A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3   By: De Alva Stanwood Alexander (1845-1925)

Inconsistent spellings and hyphenations such as "re election" and "reëlection" have been conformed, and obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

The original contains an index in Volume II covering Volumes I and II. Volume III, which was published later, contains an index covering all three volumes. Therefore, the Volume II index has been omitted.

The original of Volume III refers to both "Appleton's Encyclopedia " and "Appleton's Cyclopædia ." The correct title, as used in Volumes I and II, is "Appleton's Cyclopædia " and has been corrected in Volume III.]

A POLITICAL HISTORY

OF THE

STATE OF NEW YORK

BY

DeALVA STANWOOD ALEXANDER, A.M.

Member of Congress, Formerly United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York

VOL. I

1774 1832

[Illustration]

NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1906

Copyright, 1906 By HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

PREFACE

The preparation of this work was suggested to the author by the difficulty he experienced in obtaining an accurate knowledge of the movements of political parties and their leaders in the Empire State. "After living a dozen years in New York," wrote Oliver Wolcott, who had been one of Washington's Cabinet, and was afterwards governor of Connecticut, "I don't pretend to comprehend their politics. It is a labyrinth of wheels within wheels, and it is understood only by the managers." Wolcott referred to the early decades of the last century, when Clintonian and Bucktail, gradually absorbing the Federalists, severed the old Republican party into warring factions. In later years, Daniel S. Dickinson spoke of "the tangled web of New York politics"; and Horace Greeley complained of "the zigzag, wavering lines and uncouth political designations which puzzled and wearied readers" from 1840 to 1860, when Democrats divided into Conservatives and Radicals, Hunkers and Barnburners, and Hards and Softs; and when Whigs were known as Conscience and Cotton, and Woollies and Silver Grays. More recently James Parton, in his Life of Andrew Jackson , speaks of "that most unfathomable of subjects, the politics of the State of New York."

There is no attempt in this history to catalogue the prominent public men of New York State. Such a list would itself fill a volume. It has only been possible, in the limited space given to over a century, to linger here and there in the company of the famous figures who rose conspicuously above their fellow men and asserted themselves masterfully in influencing public thought and action. Indeed, the history of a State or nation is largely the history of a few leading men, and it is of such men only, with some of their more prominent contemporaries, that the author has attempted to write.

It would be hard to find in any Commonwealth of the Union a more interesting or picturesque leadership than is presented in the political history of the Empire State. Rarely more than two controlling spirits appear at a time, and as these pass into apogee younger men of approved capacity are ready to take their places. None had a meteoric rise, but in his day each became an absolute party boss; for the Constitution of 1777, by creating the Council of Appointment, opened wide the door to bossism. The abolition of the Council in 1821 doubtless made individual control more difficult, but the system left its methods so deeply impressed upon party management that what before was done under the sanction of law, ever after continued under the cover of custom.