52

COULD FLAGG DESCEND SO LOW! LOOK AT THE NOTE.

made a rush upon this House, and taken us on surprise. The resolution may pass; but if it does, my word for it, we are disgraced in the judgment and good sense of an injured but intelligent community. Whatever the fate of this resolution may be, let it be remembered that Mr. Clinton has acquired a reputation not to be destroyed by the pitiful malice of a few leading partisans of the day. When the contemptible party strifes of the hour shall have passed by, and the political bargainers and jugglers, who now hang round this Capitol for subsistence, shall be overwhelmed and forgotten in their own insignificance-when the gentle breeze shall pass over the tomb of that great man, carrying with it the just tribute of honor and praise which is now withheld-the pen of the future historian, in better days and in better times, will do him justice, and erect to his memory a proud monument of fame, as imperishable as the splendid works which owe their origin to his genius and perseverance. This vote is probably the last that will be given this session, and I pray God it may be such as will not disgrace us in the eyes of our constituents."

Give me a Cunningham and a Clinton for "Native Americans!" Such men will always know how to treat aright foreigner and native, friend and foe. such natives as them any land might be proud. Cunningham's heart was in the right place.

The Assembly concurred with the Senate, 64 to 34. Among those who voted to expel Clinton thus summarily, I find the names of H. Wheaton, now envoy to Berlin; A. C. Flagg, now Comptroller; General James Tallmadge, Isaac Pierson, and Thomas Hyatt. Among his friends were Messrs. Barstow, James Benedict, Campbell, Cooper, John Crary, Furman, McCrea, Isaac Riggs, Thorne, Whiting, Tredwell, Ezra Smith, and Wilkin.

Addresses and resolutions in honor of Clinton were signed on this occasion, by M. Clarkson, W. Bayard, P. Hone, T. A. Emmet, N. Fish, W. Few, C. P. White, S. Whitney, Preserved Fish, C. D. Colden, T. Eddy, R. Bogardus, John Rathbone, and C. G. Haines, New York; and by John Tayler, James McKown, William James, J. H. Wendell, Chandler Starr, Hammond, the historian, Gideon Hawley, Isaiah Townsend, T. Van Vechten, E. Jenkins, S. M. Hop

Van Buren was then a senator and attorney general, and his party, to a man, supported this great wrong, and their presses upheld it. How little of democracy, of justice, of the spirit of free institutions there was in these proceedings, the cool and candid reader is left to judge. The evidence was read openly and was entirely documentary; the proofs were clear and not gainsayed, yet the real representative was shut out till the main business of the session was achieved unjustly; after which the bucktails, to a man, admitted their own dishonest conduct by voting out the intruder almost unanimously. "The democrats in the Assembly," says the N. Y. Evening Post of Feb. 22, “support the Speaker in declaring he will not be bound by the rules of the House; they choose the executive branch of government by means of the vote of a man, who they themselves, after his vote has been given, acknowledge had no business there, but whom they had first permitted to declare, by his own vote, that he had; they published an answer to the Governor's speech which was never accepted; and lastly they say such a proceedure is, in the opinion of this House, unconstitutional and illegal which is so far from the truth, that directly the contrary appears on the face of their own journals. A true specimen of UNBRIDLED democracy." Van Buren would have lost his office of Attorney General had his party acted honestly as judges in this case.

Hammond, who, in many things, displays, to my mind, real independence of character; although Judge Spencer, taking Hammond's own doctrines as a test, seems to show that he was not always so; gives another Peter Allen case in the Senate in 1817, in which Young and Van Buren cut a wretched figure as judges. It is this: In the Western District, two senators were to be chosen-one for four years and another for one, by one election. By law, he, of the two chosen together, who has the most votes, sits four years-the other, one. It was disputed which of the two elected had most votes-the dispute referred to a committee-who reported, that 15,009 votes were given for Isaac Wilson-that 14,985 were given for Jediah Prendergast, 91 for Jedediah Prendergast, and 10 for Jed. Prendergast. Forty-two of the electors who spelled Jedediah swore, to the satisfaction of the senate's committee, that they had intended Jediah, and these 42 added to the 14,985 who had spelled the name right, made 15,027, or 18 more than Wilson, saying nothing of the other 59, which it was clear were also intended for Prendergast. The committee also reported that Wilson had not alleged that there was a Jedediah Prendergast in the district-and, of course, that Jediah P. ought to sit for four years and Isaac Wilson for one. Could there be two opinions on such a question? There were. Van Buren rose in his place and urged his party to call the fewest votes the most and give the long terin to Wilson-and Samuel Young produced the Bible, and said there were in it both Jediah and Jedediah, and hence he would say that Wilson had the most votes. Van Buren's party (all but Walter Bowne) went with him in favor of Wilson, 13 to 11. The two Prendergasts and Wilson did not vote. Lawyers Cantine, Van Buren, Young, Roger Skinner, and Ogden were in the majorityand when we see the father acting thus openly, can we wonder at seeing his profligate son cursing, betting, gambling, fighting in the courts, and using Marcy's mock messages to make money by, as a Wall street stockjobber? The only wonder is, that N. Y. should appoint such a person her attorney general, as if democracy consisted in administering public justice through the most profligate characters in the community. Well might Hammond say (Vol. I., p. 464) that "it would have been more creditable to Young and his friends to have voted without arguing." Roger Skinner's political character may be guessed at from his letter to Hoyt, in page 197, of the Correspondence. In the spring of 1821, I first heard of him from an old friend, Dr. Shaw, of the Albany Academy, who invited me to be present at a public dinner given to Archibald McIntyre, the able, indefatigable, and incorruptible comptroller of the state, whom Skinner and his council had just removed from office, on the simple principle that he was too honest, too great a check upon acting-democrats, such as I am here describing.

WRIGHT AND VAN BUREN PERSECUTING CLINTON.

53

kins, and Alfred Conckling, Albany. The malice of his enemies must have injuriously affected their insulting bargain of the State, which was to be delivered to the minority caucus for Crawford next November.*

Clinton's expulsion was proposed in the Senate, by John Bowman of Monroe, and voted for by Silas Wright, now Governor- Walter Bowne, since Mayor of New York- Charles E. Dudley, successor to Van Buren as U. S. Senator- Jonas Earll, junior, Canal Commissioner, P. M. of Syracuse, &c.- Heman J. Redfield, whom Wright wanted Clinton to make a Judge

Edward P. Livingston, Van Buren's candidate for Lieut. GovernorJudge James Mallory, for whom Marcy had such tender feelings, [p. 199, no. 140.] Perley Keyes, the political schoolmaster of Silas WrightJohn Lefferts, from Long Island- Bowman, the mover- James Burt- Byram Green- James McCall- GreenlyHaight- Col. Farrand Stranahan- John Sudam- Stephen ThornMelancthon Wheeler- Sherman Wooster-and General Jasper Ward, who did not wait to be expelled the Senate, as his history will tell. Some of these men may have acted without thought, but the Wrights, Bownes, Dudleys, Earlls, Stranahans, and Wards, knew what they were about. As Wright says to Van Buren, they did not want to do "journeywork," like the Feds. It wouldn't be their fault if they failed to seize the spoils. When this vote was given, Marcy was Comptroller-his father-in-law, Knower, Treasurer -Croswell printed for the State, and manufactured "opinion" for the retail presses of the party. The men who went this length would have enacted "Joseph's brethren" in Genesis, or driven Mordecai from the king's gate, as we have it in Esther. Bowman got the Rochester Bank charter that season.

Colonel Young was Clinton's successor, as the leading member on the canal board, and approved of his unjust removal. Unlike Clinton, however, the Colonel served for pay, and the commission, instead of being. as it ought, composed of men of various politics and high character, degenerated too much into a mere party machine, to enrich the political leaders and their electioneering dependents. Marcy wrote in the Troy Budget, and Croswell in the Argus, censuring Clinton's canal policy. When it was seen that a few years would complete the work, Clinton, who, with Thomas Eddy, R. R. Livingston, W. North, S. De Witt, S. V. Rensselaer, and G. Morris, had urged on, and reported in favor of the Erie route, 13 years before, was turned out, that the glory might be an undivided halo, encircling only Van Buren's brows.

While on the Canal Board, on which he had a seat as early as 1815, Young, in 1825, wrote, signed, and presented to the legislature a report, in his official capacity, stating his belief, that a parallel canal, or double locks the whole distance, alongside the Eric canal, would soon be indispensable-that the canals would soon pay off their debt and yield a great revenue besides-and that other states would profit by the laudable example of N. Y.-that within ten years the tolls would probably be tripled, and (if not reduced) might, in less than fifty years, amount to $10,000,000. When reminded of this report lately in Senate, he remarked that even now the tolls on the canals would be five millions had they not been reduced. Why then, asked General Clark, did you state in 1839, in your report on finance, that" Human government is, as it always has been, the grave of productive industry :-that every step it takes in endeavoring to carry on works of labor of any kind, is attended with sacrifice and waste to the community, and sinks it deeper and deeper in debt:-that the songs of internal improvement' are libels on the laws of God, and a deadly mildew upon the happiness and prosperity of man that, with reference to canal loans, &c., a convention will be called, which will be in structed to reorganize and remodel our prostrate constitution; and which convention will repudiate the debt; will affix the impress of infamy upon past profligate laws; and erect new barriers for the future!-that the community has been abused and deceived, for years, by the constant reiteration of the falsehood, that the Erie and Champlain canals were enriching the state, whereas, it is a truth within the reach of all, that so far from having paid the cost of their construction, there would be now a debt against them, had they not received the aid of the auction and salt duties of $8,459,069 ?"

On the 17th of August, Young's report, above quoted, appeared in full in the Albany Argus, the editor of which said, "That this is a most able and powerful document no one will deny." Of course he did not say that he concurred in all its positions.

When Young's Internal Improvement Report of 1825 appeared, it was followed by a bill in the Senate for the survey of 19 new canal routes, including the Chenango, Black River, and Genesee Valley-yet in a few years thereafter, he denounced the Chenango canal, affirming that Pennsylvania and New York "had been forced by the demagogues of each, into the hostile attitude of profligate rivalry; and each has been recklessly goaded along by the bloody lash of internal improvement." I ought to state here, that, in 1835 and 1836, he offered an able opposition to the bills for constructing the Chenango and Genesee Valley canals-and that, in his report of 1830, he showed that the Chenango canal would cost over a million of dollars, and that its revenue would not pay, either for interest, repairs, or even superintendence, but give value to the lands of specu lators at the public cost. In the late discussions in Senate, on the extravagant expenditures on the canals, Mr. Wright said, and, I think, truly," Let there be competition in labor, not in mere party fealty. This business of repairs, of repairing the canals, had become a party machine, put in operation just before election, and hence the increase of expenditures." Another senator. Putnam, showed that $500,000 had been paid for neglects to fulfil contracts, in giving which it appears there is enough of favoritism. It seems that two or three millions of the canal funds have passed through Young's hands: but I hear of no case in which he has misapplied them.

54

IN LIFE HE CURSED HIM WHOM IN DEATH HE BLESSED.

Was there a bargain to immolate Clinton and raise Crawford, connected with that sale of the public patrimony, also?

Jedediah Morgan, John Cramer, and Archibald McIntyre (not the comptroller) were its only opponents! They may well feel proud of it.

Allow me to change the scene to 1828-Clinton in his coffin, and Van Buren in Washington, thus addressing the members of Congress relative to the deceased:"The high order of his talents, the untiring zeal and great success with which those talents have, through a series of years, been devoted to the prosecution of plans of great public utility, are known to you all. The greatest public improvement of the age in which we live, was commenced under the guidance of his counsels, and splendidly accomplished under his immediate auspices. The triumphs of his talents and patriotism cannot fail to become monuments of high and enduring fame. I am greatly tempted to envy him the grave with its honors."

let

How like unto Balaam's conduct when Balak sent his princes to induce him to curse Israel, [Numbers xxiii.] was the politic Van Buren's! Balaam wished to curse but durst not. "How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? How shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? Let me die the death of the righteous, and my last end be like his !"* What a commentary upon 1824, was the funeral * In 1819, there was a vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, which a mutual friend of Clinton and of Van Buren, then high in office, told Clinton that Van Buren wished to fill-that he had said so to him, and given as a reason that he was weary of the turmoil of politics--and that it was politic and expedient to give him the judgeship. "As a measure of mere policy," said Clinton, “it might be expedient; but so unprincipled a man do I consider Mr. Van Buren, that I could never justify myself in making such an experiment, merely for the sake of disarming his resentment against me." John Woodworth was appointed, of whom Butler speaks so spitefully in his letters, and Van Buren, Butler, and their confederates, persecuted Clinton till his death, and then-not till then-praised him as the greatest of statesmen and of patriots.

The bitter hatred of Van Buren to Clinton may be inferred from Butler's letters. He was at Sandy Hill when Woodworth was appointed. Van Buren was a Senator at Albany in 1818-19, and was almost violent in his opposition to Rufus King, then a candidate for the U. S. Senate. In December, 1819, he wheeled round to the side of King, wrote a pamphlet on his behalf-and why? He had become satisfied that King was not the friend of Clinton ! "Sensible as I am (says Van Buren) of the great merits of Mr. King, and of the advantages which would probably result from his appointment, still, did I believe that he was opposed to us in the present controversy between the republican party and Mr. Clinton and his followers; could I even suppose that he looked with indifference on the struggle of the great body of our citizens to extricate themselves from an influence [Clinton's] which has so long pressed upon this state, and under which she can never acquire her true clevation in the Union, I have no hesitation in saying, I would oppose his appointment."

Colonel Duane, ever free and fearless, denounced Van Buren and his new allies for their persecution of Clinton. In the Aurora of October, 1821, I find these remarks:

"But why calumniate Mr. Clinton? Because the eminence of his qualifications, and the place which he holds, in the esteem of all intelligent and liberal minds, renders him an object of apprehension to those who are in power, and who look to him as a fearful rival, from the disparity between their faculties, and the place he holds in the eyes and hearts of the people. For this calumny of Mr. C. the publication of the laws, the patronage of the post-office, and all the miserable crumbs of a corrupt system are distributed, showing the melancholy fact that the press may be purchased for a pitiful annual stipend-and perverted into an engine of national degradation."

William L. Stone, in the N. Y. Commercial of Oct. 14, 1828, asks several leading questions of Van Buren's supporters-among them these:

Who, among the whole host of Mr. Clinton's enemies, was so active and so artful as Mr. Van Buren? Who so relentless and so persecuting? What political plan for developing the resources of the state did Mr. Clinton ever devise, that Mr. Van Buren did not attempt either to thwart, or to deprive him of the honor? What path did Mr. Clinton ever propose to travel that Mr. Van Buren did not cross? When did Mr. Clinton ever raise his arm in the public service that Mr. Van Buren did not attempt to paralyze it? When did Mr. Van Buren's hostility to Mr. Clinton ever sleep? Not until the illustrious man slept with his fathers, and the grave had closed upon his remains. Then it was, and not till then, that Mr. Van Buren became aware of the talents, the virtues, the inestimable worth of Mr. Clinton."

VAN BUREN'S CAUCUS, OR DEMOCRACY UPside down.

55

parade of 1828, with Savage, Sutherland, Flagg and Marcy, decorated with scarfs, mourning for Clinton, and among his pall-bearers! What a censure the bill to reward Clinton's invaluable services, by a grant of money to his children, and by the very men whose envy of his talents had denied him, only four years before, the humble privilege of serving his country without fee or reward, poor but disinterested, in the midst of Van Buren's greedy spoilsmen! Andrew Jackson's birthday toast, March 15, 1828, was, "The memory of De Witt Clinton, the Patriot, the Philanthropist, and the distinguished Statesman. In his death, New York has lost one of her most useful sons, and the nation one of its brightest ornaments." Even Ritchie, whose columns had teemed with abuse of Clinton, in former years, was moved; and the Richmond Enquirer thus pronounced his eulogy :-" A great man has fallen in Israel! A man who was designated for the first chair in the nation is cut off in the midst of his honors. But his name will go down to posterity, full of honor, and his works are his monument."

CHAPTER XV.

The Crawford Caucus of 1824.-Van Buren, Cambreleng, and Stevenson trample on the Democratic Principle.-Secret Combination of Regency Leaders.-The Electoral Law.-Monarchical Features in our System.-Flagg, Wright, Earll, Croswell, Van Buren, and the rest of the Albany Oligarchs, uniting to put down Public Opinion-Young up for Governor.-The Old Federalists.-Wright

and the Seventeen.

In one day, in the winter of 1824, two notices appeared in the National Intelligencer-the first calling a meeting or caucus of the members of Congress, to nominate fit persons to fill the offices of President and Vice President of the United States-the other, a declaration signed by R. M. Johnson, John H. Eaton, R. Y. Hayne, S. D. Ingham, Geo. Kremer, J. R. Poinsett, and others, that they had been informed, that of 261 members, 181 were opposed to the caucus, and probably more. On the 14th of February, 66 members attended a caucus at the Capitol: Van Buren moved that they be called by states, and said, "that the people were anxiously waiting for a nomination, and he felt confident that a large portion of the republicans of the Union were decidedly in favor of this mode of nomination, and that it was quite necessary that it should be made." The ballot showed 61 votes for Crawford, 2 for Adams, and 1 each for Macon and Jackson, to be President-and 57 votes for Gallatin, as Vice President. Crawford and Gallatin were nominated.

Among the members taking part in this wonderful piece of imposture, were C. C. Cainbreleng, Andrew Stevenson, Lewis Eaton, Lot Clark, P. P. Barbour, and John Forsyth. Even if the practice of a virtual election of the President by Congress, through a caucus, had been defensible, a caucus in favor of one, where all the candidates were of one party, was confining the people's choice to one person, and thus stifling public opinion and rescinding in so far the constitution.*

The state of North Carolina had, in 1818, proposed, as amendments to the U. S. constitution, that the representatives in congress should be chosen by separate districts, made as equal in population as possible by the several state legislatures; each district to elect one member by the votes of its qualified electors--and that, for the purpose of electing electors of presi

56

BUCKTAIL PRINCIPLES.

ROTTEN BOROUGHS OUT OF ENGLAND.

in January, 1824, there might be seen the really paradoxical spectacle of a body of men in the legislature, arrogating to themselves the exclusive title of republicans, the democracy, who were unwearied in endeavoring to defeat the people's instructions, by giving the go-by to a law required by the whole state, giving to the country, and not reserving to party leaders in the Legislature, the election of electors of President and Vice President. I hope the day draws near in which the people will vote directly for the men of their choice to these offices, and that on the same day too, throughout the republic.

By reference to B. F. Butler's letters, pp. 168, 169, and to Hoyt's, Croswell's, Van Buren's, Skinner's, and Livingston's, pp. 193 to 198, it will be seen that there was a secret combination among the leaders to keep power from the people, and to use it contrary to their well known will. "If Clinton is very dangerous, (says Livingston,) they [the party in the legislature] will go one way; and if it is thought he cannot make any difficulty, they will go t'other way. "The patriots thus acting for Van Buren and Crawford, had the assurance to talk of a bargain between President Adams and Secretary Clay!! A. C. Flagg seems to have been the leader of the oligarchs in the Assembly. His press, the Plattsburgh Republican, and also the Albany Argus, had come out in favor of the measure before the election, and then moved round to another course.* dent and vice president, each state ought to be divided into separate districts, as many as it was entitied to electors; each of said districts to be contiguous, and convenient for the people to meet in, and to choose one representative. This was the district system, both for electors and Congressmen, and eleven Senators, including Bowne, Skinner, Seymour, and Livingston, (Peter R.,) supported it. Samuel Young, Van Buren, Cantine, Tibbets, and six others, opposed it. Several years after, in the U. S. Senate, Van Buren proposed to divide each of the states into as many districts as its number of electors-each district to choose one elector-the electors, so chosen, to meet and vote for president and vice president; and in case no one candidate had a majority of their voices, they were to be convened again, to vote for one of the two candidates to whom they had given the most votes before; and then, if the votes were equal, and no choice made, the House of Representatives were to make a choice. He agitated this question for three years, and others have kept some reform or other before the community ever since, but no steady and connected effort has been made to afford a real remedy for a great and serious difficulty.

There are many features in the United States system of government that approach much nearer to the British and French monarchical plan, than to democracy. In the OBSERVER, New York, 20th December, 1823, the editor says:

"Our readers are aware that, as the constitution now stands, if the electors fail to choose on the first trial, the choice devolves on the House of Representatives, and that in this case the representatives of each state are entitled to one vote. The present number of states in the Union is twenty-four. Thirteen are a majority. The population of the United States, in 1820, was nearly 10000,000. Thirteen states can be selected, whose joint population is less than 2,200,000. Of course, it is possible that 1,100,000 persons, or a little more than one-tenth part of the population of the United States, may legally appoint the President of the United States, in opposition to the will of the other nine-tenths. This case, moreover, is not a solitary one. It is a fact, that the principle which we so strongly condemn in the English rotten borough system, pervades every part of the constitution of the United States, and threatens, in the end, to be as ruinous to the rights of the people in this country, as it has been in Great Britain. The treaty-making power is vested by the constitution in the President and two-thirds of the Senate. Two-thirds of the Senate represent two-thirds of the states that is, at present, sixteen out of twenty-four. Sixteen states can be selected, whose joint population does not exceed 3,400,000. It is possible, therefore, that treaties may be made in opposition to the wishes of two-thirds of the American people."

Under the last Congressional apportionment, a presidential election, if carried into the House of Representatives, might be decided against a candidate supported by more than two-thirds of the population, property, and representation in that House, of the whole Union, and in favor of a candidate not voted for by even one-third of these. The slave representation makes this state of things still worse. Jackson, in 1825, had but three votes out of seventy-three, in New York and New England; but Van Buren united interests with him in 1828, and, with the help of the contractors, office-seekers, lawers, and editors, converted many, myself among the

number.

On the 3d of August, at a special session in Senate, Mr. Ogden moved a resolution "that it is expedient to pass a law at the present meeting of the legislature, giving to the people of