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Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys
Chapter Ten, Benton's History of Herkimer County
CHAPTER X.
1783 TO 1855.
Political Parties - Origin of, in this State - George Clinton - Leader of the Anti-federalists - Montgomery County Anti-federal in 1788-Herkimer County, Federal from 1791, to 1800 - Judge Sanger -State of Parties change in 1801 - Jay's Treaty - Alexander Hamilton - Germans Anti-federalists - Mathias B. Tallmadge - Object of his settling at Herkimer - Success and Defeats of the Republican Party for 19 Years -Restrictive Measures of the U. S. Counsel of Appointment - Robert Williams - Removals from Office - Contest in 1810 - Henry Hopkins - Clintonians and Bucktails - Meeting of the latter in 1819 - Secretary superseded -Success of Federalists in 1819 - The Reason of it - Policy of the Leaders - Federalists succeed in 1820 and 1821 - Clinton elected Governor, in 1820 - State Convention of 1821 - Popular Vote in the County, for and against - Prospects of Parties - Simeon Ford, Richard Van Horne, Sanders Lansing, Sherman Wooster -Democratic Success -New Constitution adopted -Success of Democrats, from 1822 to 1847 - Political Excitement in 1824 - People's Party - Electoral Law - Michael Hoffman - Democratic Assembly Ticket defeated - Presidential Election - Martin Van Buren - William H. Crawford -Aspect of the Election - Democratic Success in 1825 - Silas Wright - Prospective Troubles continue among Democrats-Call of a Convention to amend the Constitution of 1821 -Position of the Democratic Party in the County - Convention Law originated in this County - Vote for Convention-Vote for Delegates-Vote for and against Constitution - Democratic Party defeated in 1847 - Henry P. Alexander elected to Congress in 1848 - Review of the Chapter - Vote amending the Financial Article -Senate Document No. 70 - 1831, Characteristics of Population.
Distinct political party divisions and distinctions do not seem to have assumed any very definite shape, the first twelve years after the adoption of the Federal constitution. Until the formation of that instrument in 1787, and its submission to the states for ratification, there was no general subject on which the people of the states could well divide and array themselves in national party lines. New York was opposed, Under the leadership of Gov. George Clinton, to the formation of a new government, or any material change in the articles of confederation, and this was emphatically declared in the resolution of the legislature at the time the three delegates, Messrs. Lansing, Yates and Hamilton were appointed to attend the national convention. When the constitution which emanated from that body came before the people, of the country for consideration, and while under advisement, New York was, the great battlefield; and in none of the states was the opposition to its ratification more decided, animated and emphatic than in this. A strong anti-federal feeling predominated among the inhabitants of the whole state, and notwithstanding the conditional ratification by the state in 1788, Gov. Clinton was able to sustain himself until 1795 against all the power and patronage of the general government, wielded by Gen. Hamilton and other distinguished, adherents of President Washington's administration.
This fact shows most clearly that the ratification before mentioned was compelled by the necessities of the case, and was not a voluntary acquiescence. The people of the Mohawk valley placed as high an estimate upon the character and services of the commander in chief of the American armies as any other; they held the name of Washington in deep reverence and profound respect, but they had fought the battles of their country, and conquered for it independence and peace under the banner of New York. Theirs had been a seven years' campaign without retirement to winter quarters, and they felt little inclination to surrender to others any portion of the boon so dearly purchased. On the question of ratifying the federal constitution, Montgomery county was decidedly anti-federal.
From the organization of Herkimer county, in 1791, to 1800, federal members were chosen to the assembly, except the two years the county was represented by Judge Sanger, and the year before Oneida county was set off from Herkimer.
I assume Judge Sanger was an anti-federalist in 1793-4, when he represented the county, because he was elected to the senate in 1800 by the republicans, and afterwards acted with the federalists. The members of the assembly elected in 1797, seem to have been taken from both parties ; or rather, one anti-federalist was that year elected. The great influx of population from New England between 1790 and 1800 had changed the political aspect of the county, and especially in that part of the territory set off as Oneida, in 1798.
The political contest which preceded the election of Mr. Jefferson in 1801, had arrayed the voting population of the county into two political parties, which in that day were known as federalists and republicans; and it is a fact not unworthy of notice in this place, that while the eastern population seated within the territory of Oneida county, almost unanimously acted with the federal party, the immigration to Herkimer seems to have been more equally balanced, although a considerable majority of that population which settled in this county adhered to their New England proclivities.
The federalists, at that early day, possessed another great advantage over their opponents which was not unimproved. The establishment of county seats at Herkimer and Whitestown opened a new field for the legal profession, and it was not long left unoccupied by gentlemen of great weight of character, standing and talents, as their subsequent political and professional career abundantly shows. The mercantile interest was also strongly attached to that party, and the men at that time engaged in commercial pursuits, controlled much of the money capital of the country. The establishment of trade upon a permanent and favorable basis with England was by this class of our population deemed most essentially important. The commercial treaty negotiated by Mr. Jay with great Britain in 1794, had been assailed and denounced, by the planting or agricultural interests with persevering zeal and ardor; while other portions of the population not particularly identified with those interests, evinced their disapproval of the treaty and the negotiator by mobs and riotous burnings in effigy, unmistakable evidence of a misdirected popular feeling. Such was the state of party feeling, its bearings and influences upon society, that a republican lawyer or a republican merchant was seldom to be found in the country villages or at the county seats in this part of the state, where it would be now difficult to point out one of either class who does not profess the true democratic creed of some sort.
The survivors of the revolution were slow to see the necessity of a strong government; the very name was distasteful and odious. They had gone through one war "to crush out" what they believed a monstrous evil, kingly rule, and they had yet to feel the necessity and be satisfied of the propriety of having any connection or intercourse with kings or kingly governments; and besides, the leading federalists were strongly suspected of sympathizing with Great Britain, then engaged in active hostilities to put down republican France. Alexander Hamilton, although nurtured in the revolution, was known to be favorable to strong and high toned governments; I say known, because his project of a constitution read to the convention at Philadelphia in 1787, was spread far and wide over this broad land. He was the leader of the federal party in this state and exerted no small influence with that party in other states. And although he was a great man, holding rank with the most solid and brilliant of his compeers of the revolution, it must be confessed he was not an adroit and skillful manager of a political party.
I do not believe, and never have, that the masses belonging to the federal party, when it maintained a political existence, ever gave their full adhesion to the extreme notions of some of their leaders; nor do I suppose every man professing to belong to the republican party is bound to adopt and defend the unwise or pernicious notions of some of his so called political friends, but, after all, the character of the leader is impressed upon his party, which must stand or fall according to the estimate placed by the popular judgment upon the principles and measures enunciated.
At the period under consideration, the opening of the nineteenth century, the whole framework of our government was but little more than an untried experiment, so far as respected its actual workings. We had gathered some strength as a nation, and the hopes of the old stepdame for an opportunity of resubjugation had become very much darkened. But it is not my purpose to write a treatise on governments, or the history of political parties outside the confines of the county, any farther than may be needful to explain results as we have found them.
The German population of the county was strongly imbued with the anti-federal feelings, when the federal constitution was ratified. After political parties assumed the names of federalists and republicans, a very considerable majority of that population was found acting with the latter; it was not brought out, however, to act effectively, until the April election in 1800. An able and efficient body of men, lawyers, merchants and others, had settled at Herkimer, whose influence, in conjunction with others in the county, decided the political character of the members.
Before the period here mentioned, Mathias B. Tallmadge, a republican lawyer, and connected by marriage with the family of Governor George Clinton, settled at Herkimer. I can not give the actual time Mr. Tallmadge came into the county, but I find he was elected a delegate to the convention of 1801, from this county, with Evans Wharry and George Rosecrants. He was afterwards elected to the senate of this state, in April 1802. Mr. Tallmadge was, no doubt, sent into the county as a political leader, and by this movement Governor Clinton extended his family influence to an important point in the state, then fast filling up with population from the older southern and eastern counties, and from the other states, particularly New England. It is not improbable that Evans Wharry, a native of Orange county, well known to, and a fast friend of Governor Clinton, was mainly instrumental in bringing Mr. Tallmadge into the county.
Mr. Tallmadge's contemporaries do not speak of him in terms of extravagant praise. He was not equal in point of talents and energy of character to any of his leading opponents. But the soil was congenial to his touch, and the harvest ripened to his hand; and such was the veneration and respect for the name of George Clinton in the Mohawk valley, and so deep seated was the anti-federal feeling in the county, strengthened and embittered by some of the acts of the federal government under the administration of John Adams, and particularly the stamp act, that it only remained to select the candidates, print and circulate the ballots, and the election from that moment became a "fixed fact," so far as this county was concerned. Mr. Tallmadge was appointed United States judge for the district of New York in 1805, and soon after removed from the county.
During the period of nineteen years, from 1800 to 1818, inclusive, republican members were elected to the assembly, with one solitary exception, and then that party only sustained a partial defeat in the county. At the spring election, in 1809,Thomas Manly and Rudolph Devendorff, federalists, and Christopher P. Bellinger, republican, were chosen members, the after by some five or six votes. The federal party that year, for the first time since 1799, achieved a political triumph. This event has been charged to the restrictive measures of the general government, under Mr. Jefferson, which weighed heavily upon the navigating and grain-growing interests of the country.
Wheat had fallen from twenty-four shillings a bushel, before the embargo, to six shillings after that measure was enforced, and products found no foreign market. Daniel D. Tompkins was then governor, and the freehold vote in the state upon the choice of senators showed a little over seven hundred republican majority. Under the constitution of 1777, the political majority in the assembly controlled the choice of the council of appointment, composed of one senator from each senate district. It so happened, there was not, at this time, a single federal senator from two of the districts, and the majority in the assembly were forced to choose two members of the council who had been elected as republican. This was a gloomy prospect for those who were hopefully looking to the enjoyment of the "spoils of victory." While the republicans were reposing in security, supposing every thing would be safe with the casting vote of their favorite governor, the dominant party were actively engaged in looking up some disaffected republican senator, who could be brought over to their views. The constitution of the state had given the civil list appointments into the hands of the federalists, and all they lacked was instruments by which to exercise their power. They however found the man they wanted, in the person of Mr. Robert Williams, of the Middle district, who had been a Burrite, Lewisite, Clintonian, and was elected to the senate by the republicans. He, it appears, was one of the trading politicians of that day, who set themselves up to the highest bidder; and he met the fate in after life that all such men deserve-the scorn and contempt of his former friends, and the studied neglect of those he had recently served. The federal council, after its organization, went to work with a zeal that met a warm response from its friends in every quarter of the state; but was far from being very agreeable to their opponents. This council appears to have done a pretty large and extensive business in the way of removals and appointments to office.
The party in power were no doubt induced to this course in view of the election of governor, about to take place, in the spring of 1810. The federalists had contested the election the previous year on the merits of the measures pursued by the national administration, and had succeeded. Those questions, though of grave importance, still remained to pass the ordeal of the popular judgment at the ballot box, but were not the only elements that entered into the contest, which became unusually excited and animated. The federalists were in office, and the reelection of Governor Tompkins would postpone to an indefinite period all hope to the federal party of a permanent restoration to power in the state and union; and the republicans were smarting under their recent defeat and consequent loss of office, by the treachery, as they alleged, of one who should have been a friend.
Mr. Hammond says, that "contrary to the expectation of both parties, the republicans were not only successful, but their success was complete. They achieved an entire and complete overthrow of their opponents. Tompkins was reelected by about ten thousand majority. The republican candidates for the senate succeeded in all the four districts, and in the assembly the republicans had a majority of almost two to one."
It does not come within the objects of this publication to discuss the causes which produced the above result, or to speculate upon motives that may or may not have actuated political men or parties. At the election in April, 1810, the republican party in the county regained its ascendancy, and the members of the new council of appointment were careful to revise and correct, in 1811, all the mistakes of their immediate predecessors.
A word of explanation should here be given in reference to the spirited, uniform success of the republican party in the county during the period of nineteen years. I have stated one exception. On a further examination, I find another. At the spring election, in 1815, Henry Hopkins, a gentleman who had uniformly acted with the federal party, was elected to the assembly with John McCombs and William D. Ford. One of the republican candidates first put in nomination died a few days before the election, and Mr. Hopkins was chosen by a majority of nineteen votes over George Paddock, who was taken up and supported by the republicans.
Many of the leading republicans in the county were, between 1816 and 1820, known as Clintonians; they sustained the measures of Governor De Witt Clinton, and selected candidates to the assembly friendly to that gentleman, who were of course chosen. I believe the members elected in the county, the three years previous to 1820, did not act with the bucktail opposition (so called) against the governor. Disaffection in the republican ranks manifested itself pretty decidedly throughout the state, towards the close of' the governor's first term, and a meeting was called at the Court House in Herkimer, in the spring of 1819, to organize and nominate an assembly ticket. The meeting, although not very numerous, was composed of a considerable number of active republicans, and attracted some attention. John Herkimer, then one of the county judges, and afterwards member of congress, was appointed chairman. Michael Hoffman, Esq., submitted a series of resolutions, setting forth the grounds of complaint against the governor, and among them was one condemning, in pretty strong terms, the action of the council of appointment in removing Martin Van Buren, and appointing Thomas J. Oakley, a leading and distinguished federalist, to the office of attorney general. The resolutions were adopted and published, with my name appended as secretary. For this act of insubordination, the secretary was complimented with a supersedeas as a justice of the peace at the following July session of the council of appointment. The same meeting nominated candidates for members of assembly in opposition to the ticket already in the field friendly to Governor Clinton.
This division among the republicans brought out the federalists, who, on the eve of the election, nominated a full assembly ticket, which was chosen by a handsome majority, although the anti-Clintonian or bucktail republicans abandoned their ticket, and generally voted for the Clintonian candidates.
The result of the election showed a clear federal majority in county at that time and this was probably fact not arising out any material change political sentiments population within territorial limits before 1817, but from annexation year three eastern towns Montgomery Salisbury Manheim Danube.
The federal party in the county, like that of the republican in Oneida, although twenty years in a minority, was neither dead nor asleep. Its wakeful and recuperative faculties were extremely facile. Whenever at a gubernatorial or senatorial election, it became expedient to poll a full freehold vote, their strong and tried men were put upon the local tickets, and the elections were canvassed with a zeal and animation that betokened a confident assurance of success. The annexed towns had usually given a pretty strong and reliable aggregate federal majority, when attached to Montgomery county. Of the candidates presented by the federalists in 1819, one was selected from Manheim, a gentleman of influence and weight of character, with a view, no doubt, of impressing our new neighbors with the notion that their interests were to be carefully looked after, and their prominent men not neglected. Candidates were taken by that party from each of the remaining towns at the two succeeding elections. In adopting and pursuing this policy, the federal party, under the circumstances, evinced a good deal of political skill. I well remember speaking with a Clintonian republican, Robert Shoemaker, on the subject, who remarked, it would do very well unless it provoked jealousy in other parts of the county.
At the succeeding spring elections, in 1820 and 1821, the federalists achieved two more victories in the county and then rested upon their honors more than a quarter of a century. It had, I believe, become a fixed common law principle with the political parties in the county, when it was entitled to three members of assembly, to select one of German and two of English descent, as candidates. This rule may not have been observed in every instance during thirty-six years, and if not, the exception was extremely rare.
The contest for governor in 1820, between the bucktail and Clintonian parties was, no doubt, one of the most severely contested of any that had taken place in the state for many years. The freehold vote in the county-was 1226 for Clinton, and 947 for Tompkins. Mr. Clinton's majority in the state was only fourteen hundred and fifty-seven, and although lie escaped defeat, his opponents held the political power of the state by having a working majority in each legislative branch. The federalists as a party supported Mr. Clinton, notwithstanding some fifty high-minded gentlemen, of great personal worth, talents and wealth, renounced their connection with that party, declared it dissolved, in a published manifesto, and avowed their intention of supporting Mr. Tompkins. A portion of the old republican party adhered to Mr. Clinton, and a perfect reunion of the dissevered fragments did not take place until General Jackson's election in 1828, and in the meantime most of the high-minded gentlemen had gone over to the Adams party. This brief view of the aspect of affairs outside of the county, seems necessary to enable us to appreciate more justly the true state of things at home. There were several provisions in the constitution of 1777, framed and adopted while the country was in a state of war, and when it was believed too many guards could not be thrown around the exercise of the powers of' self-government, such as the veto power, vested in a council of revision, composed of the chancellor and justices of the supreme court, who held their offices during good behavior; the power of appointing all the civil and military officers in the state vested in the governor for the time being, and four senators, and the restriction upon the elective franchise, confining the choice of governor and senators to those citizens who owned a freehold of the value of two hundred and fifty dollars, which attracted public attention, and became the subject of discussion among politicians and in the public press. This subject, if properly managed, could be used as an effective instrument to produce a political crisis, and the opportunity was not neglected by Mr. Clinton's opponents. It is not my purpose to inquire after the reasons, Or to discuss the motives which induced that gentleman and his leading friends to oppose the call of a convention to revise the constitution of 1777. Whatever may be the exact truth in respect to this matter, the people were told, and they believed, that he and his friends were in fact hostile to the measure, and with this impression strongly fixed in the public mind, the convention was called, and the result in the choice of delegates was precisely what every intelligent politician in the state expected.
The majority of the popular vote in the state for the convention, was seventy-four thousand four hundred and forty-five. In this county the aggregate vote for it was 1598; against, 1627. The election of delegates took place on the third Tuesday of June, 1821. The republicans, or democrats as they were now called, had been defeated the previous April, and the Clintonians controlled the only newspaper in the county.
Although the current of public opinion in the state was setting strongly in favor of the democratic party, the condition of affairs in the county did not afford much prospect of success in the election of delegates to the convention. Mr. Simeon Ford, a gentleman whose private character was without reproach, of highly respectable talents, and who had long been a leading member at the bar in the county, had been elected a member of the assembly in 1820, and reelected in 1821. His capacity for business and industrious habits, rather than brilliant displays of oratory, rendered him an efficient member of the house, and one of the prominent Clintonian leaders. He was a politician of the old federal school, and bad been long a resident of the county. It was considered very important by Governor Clinton and his friends to secure Mr. Ford's election as a delegate to the approaching convention. In view of the great interests at stake, no man in the county was better qualified by experience and ability to grapple with the accumulating difficulties of the times, and which eventually precipitated his party, for a time, into a hopeless minority.
I think the Clintonian and democratic conventions met at Herkimer, on the same day, to select candidates to be supported at the election for choosing delegates; and if this was not the fact, the Clintonians had made their nominations. It was known to the democrats that Mr. Richard Van Horne, of Danube, was a candidate on the ticket with Mr. Ford, before they made out their ticket. The democrats were neither hopeful nor sanguine, and their convention was not very numerously attended, but we had come resolved to make up a ticket, win or lose. During our deliberations it was stated in the convention that Mr. Van Horne was in favor of the extension of the elective franchise, and a modification of the veto, and appointing powers, and had given verbal assurances to that effect. It was somewhat difficult to make out a ticket, not on account of the pressure of claims by the friends of candidates, but for the want of the right sort of men, and none were envious of the distinguished honor of being defeated. We finally nominated a ticket, consisting of Sherman Wooster, Sanders Lansing and Richard Van Horne.
It was urged in the convention, that by placing Mr. Van Horne on the democratic ticket, we should render his influence in the town of Danube less hurtful to Messrs. Wooster and Lansing, than it would be if he was left off. To the surprise of some, and contrary to the sober expectations of many, Messrs. Lansing and Wooster were chosen delegates by a majority of four hundred and thirty six. It was generally believed the Clintonians were opposed to the extension of the elective franchise, and this damaged their ticket with the non freeholders, to some extent. But considerable apathy prevailed among Mr. Clinton's friends at the polls of election which I attended. I always attributed this to dissatisfaction, in a certain influential quarter, in respect to Mr. Ford's third nomination, although the avowed reasons for non interference in the election, was, that the individual approved of the call and objects of the convention. There is no doubt, I think, that the minds of many people in the county, became settled and fixed in favor of the measure, after it was generally known that the call of the convention had been sanctioned by such an immense majority of the voters in the state.
After finishing their labors at Albany, the convention adjourned, submitting the new constitution to be approved or rejected by a vote of the electors. At a special election, held in the month of February, 1822, the constitution was ratified by a vote of 75,422 for it, to 41,497 against it; showing a majority of 33,925, in the state.
Without riots, bloodshed or the least disturbance in the machinery of government, this civil revolution was accomplished, and the large approving vote was followed by the most salutary effects. I do not wish to be understood in this remark, to refer to mere party politics. It showed to the civilized world, that Americans were capable of self-government; that old and well established principle of the fundamental law of the social compact, could be abrogated when found inconvenient or unsuited to our condition, with the same order and peaceable decorum which usually attend our annual elections. The vote in this county, on adopting the new constitution, was, 1583 in favor, and 1254 against it.
The first election in the county, under the new constitution, in November 1822, resulted favorably to the democratic party, and from that time, to 1847, I am confident no candidate, other than an avowed democrat, was elected to any office by the people. I shall notice the exceptions in due order of time, when the regular county-convention nominations were set aside or disregarded. I should notice the fact in this place, that a democratic paper was established in the county, by Mr. Edward Al. Griffing, in 1821. It was called The People's Friend, and published at Little Falls. The presidential controversy in 1824, produced the ephemeral nondescript called the People's Party. It lived one year, and no longer. Its leaders were in favor of almost every body, or any body for president, except William H. Crawford. Some of my readers, if I should have any, may think I do not treat this subject with the impartial pen of an historian. I wish to call things by their right names, and tell the plain unvarnished truth.
At the November election in 1823, Christopher P. Bellinger, John Graves and Caleb Budlong were chosen members of assembly, and were not unfriendly to Mr. Crawford. The electors of president and vice-president were then appointed by the legislature, and it was supposed, and such was no doubt the fact, that a majority of the legislature chosen that year, were, when elected, favorable to Mr. Crawford, assuming he would be the regular nominee of a democratic congressional caucus, and it hence became necessary in order to defeat Mr. Crawford in this state, to change the mode of appointing electors, and with that view early in the session of 1824, a bill was introduced into the assembly directing the appointment of electors to be made by the people through the ballot box by general ticket, at the annual election preceding the expiration of the official term of the presidency. I do not use the cant phrase of the day "restore the election to the people." The people never had exercised that power directly, and therefore it could not be restored to them. The bill passed the assembly, but was indefinitely postponed in the senate, which was virtually a rejection. At former periods in the history of the states, the federalists and republicans when in the minority in the legislatures, on which would devolve the appointment of electors, made efforts to change the law and refer the subject to the people directly, but the majorities in both instances considered it a sort of clap-trap affair and retained the power in their own hands. The rejection of the electoral law placed the democratic party in a very unenviable predicament. The democrats had now placed their necks under the axe which they used to decapitate the Clintonians three years before. The current of popular opinion set against them with a force perfectly resistless. Party drill, regular nomination, and personal appeals did not avail any thing. The democratic county convention met as usual and nominated candidates for assembly, and concurred in the several state and senatorial, district nominations. The same convention nominated Michael Hoffman to be supported as a candidate for congress. This was Mr. Hoffman's first appearance on the political arena in the county as a candidate for an elective office.
A meeting not very numerous, I believe, subsequently convened at Herkimer, and nominated John Herkimer member of congress for reelection, and Samuel Dexter, Jr., Warner Folts and Jacob Wire for the assembly. These gentlemen had all of them acted with the democratic party during the last four years. This was a Peoplish movement, an it was understood at the time that the Clintonians proper or federalists did not appear openly in the affair, although they must have secretly encouraged it from the support given by them to the ticket at the election. There a not been during the summer and fall any organization of a people's party or any indication showing disaffection in the democratic ranks in the county. A large majority of the party in the county was supposed to be friendly to Mr. Crawford against all the other candidates, and when the convention met to make nominations, there was a fair prospect of an old-fashioned field fight between the veteran parties. Mr. Herkimer was an Adams man, and Mr. Hoffman an avowed Crawfordite.
The Clintonians generally supported what was called the people's ticket, and after the election, during which a good deal of bitter feeling was exhibited, the canvass showed that Mr. Clinton had 134 majority over Col. Young; Hoffman over Herkimer 244; the average of people's assembly ticket over the democratic was only 49. The democratic assembly candidates received the entire support of the party in good faith, yet all of them left it within a few years and attached themselves to other political organizations, and Messrs. Dexter and Folts were on the best of terms with the democratic members of the house during the whole session. This political tornado was not confined to Herkimer county alone, it swept over the whole state, and Mr. Clinton, who only two years before had been so reduced in popularity in consequence of his course on the convention question, that his friends dared not to venture his being a candidate for governor against Mr. Yates, was now elected by 16,906 votes over Col. Young.
But the elements of dissolution existed in this people's party at its very formation. The only bond that brought them to act in concert, was the defeat of William H. Crawford; that once accomplished, and the union became a rope of sand. Mr. Clinton, whose position made him the strongest man in this state, among the coalesced minorities, did not favor the pretensions of Mr. Adams by any avowed or overt act of adhesion or preference. He expressed an opinion, before the question, was actually decided, that Gen. Jackson would be chosen by the house of representatives; founded on the belief that the house would choose the candidate highest on the list and having the greatest number of votes, and thus conform its action to the declared will of the largest popular vote. These facts with others that might be here repeated clearly show, that Mr. Clinton did not sympathize with the Adams and Clay sections of the people's party which combined at the November session in 1824, to secure a majority of the electoral vote in this state for their 'respective favorites.
Much surprise has been expressed, that Mr. Van Buren and his friends did not at once consent to change the mode of appointing electors, appeal to the popular vote of the state, and some of his warm friends and the advocates of Mr. Crawford's election censured him and them for not doing so. Mr. Van Buren possessed a clear and comprehensive political sagacity; this his greatest and most bitter opponents allowed and feared, The disturbing and disquieting controversy growing out of the Missouri compromise, had not been forgotten. The south had enjoyed eight presidential terms, and the north one, since the adoption of the constitution. The sectional preferences and prejudices of the north were against the candidate preferred by Mr. Van Buren, and many of his influential friends in this state; and there was but little prospect of controlling or changing the direction of those prejudices and preferences, except through the agency of a regular caucus nomination, made by the republican members of congress, and even that might fail in the absence of any great national question on which an appeal could be made to the patriotic feelings of the people. A regular nomination could not be obtained for Mr. Crawford, and the era of good feeling doctrine promulgated under Mr. Munroe's administration had soothed the political asperities which had existed between the old republican and federal parties, not a little sharpened by the events of the war of 1812. A democratic electoral ticket pledged to support Mr. Crawford, would probably have obtained a plurality of the votes given in the state, if backed by a regular congressional nomination, and the friends of all the other candidates had presented, and in good faith supported, separate tickets; but if the minorities should combine, as they did in the legislature, and divide the candidates for the electoral college, assigning a given number to each of their favorites, and go down to the election with but one ticket, there would not have been much question as to the result. The democratic ticket might have succeeded, if there had been no issue on the electoral law; and that issue would not have been raised, if there had been only two candidates in the field for the presidency.
That there would be a democratic majority elected, on whom would devolve the appointment of the electoral college, and that such majority would act in accordance with the wishes of Mr. Van Buren and his friends, if the caucus system was strictly adhered to, was quite as certain in July 1823, as it was at the meeting of the legislature in 1824. That there would be no choice by the college in December, 1824, was pretty well settled in the minds of politicians before the New York election in November, 1823, so that the whole object aimed at by the friends of the several candidates was, to place their respective favorites in a position to be chosen by the house of representatives. That was the issue in this state, and this indicated too clearly to be mistaken what course Mr. Crawford's opponents would take in case a plurality or majority electoral law should be passed. Even the loss of the election did not place the power of choosing democratic electors out of the reach or beyond the control of the democratic party; if there had been no dishonorable violation of the most solemn voluntary pledges, Mr. Crawford might have as easily obtained the whole thirty-six electors as four.
At the November election in 1825, the democrats regained the ascendency in the county by a majority of about six hundred, and the Clintonians lost the election in the state. This result again placed the political power of the state substantially in the hands of the democratic party. From this time to 1847, the democrats invariably elected their regularly nominated members of assemby, and with one exception, in 1846, their county officers. The candidates of the party never failed of an election by the people during the above period, with the exception noted, although in that time, the state had been several times lost and won to the democratic party, and the country had seen the election of two Whigs to the presidency, General Harrison, in 1840, and General Taylor, in 1848.
The rejection of Mr. Van Buren by the Baltimore convention in 1844, the disaffection manifested by a section of the democratic party in this state against Governor Bouck, who was elected in 1842, and the disagreement among leading democrats in regard to the canal policy of the state, had combined to produce a feeling of estrangement in the democratic ranks, which was distinctly exhibited at the annual election in 1846. Governor Wright was then a candidate for reelection. My intercourse with Governor Wright, political and social, had been, for twenty-two years, intimate and cordial. I had contributed my feeble exertions to his elevation to the senate of the United States, and never regretted having done so. After the development of the difficulties in the democratic party in the state, and they had sufficiently shown themselves prior to the election in 1844, to satisfy any considerate man, that a disruption was at hand, which must soon overwhelm any man occupying the executive chair, I objected to and advised against his acceptance of the office of governor, and thereby vacate his seat in the senate of the United States. Mr. Wright had other friends -who viewed this subject in the same light, and who were governed by the same disinterested motives that I was, and they did not hesitate to express their opinions on the subject. I do believe he did not cheerfully consent to leave Washington, and that he bad strong forebodings of the fate that awaited him in the event of his coming in direct contact with the bitter family feuds at home. I need not speak of Gov. Wright's character and standing as a public man or private citizen; other and abler pens than mine, have already inscribed a just memorial of them on the page of history. He was a strong, able and popular man. What have said and shall say in regard to Mr. Wright, may not seem to be exactly in place in the local history of a county which did not claim him as a resident, but I have an object in alluding to him in this place in consequence of his name being connected with our local affairs. His nomination for reelection was apparently acquiesced in by the party, and nothing appeared to disturb the smooth surface except the little anti-rent ripple which originated in Albany, Columbia and Rensselaer counties, and had now began to attract some attention; but there was a secret undercurrent operating strongly against his success. So confident were his active friends of achieving an easy victory in the state, that in several instances they did not observe due precaution in selecting candidates who could secure the general support of their party friends. Such was the case in respect to the nominee for sheriff in this county, and the nominee for congress in the district, composed of Herkimer and Montgomery counties. The former was nominated in the county convention by a small majority of a strongly contested vote, and the latter in the district convention by the casting vote of a member, whose object was to present the man who could be the most easily defeated at the polls. Sections of the democratic party in both counties organized opposition to these nominations, presented other candidates, and with the aid of the Whigs defeated the regular nominees of the party. Mr. Wright must have been a good deal damaged in this county by this contest among his friends. I say friends, because the successful candidates and their supporters claimed to be his friends. His majority in the county was nine hundred and ninety-four, several hundred less than in 1844.
Previous to 1846, considerable discussion had taken place in the state, respecting its financial condition, and the expediency of imposing restrictions upon the power of the legislature to borrow money, and contract a state debt. The judicial department of the government had been found inadequate, not from the inefficiency of the judicial functionaries, but from want of numbers, to dispatch the business brought before it, and the delays of litigation were nearly equivalent to a denial of justice.
At the legislative session in 1844, the two houses passed the resolutions of which the following are the titles:
1. "Resolution proposing certain amendments to the constitution, in relation to state debt and liability."
2. "Resolution proposing an amendment to the constitution in relation to the court of chancery."
3. "Resolution proposing an amendment to the constitution, in relation to the supreme court."
The amendments embraced in these resolutions came up for consideration at the session in 1845 and were agreed to by two thirds of all the members elected to the Senate, but failed of receiving the requisite majority in the assembly. Although there was a democratic majority in the house, as well as in the senate, a marked diversity of opinion existed among the members of the majority, in respect to the constitutional amendments then under consideration, and the project of calling a convention to revise the constitution of 1821, which had been introduced into the assembly. While one section of the democratic members strongly favored the financial amendments, the other section did not yield them a hearty assent, or its cordial support, although willing to place them before the people for their adoption or rejection. The position of these two sections was reversed on the judicial amendments. The Whigs, as a party, generally favored the judicial amendments, but were strongly opposed to the financial. That party however were not inclined to go in favor of any measures, or any policy, which would defeat the calling of another convention, to new-model the constitution. To use their own language, "they went for a new deal," with the hope of securing some of the prominent offices of the state from which they had been excluded for nearly twenty years. I shall not attempt to discuss the various questions presented, and views entertained for and against the call of another convention. On one side it was urged that the legislature could not constitutionally pass any law, authorizing the call of a convention, inasmuch as the existing constitution prescribed a mode in which amendments to, or alterations of that instrument could be made entirely different from that then under consideration. On the other side, it was insisted, that the whole subject was at the disposal of the electors, and if on submitting the question to the people, a majority should decide in favor of a convention, that one might, and should be convened. It is quite certain that the convention of 1821 did not suppose that instrument would be altered or changed, except in the manner pointed out in it; and it is equally certain, that the convention of 1846 must have considered the act initiating its existence might be I justly characterized as revolutionary: otherwise, direct authority would not have been conferred upon the legislature, to provide for taking the sense of the electors in respect to calling future conventions. The financial convulsion of 1837, and the commercial embarrassments of 1840 and 1841, consequent upon the great inflation of prices in 1839, followed by an unexampled depression in the state stocks, attributed mainly to the recent rapid increase of the state debt, bad contributed to infuse into the public mind a strong and settled conviction, that to avoid interminable taxation and embarrassments, the legislative power over the finances and credit of the state, must be strictly defined and limited to a very narrow circle.
The democratic party of this county had taken ground at an early day in favor of an amendment to the constitution, to the effect that every law passed by the legislature proposing to create a debt by the issue of state stock, or impose a tax for certain purposes, in order to become effectual, must be submitted to, and sanctioned by a direct vote of a majority of the electors of the state, at an annual election. This proposition, subsequently modified and amended, and known as the People's Resolution, was adopted by a convention held in this county, in the year 1837. Its paternity was afterwards attributed to a distinguished politician of the county, through a mistake as to its origin. The rough draft of the resolution was shown to me in my office, by my then law partner, in his own handwriting, and I am confident that lie alone was the author of it. The substance of that resolution now composes a part of the seventh article of the present constitution of the state. When first brought out, the project attracted but little attention outside of the county, but it became one of the standing resolutions of the county conventions for several years, and was finally adopted as a cardinal point in the democratic creed, first in the county, and then in the state.
The passage of the law calling the convention originated, I am fully convinced, with the politicians of this county, and, although I do not mean to say their object was confined to the adoption of the financial restrictions, and it probably was not, still that measure incited their unceasing vigilance and most active exertions. The act calling the convention was approved by Governor Wright, and became in form a law. The vote in this county on the question of convention or no convention, was, 4,346 in favor, and 86 against it. At the election of delegates, Michael Hoffman had 1,470, and Arphaxad Loomis 1,468 votes, about two-thirds of the democratic strength in the county. There was no organized opposition, and the scattering vote was small. When this constitution was submitted to the people for adoption, less unanimity seemed to prevail in the minds of the electors. The vote for it was 3,382, against it 1,029, and on the question of admitting our colored population to an equal suffrage with the white, without property qualification, the yeas were 1,442, and the nays 3,156, showing 187 more votes on the equal suffrage question, than the aggregate for and against the constitution.. The aggregate of the whole vote for governor in 1844, was a little over 7,295, and in 1846; 5,633. This shows that nearly 3,000 of the electors of the county did not participate, either in the call of the convention, or the adoption of the constitution.
The changes proposed in the fundamental law by the convention of 1846 were much more extensive than those made by the convention of 1821. It was thus that a great revolution in the institutions of a state was brought about, founded, when the movement commenced, on the single complaint against improvident acts of legislation in respect to the finances and credit of the state.
The above figures show that one-half. of the electors of the county did not approve of the constitution by an affirmative vote. The convention had incorporated a provision into the constitution restricting the power of the legislature to pass laws of a certain character, except by a majority of all the members elected to each branch, three-fifths of all the members being present, in which case the absence of a member operates as a negative upon the law, which, in many instances, may be only a few people; but in fixing the fundamental law of the state. It only required the majority of the voices of those who might choose to speak to control the destinies of millions. It is not my object to write a political treatise, and I therefore forbear further remark. I have aimed to give a true statement of the events of this period, and believe I have done it.
At the succeeding annual election, in 1847, the county performed a complete political somerset. James Feeter, in the first district, and Lawrence L. Merry, in the second, Whigs, were elected to the assembly by considerable majorities, and Thomas Burch Whig, was chosen senator in the senate district. The defeated candidates were two radical democrats and one hunker. This was preparatory to the canvass for the presidency in 1848. Hitherto, for a period of about forty years, the people of the county had not been represented in the congress of the United States, by a man who was not known and recognized as a republican or democrat, but Henry P. Alexander, a highly respectable Whig, was this year elected to congress from the district composed of Herkimer and Montgomery, and was not very badly beaten when again a candidate in 1850.
I hardly need say, in this connection, that the Whig party has not obtained any ascendency in the county since 1847, except in the election of Mr. Alexander.
It is now, 1855, sixty-four years since this county was erected, and it may not be uninteresting to some to take a brief view of the state, of political parties in it during that period. It is in no respect of any moment, except to show the current of public feeling at home in regard to the political questions which have agitated the country since the, foundation of the national government and the formation of political parties, consequent upon the diversity of opinions not only in respect to the federal constitution of
1787, but also in regard, to what was esteemed the true principles and proper form of government to be adopted by the American states, as well as the fair and just interpretation of that instrument. The subject of American politics and American political parties, derives all its interest and importance from the fact that the state and national governments are administered conformably to the popular will, enunciated in the form prescribed by written fundamental rules. Since the county was organized, the representatives in the popular branch of the legislature, the assembly, have been elected wholly, or in part, by the anti-federal, republican and democratic parties fifty-four years. I use these names to designate the same political party in succession at different periods of time. I should add here a word of explanation; the above period embraces every year when the candidate elected was nominated by the political party above designated. Of the twelve state senators elected from the county at different times, two were federalists, nine were republicans and one was a Whig. There have been three state conventions to modify, alter and change the state constitution, and republican delegates were chosen to each, except Richard Van Horne, in 1821. Six republican electors of president and vice-president have been selected in the county, and one Whig. In respect to the members of congress sent from the county, I have had some difficulty in ascertaining the whole number. From the best information within my reach, there were twelve in all ; and of these, one was a federalist, nine were republicans or democrats, one was an independent, chosen in opposition to the regularly nominated candidate, although lie claimed to be a republican, and one was a Whig.
There are but few counties in the state, if any, in which the population has shown such steady and uniform adherence to the republican or democratic party, and where the political men of that party have been so frequently elected to office by the people. And I am proud as a citizen of the county, to record the fact, that hitherto there has not been a single instance, save one, of corruption and malconduct charged against our public men, and those who have "gone to that bourne from whence no traveler returns," now "rest from the labors of life's toilsome pilgrimage," leaving behind them fame and characters untainted and untarnished.
The financial article of the constitution of 1846 has been recently modified so as to allow the legislature to contract a debt to a limited amount to complete the state canals. A majority of the electors in the county who voted on this modification, were in favor of the amendment. The vote was a small one, and affords no evidence of a change of opinion in the county favorable to an unlimited grant of power to the legislature over the credit and finances of the state. This review closes with the year 1854, and will not be resumed by the author of this work.
The governor, in his annual message to the legislature in 1831, had directed attention to the accumulating surplus revenue of the United States, under the operation of the tariff laws, and the senate of this state raised a select committee consisting of Mr. Benton, Mr. Mather and Mr. Deits, to whom that part of the message was committed. The members of the committee gave the subject their early and earnest attention, made up their minds to present a report to the senate, and designated Mr, Benton to prepare it. In the mean time, as Mr. Hammond states, the assembly, on the 10th of March, passed a concurrent resolution, without a division, declaring that the surplus revenue ought to be annually distributed among the several states, without alluding to the constitutional incompetency of congress to act on the subject. I transcribe what Mr. Hammond says in vol. II, of the Political History of New York, page 353.
"It [the resolution ] was sent to the senate, but was by that body referred to a select committee, of which Mr. Benton was chairman, who, on the 4th of April, made a long and able report, in which they discussed the constitutional question in relation to the powers of congress to make the proposed division without decidedly expressing their views on the question. " [Senate Documents of 1831, No. 79. ] Mr. Hammond seems to infer that because the committee withheld a decided expression of opinion as to the constitutional power of congress to make the distribution under the power then vested, that the committee entertained doubts on that subject. This conclusion does great injustice to two of that committee, Messrs. Benton and Deits, at any rate. The whole argument of the report on this point, which Mr. Hammond says was an able one, went to show that congress had no more power to create a surplus for the purpose of distribution, than it would have to build a church, school house or an academy within the territorial limits of one of the states. The committee could not fail to see that they were discussing a subject submitted to their consideration by the executive department of the government, and which had been acted upon by a coordinate branch of the legislature, without any allusion to the constitutional question; and they felt unwilling to meet the difficulties which seemed to them insurmountable, other than by presenting the argument against the exertion of the power by congress in the best possible light and in the most forcible manner they could, and leave the subject without any other expression of opinion. Had the committee entertained any other views, or no decided views at all on the subject under consideration, would they have elaborated an argument in support of principles they repudiated or about which they felt indifferent? There is no subject of constitutional power or legislation, over which the people of this country should be more watchful or guarded than the "money power," wherever it may be exerted, whether by the state or United States.
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