After such drastic treatment of the Governor, it is not without interest to think of Lewis in Albany and Clinton in New York keeping their eyes upon the election in April, 1806, both alike hopeful of finding allies in the party breakup. The advantage seemed to be wholly with the Mayor and not with the Governor. Indeed, Republicans of all factions were so well assured of Clinton's success that it required the faith of a novice in politics to believe that Lewis had any chance. But DeWitt Clinton had to deal with two classes of men, naturally and almost relentlessly opposed to him—the friends of Burr and the Federalists. It was of immense importance that the former should stand with him, since the Federalists were certain to side with the Lewisites or "Quids," as the Governor's friends came to be known, and to secure such an advantage Clinton promptly made overtures to the Burrites, of whom John Swartout, Peter Irving and Matthew L. Davis were the leaders.

There is some confusion as to details, but Davis is authority for the statement that in December, 1805, Theodorus Bailey, as Clinton's agent, promised to aid Burr's friends through the Manhattan Bank, to recognise them as Republicans, to appoint them to office on the same footing with the most favoured Clintonian, and to stop Cheetham's attacks in the American Citizen. Clinton pronounced the story false, but it was known that the Manhattan Bank loaned eighteen thousand dollars to a prominent Burrite; that on January 24, 1806, Clinton met Swartout, Irving and Davis at the home of Bailey; and that afterward, on February 20, leading Clintonians banqueted the Burrites at Dyde's Hotel in the suburbs of New York in celebration of their union. There were many reasons for maintaining the profoundest secrecy as to this alliance and Dyde's Hotel had been selected for the purpose of avoiding publicity, but the morning's papers revealed the secret with an exaggerated account of their doings and sayings. Immediately, other Burrites, joining the Lewisites at Martling's Long-room, a popular meeting-place, organised a protestant faction, afterward known as Martling Men, whose enmity was destined to follow Clinton to his downfall.

As election day approached the Quids made a decisive struggle against Clinton. They rehearsed the charges of "Aristides;" they denounced him as cold and imperious; they charged that he had an almost boundless political ambition; that he maintained his own councils regardless of his associates, and accepted no suggestion not in harmony with his own policy. The Martling Men accused him of duplicity, and of a desire only for place and pay. In aid of Lewis, Chancellor Lansing took this opportunity of revealing the secret that led him to withdraw from the gubernatorial race in 1804, charging that George Clinton had sought "to pledge him to a particular course of conduct in the administration of the government of the State." When the latter denied the statement, Lansing, becoming more specific, affirmed that the venerable statesman had mentioned DeWitt Clinton as a suitable person for chancellor. It is not surprising, perhaps, that DeWitt Clinton's reply that if tendered the office he would have declined it, fell upon incredulous ears, since the young man at that very moment was holding three offices and drawing three salaries.

But the contest did not become seriously doubtful until the Quids received the active support of the Federalists, just then led by William W. Van Ness, who seems to have leaped into prominence as suddenly as did "Aristides," his cousin. If we may estimate the man by the praises of his contemporaries, William W. Van Ness' eloquence delighted the Assembly of which he had become a member in 1805, not more than his pointed and finished wit charmed every social gathering which he honoured with his presence. Indeed, as a popular orator he seems to have had no rival. Though his passion for distinction was too ardent and his fondness for sensual pleasure immoderate, sober minded men were carried away with the fascinating effervescence of his public utterances and the brilliancy of his conversation. He had a commanding presence, almost a colossal form, and a voice marvellous for its strength and for the music of its intonations. He was neither profound nor learned. The common school at Claverack, where he was born in independence year, furnished him little more than the rudiments of English, and at the age of twenty he closed the door to further advancement by prematurely burdening himself with a family; yet he seemed to know without apparent effort everything that was necessary to know, and to exert a gentle, unconscious, unpretending power that was resistless. A sweetness of temper and a native dignity of manner cast a grace and charm about him which acted as a spell upon all who came within its influence. Hammond, the historian, thought him the possessor of every gift that nature and fortune could bestow—wit, beauty, good nature, suave manners, eloquence, and admirable conversation. Such a combination gave him leadership, and he led his followers solidly to Lewis, with the result that the coalition of Federalists and Quids won out by a small majority.

When the Legislature assembled, in January, 1807, the intense bitterness of the fight exhibited itself in the defeat of Solomon Southwick for clerk of the Assembly. Southwick possessed the amiable, winning qualities that characterised William W. Van Ness. He was associated with his brother-in-law in the management of the Albany Register, and from his earliest youth had been as zealous a Republican as he was warm and disinterested in his friendships. To friend and foe he was alike cordial and generous. He possessed an open mind, not so eloquent as Van Ness, and less brilliant, perhaps, in conversation; but the fluent splendour of his speech and the beauty of his person and manners went as far toward the attainment of his ambition. He had been elected clerk of the Assembly continuously since 1803, until his popularity among the members, whom he served with uniform politeness and zeal, seemed proof against the attacks of any adversary. Just now, however, the enemies of DeWitt Clinton were the opponents of Solomon Southwick, while his rival, Garret Y. Lansing, the nephew of the Chancellor, had become the bitterest and most formidable enemy the Clintons had to encounter. Popular as he was, Southwick could not win against such odds, although it turned out that a change of four votes would have elected him.

A Lewis Council of Appointment made a clean sweep of the Governor's enemies and of DeWitt Clinton's friends. Clinton himself gave up the mayoralty of New York, Maturin Livingston again assumed the duties of recorder, and Thomas Tillotson was restored to the office of secretary of state. Perhaps Clinton thought he stood too high to be in danger from Lewis' hand. If he did he found out his mistake, for Lewis struck him down in the most unsparing and humiliating way. Public affront was added to political deprivation. Without warning or explanation, the first motion put at the first meeting of the new Council, on February 6, 1807, made him the first sacrifice. Had he been a justice of the peace in a remote western county he could not have been treated more rudely; and, it may be added, if better reason than that already existing were needed to seal the fate of Lewis, Clinton's removal furnished it. New York has seldom been roused to greater passion by a governor's act. It could even then be said of Clinton that his name was associated with every great enterprise for the public good. Less than a year before, in his efforts to educate the children of the poor, unprovided for in parochial schools, he had laid the foundation of the public school system, heading the subscription list for the purchase of suitable quarters. In spite of his faults he was a great executive, and before the sun went down on the day of his removal a large majority of the Republican members of the Legislature, guided by the deposed mayor, had nominated Daniel D. Tompkins for governor in place of Morgan Lewis.

In disposing of the mayoralty, Lewis recognised the importance of keeping it in the family, and offered it to Smith Thompson, both of whose wives were Livingstons; but only once in forty years did Thompson's love for the judiciary give way to political preferment, and then Martin Van Buren defeated him for governor. The mayoralty finally went to Marinus Willett, an officer of distinguished service in the Revolutionary war, whose gallantry at Fort Schuyler in the summer of 1777 won him a sword from Congress and the admiration of General Washington. But the steadfast, judicious qualities that commended him as a soldier seem to have forsaken him as a politician. He supported Burr, he followed Lewis, and he finally ran for lieutenant-governor against DeWitt Clinton, the regular nominee of his party, losing the election by a large majority; yet his amiability and war services kept him a favourite in spite of his political wavering. It was hard for a lover of his country to dislike a real hero of the Revolution, even though he forfeited the confidence of his party.

Clinton, who had kept his head cool in victory, did not lose it in defeat; but the Governor found himself in an awkward and humiliating position. Although the Federalists had made it possible for him to organise the Legislature and elect a friendly Council, he dared not appoint one of them to office, and the few ambitious Republicans who had marshalled under his standard proved inferior, inexperienced, or indiscreet. Only one Federalist fared well, and he succeeded in spite of Lewis. William W. Van Ness aspired to the Supreme Court judgeship made vacant by Brockholst Livingston's appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Governor, favouring, of course, a member of his own family, proposed Maturin Livingston. To this Thomas Thomas of the Council agreed, but Edward Savage proposed John Woodworth; John Nicholas inclined to Jonas Platt, and James Burt, the fourth member of the Council, preferred Van Ness. Platt was a Federalist, and in his way a remarkable man. His father, Zephaniah Platt, served in the Continental Congress, and as judge of the Circuit Court had pushed his way to the northern frontier, founded Plattsburg, and advocated a system of canals connecting the Hudson with the lakes. The son, following his example, studied law and emigrated to the western frontier, settling in Herkimer County, at Whitesboro. He had already served one term in the Legislature and one in Congress, and was destined to receive other honourable preferment. But just now Nicholas, his political backer, a recent comer from Virginia, who had served with him in Congress, was no match for the adroit Burt, whose shrewd management in the interest of Aaron Burr had recently sent Theodorus Bailey to the United States Senate over John Woodworth. Burt convinced Nicholas that Platt's candidacy would result in the election of Livingston or Woodworth, and having thus destroyed the Herkimer lawyer, he appealed to Savage to drop Woodworth in favour of Van Ness. Savage was a Republican of the old school, a supporter of George Clinton, an opponent of the Federal Constitution, who had apparently followed Lewis for what he could make out of it; but he was indisposed to add to the sin of rebellion against DeWitt Clinton the folly of voting for Maturin Livingston, and so he joined Burt and Nicholas in support of Van Ness. Thus it happened that the popular young orator became a member of the Supreme Court at the early age of thirty-one, being the youngest member of the court, save Daniel D. Tompkins, to serve on the old, conservative Council of Revision.

News of this bad business intensified the angry feeling against the Governor. A place on the Supreme Court, valued then even more highly than now, had been lost to the party because of his arrogant and consuming nepotism, and men turned with enthusiasm to Daniel D. Tompkins, whose nomination for governor brought him champions that had heretofore avoided all appearance of violent partisanship. Tompkins was accepted as the exponent of all that Republicans most prized; Lewis as their most obstinate and offensive opponent. Thus, at last, the Clintons faced the Livingstons on a fair field.



CHAPTER XIV

DANIEL D. TOMPKINS AND DeWITT CLINTON

1807-1810

Had DeWitt Clinton succeeded to the governorship in 1807, his way to the Presidency, upon which his eye was already fixed, might have opened easily and surely. But the bitterness of the Livingstons and the unfriendly disposition of the Federalists compelled him to flank the difficulty by presenting a candidate for governor who was void of offence. If it was humiliating to admit his own ineligibility, it was no less so to meet the new condition, for Lewis' election in 1804 had discovered the scarcity of available material, and developed the danger of relying upon another to do his bidding. Just now Clinton wanted a candidate with no convictions, no desires, no ambitions, and no purposes save to please him. There were men enough of this kind, but they could neither conceal their master's hand, nor command the suffrages of a majority on their own account. In this crisis, therefore, he selected, to the surprise of all and to the disgust of some, Daniel D. Tompkins, the young and amiable justice of the Supreme Court, who had taken the place of James Kent on the latter's promotion to chief justice.

Thus it happened that the day which witnessed DeWitt Clinton's removal from the New York mayoralty, welcomed into larger political life this man of honourable parentage, who was destined to play a very conspicuous part in affairs of state. Daniel D. Tompkins, a youth of promise and a young man of ripening wisdom, had been for some years in the public eye, first as a member of the constitutional convention of 1801, afterward as a successful candidate for Congress, and later as a judge of the Supreme Court. His rise had been phenomenally rapid. He passed from the farm to the college at seventeen, from college to the law office at twenty-one, from the law office to the constitutional convention at twenty-seven, and thence to Congress and the Supreme Court at thirty. He was now to become governor at thirty-three. But with all his promise and wisdom and rapid advancement, no one dreamed in 1807 that he was soon to divide political honour and power with DeWitt Clinton, five years his senior.

Tompkins was on the farm when Clinton was in Columbia College; but if the plow lengthened his days, study shortened his nights, and five years after Clinton graduated, Tompkins entered the same institution. Just then it was a stern chase. Clinton had the advantage of family, Tompkins the disadvantage of being a stranger. When the former entered the Legislature, the latter had only opened a law office. Then, but four years later, they met in the constitutional convention, Clinton on the winning side and Tompkins on the right side. The purpose of this convention, it will be recalled, had been to give each member of the Council of Appointment the power to nominate candidates for office—Clinton holding that the Council had the right to nominate as well as to confirm appointments; Tompkins, with barely a dozen associates, took the ground, maintained by Governors Clinton and Jay, that its power was limited to confirmation. This position showed the nerve as well as the independence of the younger man, and he was able proudly to refer to it when, twenty years later, the constitutional convention of 1821, inspired by the popular contempt, achieved the abolition of the Council, and with it the political corruption and favouritism to which it had given rise.

The record of New York politics is a record of long and bitter contests between these chiefs of two antagonistic Republican factions. What the struggle between Stalwarts and Half Breeds was to our own time, the struggle between Clinton and Tompkins was to our ancestors of two and three generations ago. Two men could hardly be more sharply contrasted. The one appeared cold and reserved, the other most gracious and gentle; Clinton's self-confidence destroyed the fidelity of those who differed in opinion, Tompkins' urbanity disarmed their disloyalty; Clinton was unrelenting, dogged in his tenacity, quick to speak harshly, moving within lines of purpose regardless of those of least resistance. Although he often changed his associates, like Lord Shaftesbury, he never changed his purposes. Tompkins, always firm and dignified, was affable in manner, sympathetic in speech, overflowing with good nature, and unpretending to all who approached him. It used to be said that Tompkins made more friends in refusing favours than Clinton did in granting them.

The two men also differed as much in personal appearance as in manner. Tompkins, shapely and above the ordinary height, had large, full eyes, twinkling with kindness, a high forehead wreathed with dark, curly hair, and an oval face, easily and usually illuminated with a smile; Clinton had a big frame, square shoulders, a broad, full forehead, short, pompadour hair, dark penetrating eyes, and a large mouth with lips firmly set. It was a strong face. A dullard could read his character at a glance. To his intimate friends Clinton was undoubtedly a social, agreeable companion; but the dignified imperiousness of his manner and the severity of his countenance usually overcame the ordinary visitor before the barriers of his reserve were broken. Tompkins, on the contrary, carried the tenderness of a wide humanity in his face.

It was hardly creditable to Clinton's knowledge of human nature that he selected Daniel D. Tompkins for a gubernatorial candidate, if he sought a man whom he might control. The memory of the constitutional convention, or a glance into the history of the elder Tompkins, who had stood firm and unyielding in the little settlement of Fox Meadows in Winchester after the American defeat on Long Island, when all his neighbours save two had faltered in the cause of independence, would have enlightened him respecting the Tompkins character. The farmer boy's determined, patient preparation for public life, and his fortitude in the face of conscious disadvantages, ought also to have suggested that the young man was made of sterner stuff than the obedient Theodorus Bailey. Still more surprising is it that Clinton should overlook, or insufficiently consider the fact that Tompkins was now the son-in-law of Mangle Minthorne, a wealthy citizen of New York, and the leader of the Martling Men, of whose opposition he had already been apprised, and whose bitter hostility he was about to experience. If he thought to disarm the enmity of Minthorne by helping the son-in-law, his hopes were raised only to be dashed to earth again.

It is certain DeWitt Clinton had no one save himself to thank for taking this Hercules, whose political direction was conspicuously inevitable from the first. But Clinton wanted an assured victor against Morgan Lewis and the Livingstons, with their Federalist supporters, and, although some people inclined to the opinion that Tompkins had already been promoted too rapidly, Clinton believed his services on the bench had made him the most available man in the party. For three years this young judge, substituting sympathy for severity, had endeared himself to all who knew him. The qualities of fairness and fitness which Greek wisdom praised in the conduct of life were characteristic of his life. From what we know of his work it is fair to presume, had he tarried upon the bench until 1821, he would have been a worthy associate of Smith Thompson and Ambrose Spencer.

Sixty-five Republican members of the Legislature signed the address, drawn by DeWitt Clinton, putting Tompkins into the race for governor; forty-five indorsed the platform on which Governor Lewis stood for re-election. The Clinton address gave no reason for preferring Tompkins to Lewis, but the latter's weakness as an executive, foreshadowed a defeat which each day made plainer, and when the votes, counted on the last day of April, gave Tompkins 4085 majority, the result was as gratifying to Clinton as it was disastrous to Lewis.[153] It was not a sweeping victory, such as Lewis had won over Burr three years before, for the former's weakness was less offensive than the latter's wickedness, but it launched the successful candidate on his long period of authority, which was not to be ended until he was broken in health, if not in character.

[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 space 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 circumstances, 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 assembled 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 passage, 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 attitude; 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 assailed 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, Sylvanus Miller again became surrogate of New York, and John Woodworth was dismissed from the office of attorney-general. Under the Constitution, 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 assuming 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 hitherto 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 pronounced 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 circumstances 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 assailed 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 associates.

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 Constitution, and he had forced a discovery of Tompkins' superior management and political wisdom. To add to his embarrassment, 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 compassed 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 assailed the Federalists, who, he declared, thought it "better to reign in hell 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 assaults 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 Assembly, 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 assume 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.