USA > New York > New York : the planting and the growth of the Empire state, Vol. II > Part 12
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The right of suffrage, the judiciary system, the council, and the powers of the governor, were the chief topics of consideration. The agreement was general that a council to revise acts passed by both houses should no longer ex- ist, and instead the veto was given to the gover- nor only after considerable debate. A council
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for appointment had no advocates ; the choice of certain officers was given to the legislature on separate nomination in the two houses, with joint ballot in case of disagreement ; while others were to be appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the senate. Sheriffs and county clerks, who had been ap- pointed by the council at Albany and were thus chosen the chiefs of political action in their lo- calities, were made elective by the people, and ceased to be factors in State patronage. The policy then adopted has ever since been main- tained and extended, several State offices hav- ing since been filled by popular election instead of by the legislature. The abolition of the council and the enlargement of the executive authority were in the direction of simplicity and concentration of responsibility. The term of the governor was changed from three to two years, after full deliberation over motions for one year and three years respectively. After an experience of half a century, this term was changed to three years again by a constitutional amendment adopted by vote of the people No- vember, 1874. The senatorial districts were increased from four to eight, with four senators from each ; and the assembly was placed at one hundred and twenty - eight members. The number in each house of the legislature has
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not since been changed, much as the popula- tion has increased.
Over the question of suffrage the debate was varied and prolonged. Slavery had been abol- ished by statutes, first, declaring all persons free born after July 4, 1799 ; and second, by a declaration adopted in 1817, on the recommenda- tion of Governor Tompkins, that all the iuhab- itants of New York should be free after July 4, 1827. The prejudice of color was still strong, and while, up to 1821, no distinction in suffrage was made on account of color, then the ballot, although given to all other males who were resi- dents and paid taxes or were legally exempt, or who served in the militia or as firemen, was de- nied to colored men who were not owners of land to the value of 8250. In 1846 all prop- erty qualification was abolished for whites ; but only 85,306 voters declared for equal suffrage to colored men, while 223,834 pronounced against it. A . negative was again rendered in 1860, 197,505 to 337.934, at the height of the anti-slavery agitation. In 1869, 282.403 electors insisted on the property qualification for colored persons, while 249,802 cast their ballots against it. This vestige of prejudice dis- appeared only under the fifteenth amendment to the national constitution in 1870. Upon that amendment the action of the State was
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contradictory. After giving the assent of New York in 1869, by a vote of seventeen to fifteen in the senate and seventy-two to forty-seven in the assembly, the legislature, by a change in the political majority in January, 1870, was induced to pass resolutions by which it " with- drew absolutely any expression of consent there- tofore given." President Giant and the sec- retary of state in Washington, however, did not recognize this recantation, and the former in a message to congress declared the amend- ment adopted, while the latter, in his pro- clamation of March 30, 1870, included New York among the States joining in the ratifica- tion. In 1872 the resolution "purporting to withdraw the assent of the people of the State, previously given, to the fifteenth amendment to the federal constitution," was formally re- seinded ; and that was the final declaration of New York in favor of equal rights at the polls, regardless of color.
The convention of 1821 retained the curiously constructed court for the correction of errors ; reduced the supreme court to a chief justice and two assistant justices, with a right of appeal to the first-mentioned tribunal, and established circuit courts in eight districts, with judges in each ; gave the chancellor an assistant, and jurisdiction of equity cases, while the minor
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courts were left unchanged. The judicial offi- cers were appointed by the governor.
The constitution as amended was adopted by the people in February, 1822. During the twenty-five years of its existence, ten different proposals for amendments were submitted to the electors, who decided against choosing pres- idential electors by districts, but in favor of extending the franchise, in favor of electing mayors by the people, and in 1846 for no li- cense except in the city of New York.
The commonwealth grew not only in popula- tion, but in all the elements of progress and prosperity and power, and by the census of 1845 was shown to contain 2,604,495 inhabi- tants. Legislation had tended to the substitu- tion of rights for privileges granted as favors. The tenure of land, especially under the claims of the patroons, had caused difficulties for which remedies were sought; and the large expen- ditures for internal improvements, involving heavy indebtedness, prompted demands for safe- guards for the creditor and the taxpayer. The judiciary system had confessedly become inade- quate, and required radical reformation. When, therefore, in 1845, the electors were called upon to decide whether a convention should be held to amend the State constitution. 213,257 voted in the affirmative, against 33,860 in the nega-
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tive. The convention met June 1, 1846, but soon adjourned until October 9, when it pro- ceeded with its task. Jolin Tracy of Chenango presided ; and among the members were Ira Harris-of Albany, George W. Patterson of Chautauqua, Michael Hoffman and Arphaxed Loomis of Herkimer, Samuel J. Tilden of New York, Samuel Nelson of Otsego, and others emi- nent at home and in State affairs. The conven- tion dealt radically with the principles of gov- ernment. The new constitution gave to the people the election of many officers before ap- pointed at Albany. It provided for the election of members of both houses of the legislature by separate districts. Instead of the cumbrous court for the correction of errors, it established an independent court of appeals. It abolished the court of chancery and the circuit courts, and merged both into the supreme court, and defined the jurisdiction of county courts. All judges were to be elected by the people. Feu- dal tenures were abolished, and no leases on agricultural lands for a longer period than twelve years were to be valid, if any rent or service were reserved. The financial articles established sinking funds for both the canal and general fund debt, forbade the loan of the credit of the State, and limited rigidly the power of the legislature to create debts, except
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to repel invasion or suppress insurrection, and declared the school and literature funds invio- late. Provision was made for general laws for the formation of corporations. The constitu- tion required the submission to the people once every twenty years of the question whether a convention shall be called or not.
The excellence of the work of the convention of 1846 is proved by the fact that, adopted by the people by a majority of more than two to one, it still stands as the basis of our fundamen- tal law. Amendments have been introduced by popular vote, but a proposition for a new convention was rejected in 1858; and although a convention was ordered in 1866, the constitu- tion recommended by it was rejected, 223,935 to 290,456, and only its judiciary article was accepted. That convention assembled June 4, 1867, and its sessions were not closed until February 28, 1868. William A. Wheeler. after- wards vice-president of the United States, pre- sided ; and it contained thirty - two delegates at large, chosen equally from the two parties, and including many of their most distinguished representatives, while the remaining members. elected by senatorial districts, were selected with a view to the best talent and experience. The judiciary article made changes in the com- position of the court of appeals, and established
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for three years a commission of appeals ; it also gave the legislature authority to fix de- partments for the supreme court. The article was carried by only a small majority. Among amendments subsequently submitted, was a proposition in 1873 for the appointment of judges by the governor instead of their elec- tion by the people, and the voters pronounced in the negative by a majority exceeding a hun- dred thousand.
In 1872 the legislature empowered Governor Hoffman to appoint four persons from each judicial district to form a commission to pro- pose amendments to the constitution. Robert H. Pruyn of Albany was chosen chairman, and the commission sat from December 4, 1872, to March 15, 1873. The legislature disapproved of a recommendation for the appointment by the governor and senate of certain State officers. Amendments were agreed upon, and submitted to the people in 1874, relating to suffrage and bribery, to official corruption, to the powers of the legislature and of the executive, and to finances and the canals. More rigid restric- tions were established relative to grants to cor- porations, and to the ability of local authorities to spend money and create obligations, while the principle of general legislation in the place of special legislation was further extended. In
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1876 amendments were adopted by the people giving to the governor and senate the appoint- ment of the superintendents of public works and of State prisons.
The constitution of New York has thus been a growth and a development. _ Male suffrage has become universal ; and the legislature, rep- resenting in both houses the entire people, is restricted in the bestowal of privileges and the creation of debts. The executive power is well defined, extending to a veto over legislation, and to the appointment, by and with the advice of the senate, of a limited number of officers. The judiciary system is graded from the justices of the peace and the county and surrogate's courts to the supreme court in circuit and gen- eral term, and the final tribunal, the court of appeals. Town, city, and county authorities have spheres which are plainly bounded. All power is derived from the people, who act in the mode established by themselves in the con- stitution.
The statutes of the commonwealth have gen- erally embodied, as did those of the colony, the spirit of toleration, of stability with progress, of liberty and security. A striking exception was the law passed July 31, 1700, while Eng- land was agitated over the plots of the Stuarts, by which " every Jesuit and seminary priest,
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missionary, or other spiritual or ecclesiastical person," ordained by or deriving " any author- ity from the Pope of Rome," was required to depart from the colony; and if he remained and acted as such he was to suffer perpetual im- prisonment, and in case of escape from prison and recapture he was to "suffer the pains of death." While this law was not formally re- pealed until July 20, 1784, although practically cancelled by the adoption of the State constitu- tion, it was certainly, after the earlier years, a nullity, for the people were hospitable to all creeds and churches.
On the recommendation of congress, New York took steps to join with the other middle States and New England in a combination, by the acts of their legislatures, " to regulate the wages of mechanics and laborers, the prices of goods and commodities, and the charges of inn- holders." The law of New York was passed April 3, 1778, and was a war measure. But the combination failed, and October 28 of the same year the act was repealed, with the dec- laration that "it had not answered the salu- tary purposes for which it was intended, by reason of the neglect or refusal of some of the other United States to pass similar laws."
The attempt to " carry into execution a gen- eral limitation of prices," by joint action of the
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several legislatures, was again recommended by congress, and New York loyally responded by an act passed February 26, 1780. The rates are all those of a war standard and of paper money, but even as such they may well be studied, as an index of the condition of the country, and of one phase of its legislation. Some of the prices are thus given :
It is hereby enacted that all articles of domestic produce, farming and common labor, the wages of tradesmen and mechanics, shall not exceed the fol- lowing rates, viz. : Good merchantable wheat, twenty dollars per bushel; peas and white beans, twenty dollars per bushel ; good merchantable wheat flour, fifty-six dollars per hundred, gross weight ; good mer- chantable rye, thirteen dollars per bushel ; good mer- chantable Indian corn, eleven dollars per bushel ; good merchantable buckwheat, eight dollars per bushel; good merchantable oats, seven dollars per bushel ; pork, well fatted, eighty-nine dollars per neat hundred weight, and in the same proportion for a greater or lesser quantity ; best grass-fed beef. six shillings per pound ; best stall-fed beef, in the month of January seven shillings per pound, in the month of February eight shillings per pound. in the month of March nine shillings per pound, in the month of April ten shillings per pound, in the month of May eleven shillings per pound, in the mouth of June twelve shillings per pound ; good butter, by the firkin or cask, eighteen shillings per pound; good
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fresh butter by the small quantity, twenty-one shil- lings per pound ; American cheese of the best qual- ity, twelve shillings per pound ; rendered tallow, six- teen shillings per pound ; rendered hog's lard, twelve shillings per pound ; raw hides, seven shillings per pound ; sole-leather, four dollars per pound, and all kinds of curried leather not to exceed twenty fold of the price thereof in the year one thousand seven hun- dred and seventy-four.
The act also fixed the prices to be paid for manu- factured articles, for transportation, for labor of all kinds, and the rates which innkeepers might charge for entertainment and for liquors.
This statute is hardly a type of the laws of New York. It was enacted in direct response to the recommendation of congress, and serves to show the loyalty of the State rather than the judgment of its own people of the sphere of law even in time of war. The legislature took the precaution to provide that it should not take effect until the governor should issue his procla- mation, that Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania had passed acts of the same pur- port. Those States never took such action, and this act therefore never went into effect.
The progress of legislation may be traced in the treatment of banking. From the organiza- tion of the State until 1838, special charters were required for banks, and these were awarded
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as matter of favor to politicians. By the con- stitution of 1821, such charters could only be granted by the assent of two-thirds of the mem- bers of both branches of the legislature, instead of a simple majority, as before; and the addi- tional restriction tended to aggravate the evils of the system. A safety-fund was established in 1829, and each bank contributed a percent- age to guarantee the payment of the debts of any of the banking institutions; the plan, owing to defects of detail, was only partially success- ful. The stock of these banks was, as pre- viously, distributed as a matter of favoritism. The principle of restriction was rigidly enforced, and by restraining acts, associations other than those duly chartered were forbidden to receive deposits or transact a banking business; and later, individuals were forbidden to engage in such transactions, and "currency in the simili- tude of bank - notes " was prohibited except such as was issued by the chartered banks. Their monopoly was complete until the free banking system was established. April 13, 1:38, under which associations were authorized with provisions equal for all, and the business ceased to be the privilege of the few, and franchises were open for all citizens alike. The constitu- tion of 1846 embodied the principle that no special charter should be granted for banking
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purposes, but that such corporations should be organized only under general laws. The same movement from favoritism by legislation to equal rights and privileges for all citizens, has taken place with reference to other classes of corporations, and may be taken as an expres- sion of the spirit of the jurisprudence of the commonwealth.
That spirit well deserves to be-studied in the general current and volume of the statutes, and in the progress which a century has recorded. The laws of New York, as they stand, are in large part the product of the jurists who have made its name illustrious. They were put into system and symmetry by the early revisers. James Kent and Jacob Radcliff began the work of revision, and published the result of their labors in 1802, and at not distant intervals the statutes have been repeatedly revised, often by some of the best minds at the bar. The decis- ions of the courts have expounded and harmon- ized the laws and their application, and some- times have led to important legislation. Thus our statute books embody whatever has else- where been developed as wise and efficacious in securing the rights of person and property, with order and security, and liberal care for charities and education.
The court of chancery in its palmy days, the
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court of appeals and the supreme court, have been adorned by talent and character, inviting comparison with any tribunals known among men. Chancellors R. R. Livingston and James Kent, Chief Justices William Smith, Lewis Morris, John Jay, John Savage, Greene C. Bronson and Samuel Beardsley, and Associate Justices Hiram Denio, Alexander S. Johnson, also on the bench of the United States circuit court, and Ward Hunt, who became a judge of the supreme court of the United States, are authors of decisions that adorn legal literature; while justices of the general term and of the cir- cuits, in later years, do not suffer the dignity and learning and efficiency of the bench to fall from its high standard. Under such influences, the bar of the commonwealth ought to exem- plify, as it has always done, the highest qualities of intellect, discipline, and eloquence.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
POLITICAL AFFAIRS, AND CHIEFS IN . THEM.
ยท 1825-1846.
THE completion of the Erie Canal, and its early financial success, lifted De Witt Clinton to the summit of power within the State. Daniel D. Tompkins retired from the vice- presidency in March, 1825, and died June 11 next, broken in habits and clouded in reputa- tion on account of troubles growing out of his transactions for the State during the war, upon which the comptroller made him a debtor for $110,000, although long after, he was shown to be a creditor for $92,000. As his successor in leading the opposition to Clinton, Martin Van Buren had risen. He had served from 1812 to 1820 in the State senate, and in the convention of 1821 he had been the champion of radical democracy ; he was chosen United States sen- ator the same year, serving by reelection until 1829. His active supporters were the men who were known as the "Albany regency," and who long governed the democratic party. In
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1824 Mr. Van Buren was active in intrigues against William H. Crawford, the democratic candidate for president, and shrewd politicians then and afterward argued that the conduct of New York democrats led to his defeat. Mr. Crawford's friends were in the minority in the legislature, and an agreement was made by the majority to divide the electors between Adams and Clay. When the choice was made, how- ever, Adams secured thirty-two electors and Crawford four. By this breach of faith to- wards him, Clay failed to be among the high- est three candidates, and so his name could not be taken before the house of representatives, which, in consequence, elected John Quincy Adams president.
Parties were in a chaotic condition in the State at this time. A " people's party " arose in 1824, that finally supported Clinton for gov- ernor ; but the Clintonians still maintained a separate existence, while the " bucktails " and " Albany regency " were organizing the demo- crats, and the federalists remained at least as a ghost to conjure against. Opinions relative to the canals, and the benefits to be secured by lo- calities, affected political action. Clinton held that, since the public works increased the gen- eral wealth of the State, they were a good in- vestment; while others argued that, unless their
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revenues met expenditures and interest on their account, they should be treated as burdens, or even as evils. The situation was still further aggravated by an episode in politics peculiar to New York. The society of free-masons in- cluded a large number of the foremost citizens in all walks of life, and the belief existed that they used their secret ties to advance their am- bitions. So intelligent a writer as Jabez D. . Hammond, in his " Political History," declares "that a majority of persons holding official po- sitions in the State were masons. Legislative, judicial, and executive officers - from presi- dents and governors to deputy marshals and constables ; from judges of the supreme court to justices of the peace; and from the grave and reverend senator to the town-meeting orator- were, I religiously believe, solemnly pledged to perform the obligations and keep the secrets of masonry." This belief was used to create pre- judice among those who were not members, and it added fuel to the fires of faction.
At this juncture, September 11, 1826, Wil- liam Morgan, of Batavia, a free-mason, who had announced his intention to print a pamphlet exposing the secrets of masonry, was arrested on a charge of larceny, made by the master of a masonic lodge. but found not guilty, and then arrested for debt, and imprisoned in jail at
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Canandaigua. He was taken secretly from that jail and conveyed to Fort Niagara, where he was kept until September, when he disappeared. The masons were charged with his abduction, and a body found in the Niagara River was produced as proof that he was drowned to put him out of the way. Thurlow Weed, then an editor in Rochester, was aggressive in charging that Morgan was murdered by the masons, and as late as 1882 he published an affidavit re- hearsing a confession made to him by John Whitney, that the drowning was in fact perpe- trated by himself and four other persons whom he named, after a conference in a masonic lodge. In 1827 Weed, who was active in iden- tifying the drowned body, was charged with mutilating it to make it resemble Morgan, and the imputation was often repeated; and the abduction and murder were in turn laid at the door of the anti-masons. The disappearance became the chief topic of partisan discussion. De Witt Clinton was one of the highest officers in the masonic order, and it was alleged that he commanded that Morgan's book should be " suppressed at all hazards," thus instigating the murder ; but the slander was soon exposed. The State was flooded with volumes portraying masonry as a monstrous conspiracy, and the literature of the period was as harrowing as a series of sensational novels.
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Clinton was no longer to ask for the suffrages of the people. Still governor under the elec- tion of 1826, he was talked about as a candi- date for president, but refused to allow his name to be used, and to the surprise of the friends of President Adams, who had invited him to be his secretary of state, gave his influ- ence to the nomination of Andrew Jackson. By the death of De Witt Clinton, February 11, 1828, the most dominant personal power was removed from the State. The animosities against him had lost not a little of their bitter- ness ; his transcendent services were admitted even by his opponents, while his eulogists pro- nounced him the " Pericles of our common- wealth." He devoted his learning and his ora- tory, which was elegant and impressive al- though not magnetic, to the history and inter- ests of New York; and if his contemporaries found him lacking in the arts and attractions that win popularity, subsequent generations concede to him the higher merits of a sincere and constructive statesman.
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