USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 46
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* The Council of Revision, as we have observed on page 259, like the Council of Ap- pointment, was a part of the machinery of the Executive Department of the State Gov- erminent. It possessed and exercised the veto power. All bills passed by the Legislature were submitted to its inspection and revision before becoming laws. But if, after bills had been rejected and returned to the Legislature with objections stated, by the Council of Revision, they should again be passed, by a vote of two thirds, they became laws. This council, after an existence of about forty years, was abolished by the Convention of 1821, and its power lodged in the hands of the governor by the Constitution framed that year. During its existence the Council returned one hundred and sixty-nine bills, with their objections, to the Legislature. Fifty-one of the bills so returned were passed into laws by the Legislature by a two-thirds vote.
455
CONVENTION TO REVISE THE STATE CONSTITUTION.
of Superintendent of Common Schools, and assigned the duties of that official to the Secretary of State.
So eager were the people for a revision of the State Constitution that at the April election (1821), when the subject was submitted to them, there was a majority of nearly seventy-five thousand votes in favor of a convention. On the third Tuesday in June elections of delegates to a constitutional convention were held throughout the State. Some of the most distinguished men in the commonwealth were chosen delegates, some of them having been selected on account of their superior ability rather than for any partisan consideration ; yet a larger portion of the representatives were Democrats.
The convention assembled at the Capitol " in the city of Albany on Angust 28th, when one hundred and ten delegates were present. They presented an array of talent, experience, and weight of personal character unsurpassed by any similar body of men ever before assembled in the republie. t They chose Vice-President Tompkins to preside over their deliberations, and John F. Bacon and Samnel L. Gardiner to record the proceedings. William L. Stone, editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser ; N. H. Carter, of the Statesman ; and M. I. Cantine were the official reporters.
The convention remained in session nearly two months and a half, and made many important changes in the fundamental law of the State. The debates, especially those concerning the right of suffrage, were marked by signal ability, and were exceedingly interesting. The labors
* The State Capitol at that time stood on the site of the new one not yet (1887) com- pleted, at the head of State Street, one hundred and thirty feet above tide-water. Its corner-stone was laid in 1806. It was a substantial stone building, veneered with brown sandstone from quarries below the Hudson Highlands. The columns, pilasters, and decorations of the doors and windows were of white or gray marble from Berkshire. Mass. As it was in part designed for city offices, it was erected in part at the expense of the city of Albany. The whole expense was a trifle over $120,000, of which amount the city paid $34,000. It was begun in 1803 and finished in 1807.
+ The following gentlemen were among the most distinguished delegates elected by the Democrats : Nathan Sandford, Jacob Radcliff, William Paulding, Henry Wheaton, Ogden Edwards, John Oliver, Samuel Nelson (afterward chief-justice of the State), Martin Van Buren, Daniel D. Tompkins, Samuel Young, Jacob Sutherland, Erastus Root, Rufus King (the latter had been a very prominent leader among the Federalists), General James Tallmadge, and Peter R. Livingston. Those most distinguished who were elected by the other party were Stephen van Rensselaer, Chancellor Kent, Ambrose Spencer. Abraham van Vechten, William W. Van Ness, Elisha Williams, J. Rutsen van Rensselaer, Peter A. Jay, Judge Jonas Platt, and Ezekiel Baum. The labor of reporting and preparing for the press the proceedings of the convention was performed almost wholly by Colonel W. L. Stone. It was done with remarkable accuracy.
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of the convention were ended on November 10th (1821), when it ad- journed sine die .*
Allotted space will allow only brief allusion to the most important labors of the convention and the chief new features given to the instru- ment then adopted. The subjects of (1) the Legislative Department ; (2) the Executive Department ; (3) the Judiciary Department ; (+) the Council of Revision ; (5) the Council of Appointment ; (6) the Right of Suffrage ; (7) the Rights and Privileges of Citizens ; (8) Miscellaneous Matters ; (9) the Legislative Year and Terms of Elective Officers ; (10) the Mode of Making Future Amendments, were referred to standing committees.
The Legislative Department was declared to consist of a Senate com- posed of thirty-two members, distributed equally over eight Senate dis- tricts, elected for four years, one fourth of this number going out each year and presided over by the lieutenant-governor, with a casting vote ; and an Assembly consisting of one hundred and twenty-eight members. apportioned among the several counties according to population, and annually elected.
The Executive Department to consist of a governor and lieutenant- governor to be elected biennially, and the several State officers, with the exception of the adjutant-general, chosen by joint ballot of the Senate and Assembly once in every three years. Sheriffs, county clerks, and coroners to be elected by the people of the several counties for a term of three years.
The judiciary system was remodelled by the substitution of cirenit courts in eight judicial districts into which the State was divided, in place of the previous system of trials of important issues before one of the judges of the Supreme Court ; the reduction of the Supreme Court to a chief-justice and two assistant justices, with the right of appeal to the Senate, chancellor, and judges of the Supreme Court, sitting as a court for the correction of errors, the several judges to hold office until the age of sixty years, unless previously removed for cause ; and the appointment of a chancellor, for the determination of all cases of equity" jurisdiction, subject to the same right of appeal. Judges of the county courts of Common Pleas and justices of the peace to be appointed by the governor and Senate.
* It was during this year that Martin Van Buren was chosen to represent the State of New York in the Senate of the United States, a field commensurate with his ambitious aspirations and his eminent intellectual ability. He now entered the arena of national politics, and rose to the highest station in the republic.
457
IMPORTANT FEATURES OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION.
The Couneils of Revision and Appointment * were abolished. The functions of the latter were devolved upon the governor and the Senate, and of the former upon the governor, who was vested with the veto power.
The right of suffrage was extended to every male citizen of the age of twenty-one years and upward, with no other restrictions than that of residence and exemption from criminal conviction, and the requisition of a freehold qualification of $250, in the case of colored voters.
A section requiring the eall of future conventions for the amendment of the Constitution on the expiration of each period of twenty years thereafter was adopted. Also another, authorizing the Legislature, in the mean time, by a two-thirds vote, to submit any amendment deemed requisite to a popular vote for its ratification. At a special election held in February, 1822, the new Constitution was ratified and adopted by a majority of thirty four thousand votes.
* The Council of Appointment was one of the most gigantic political machines subject to partisan purposes ever put in motion. That it did not work more political mischief than it did must be credited to the prevalence of great public virtue. At the time of its abolition the Council had at its disposal six thousand six hundred and sixty-three eivil offices and eight thousand two hundred and eighty-seven military offices. The patronage dispensed by the civil officers was enormous in amount. The Council could appoint and dismiss at pleasure, and as its political complexion was subject to frequent and sudden changes, the tenure of office was as weak as a rope of sand. Such a condition was most demoralizing to the civil service,
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE population of the State of New York at the time of the adoption of the new Constitution was about one million four hundred thousand, of whom forty thousand were colored, including a little more than ten thousand slaves. Albany, the political capital of the State, contained between twelve and thirteen thousand inhabitants, and New York City, its commercial metropolis, had a population of one hundred and twenty- five thousand. Its agricultural products ; its mineral resources ; its manufactures, commerce, and trade ; its accumulated wealth and its political influence in the nation gave New York even then a fair claim to the title of The Empire State.
The Algerine corsairs in the Mediterranean Sea had been suppressed and the piratical Barbary Powers had been humbled by a squadron of the United States Navy, commanded by Commodore Decatur .* Ameri- can commerce, thus untrammelled, was making its way even to the Levant and the Golden Horn, and her white-winged ships flecked the seas of far-off India. New York had begun to send its argosies everywhere, and held a proud position among its sister commonwealths. Sagacious men saw clearly that it was at the entrance upon a far more wonderful career of commercial activity and general prosperity than ever before, for the Erie Canal, with all its possibilities foreshadowed, was well advanced toward completion.
But little of importance was done by the Legislature which convened early in Jannary, 1822, excepting to provide for setting in motion the machinery of civil government under the amended Constitution. Gov- ernor Clinton congratulated the Legislature upon the great progress made in the construction of the canals-the Erie and the Champlain- and recommended various modifications of the civil and criminal laws.
* Commodore Stephen Decatur was sent to the Mediterranean with a squadron to humble the Barbary Powers and to break up the nests of pirates that infested those waters. He captured two pirate vessels and then sailed for Algiers, when he demanded the instant surrender of all American prisoners, full indemnity for all property destroyed by English vessels which were allowed to enter his harbor, and absolute relinquishment of all claim to tribute from the United States. The Dey of Algiers yielded. Decatur then visited Tunis and Tripoli with a similar result. He received from the two latter powers $71,000. This cruise gave full security to American commerce in the Mediterranean Sea.
459
" THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING."
The new Constitution having provided that no lottery should there- after be authorized in the State, and the sale of tickets prohibited except- ing in lotteries already established, two persons (Messrs. Yates and McIntyre) were appointed managers of the State Lottery for the pro- vision of funds for colleges, ete. At the termination of this lottery soon afterward this vieious system of supporting institutions of learning in the State was abandoned forever.
The new Constitution changed the time for holding the general State elections from April to November. Mr. Clinton was not renominated for governor. Indeed, in the gradual disintegration of parties then in progress, the Clintonian party had nearly disappeared. So, also, had the Federal Party in the State. There was unu- snal qniet in the political arena throughont the republic. This state of things gave to the second term of Mr. Monroe's adminis- tration the title of "The Era of Good Feeling." Joseph C. Yates, # of Schenectady, was elected Governor of New York with no other opposition than a few scattering votes in differ- ent parts of the State given for JOSEPH C. VATES. Solomon Southwiek, a self-nom- inated candidate for governor. Both branches of the Legislature were overwhelmingly Democratic.
At the first meeting of the Legislature under the amended Constitution (January, 1823) measures were taken for adjusting the government machinery in accordance with its requirements. John Savage was made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Jacob Sutherland and John Woodworth were created associate justices. Nathan Sandford was ap- pointed Chancellor ; J. Van Ness Yates, Secretary of State ; W. L.
# Judge Yates was born in Schenectady, N. Y., in November, 1768, and died there in March, 1837. He was a son of Colonel Christopher Yates of the Revolution ; gained eminence as a lawyer, and from 1803 till 1822 was a judge of the State Supreme Court. He was one of the founders of Union College, in 1795 ; was Mayor of Schenectady in 1798, and State senator in 1806-1807. He was governor of the State in 1823-24, and after- ward remained in private life.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
Marcy, Comptroller ; S. A. Talcott, Attorney-General, and Simeon De Witt, Surveyor-General, an office he had then held about fifty years. To the classical taste of Mr. De Witt the interior of the State of New York is indebted for its burden of ancient names given to townships and villages. One might easily suppose that region had been settled by Greek and Roman colonies .*
The puissant Democratic Party in the State was split asunder at the fall elections in 1823 largely by the question of submitting the choice of presidential electors to the people. A new organization sprang up known as "The People's Party," and carried several of the largest Democratie counties of the State. Its strength was increased by the unwise action of the Legislature early in 1824 in refusing to give the people the power to choose presidential electors, and by an extraordinary exhibition of personal enmity toward Mr. Clinton. The Senate passed a resolution for the removal of Mr. Clinton from the office of canal com- missioner. The Assembly immediately conenrred by a large majority. +
This unwarrantable and purely partisan conduct produced intense indignation throughout the State. Large public meetings were held in many places, at which the conduct of the Legislature was denounced and the high character and valuable public services of Mr. Clinton were reconnted and approved. A State Convention held at Utica nominated him for governor, and at the November election he was chosen for that office over Samnel Young by a majority of nearly seventeen thousand votes. General James Tallmadge, of Duchess, was elected lieutenant- governor over General Root by thirty-four thousand four hundred and nine majority, having received the combined votes of the Democratic and the People's parties.
* Simeon De Witt was born in Ulster County, N. Y., in December, 1756 ; died in Albany in 1834. He was a graduate of Queens (Rutgers) College, N. J .; entered the Con- tinental Army, where he held the position of " geographer," and was with Gates at the surrender of Burgoyne. He was also at the surrender of Cornwallis. He was Surveyor- General of the State of New York from 1784 until his death. In 1796 he declined the office of Surveyor-General of the United States. In 1798 he was appointed a regent of the University ; 1817, Vice-Chancellor, and in 1829, Chancellor of the State. He made a map of the State of New York in 1804. Mr. De Witt was a member of many literary and scientific societies.
+ This movement was probably preconcerted. Only a short time before the hour fixed for the adjournment of the Legislature-" perhaps I may say minutes," wrote Mr. Hammond-Mr. Bowman, a senator from Monroe County, submitted a resolution for the removal of Mr. Clinton from the office of canal commissioner. It was acted upon im- mediately, all but three senators voting in the affirmative. The resolution was forthwith sent to the Assembly, where it was immediately passed by a vote of sixty-four against thirty-four. This action caused the political death of Mr. Bowman.
461
LAFAYETTE THE NATION'S GUEST.
At the middle of August, 1824, Lafayette arrived in the United States as the guest of the nation, after an absence of forty years. He landed at Staten Island, and remained there, the guest of Vice-President Tompkins, until the next day, when he was escorted to the city of New York by a large fleet of vessels of every kind. There he was received with great honors-booming of cannons, pealing of bells, and shouts of a multitude-and was welcomed by the municipal authorities. He was conducted to the City Hall, and was the guest of the corporation for several days. He visited the principal institutions, and held crowded receptions of the citizens. He made an extensive tour through the
CASTLE GARDEN
CASTLE GARDEN IN 1852.
United States. It was a continued ovation. In September the follow- ing year, after a brilliant reception at Castle Garden by the citizens of New York, he departed for his home in France. He was conveyed to his country in the frigate Brandywine, so named in compliment to him. He was wounded at the battle on Brandywine Creek.
While Lafayette was in the United States a presidential election occurred, and resulted in the choice of John Quincy Adams, son of ex-President John Adams, as Chief Magistrate of the republic. There were five candidates in the field-namely, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, William H. Crawford, Andrew Jackson, and John C. Calhoun. The Electoral College failed to make a choice, and that duty devolved
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
upon the House of Representatives for the second time in the history of the Government. One of the earliest acts of President Adams after his inauguration on March 4th, 1825, was to offer Governor Clinton the position of Minister of the United States to Great Britain. It was respectfully declined, when it was conferred upon Rufus King, of New York.
In his message to the Legislature at the beginning of 1825, Governor Clinton recommended the passage of a law giving the choice of presi- dential electors to the people ; the creation of a Board of Internal Improvements for the completion and extension of the eanal system of the State, and the construction of a great highway through the southern tier of counties, then rather sparsely settled. The Legislature passed an act for the appointment of these commissions to explore and cause to be surveyed a route for such road. It was never built by the State, but canals were rapidly multiplied soon afterward .*
The year 1825 was a memorable one in the history of the State of New York. It was the beginning of a new era in its wonderful career of prosperity. The great Erie Canal, which traversed the State from west to east-the most gigantie work of the kind in the world-was completed in the autumn of that year-an artificial navigable river more than three hundred and sixty miles in length. Governor Clinton, its mightiest champion, had made a tour the previous summer, first to Philadelphia, and then to Ohio and Kentucky, for the purpose of inspecting publie improvements in progress in those States. He was everywhere received with earnest demonstrations of respeet, for his fame was now national- nay, even international.
The half decade of years previous to 1830 presented in the State and city of New York a most exciting drama to the eye of the social observer. It was the great transition period from the stagnation of business and enterprise caused by the late war to the awakening to new and prosperous life throughout the whole country. Nowhere in our broad land was that awakening more pronounced. and the results more marvellous than in the State of New York and its great seaport. The grandest and most puissant of the forces which prodneed this awakening in New York and
* The Champlain Canal was completed in the summer of 1822. A gentleman engaged in the lumber trade in Northern New York wrote to his brother from Fort Edward on August 29th, 1822 : " This morning, at eight o'clock, I had the satisfaction of seeing the water pour over the big dam [a feeder for the canal]. It filled in about sixty-two hours after the planks were laid down, which was much quicker than was anticipated, in con- sequence of the river being so very low. The canal will be in full operation by Satur- day." This canal connects Lake Champlain with the Hudson River at Fort Edward.
463
PROCESSION OF BOATS ON THE ERIE CANAL.
the region west of it was the putting into operation the great Erie Canal. It had occupied in its construction the time of eight years and four months from its commencement at Rome on July 4th, 1817, until the celebration of its completion on November 4th, 1825. That celebration presented one of the most remarkable pageants ever before seen in the State or nation.
The first flotilla of canal-boats left Buffalo, on Lake Erie, for the city of New York on the morning of October 26th. On that morning the waters of Lake Erie first flowed into the " Great Ditch," as doubt- ers and opposers of the canal con- temptuously called it. Tidings of this event were sent from Buffalo to New York, in the space of one hour and twenty minutes, on the wings of sound produced by dis- charges of cannons placed at inter- vals along the line of the canal and the Hudson River.
The flotilla, beautifully decora- ted, was led by the barge Seneca Chief, drawn by four powerful gray horses. It bore as passengers Gov- WILLIAM L. STONE. ernor Clinton, Lieutenant-Governor Tallinadge, General Stephen van Rensselaer (the patroon), General Solomon van Rensselaer, Colonel W. L. Stone," a delegation from New York City, and gentlemen and ladies who were invited guests. One large boat called Noah's Ark contained a bear, two fawns, two live eagles, and a variety of birds and "four-footed beasts," with two Seneca Indian youths in the costume of their dusky nation.
* William Leet Stone was born at Esopus, N. Y., in April, 1792 ; died at Saratoga Springs in August, 1844. He made his residence at Cooperstown in 1809, and there learned the art of printing. In 1813 he became editor of the Herkimer American. After- ward he was an editor at Hudson, and at Albany, N. Y., and at Hartford, Conn. From 1821 until his death he was the able editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser. For some years he was Superintendent of Common Schools in the city of New York, and did efficient service in the cause of education. Colonel Stone held a ready pen, and wrote and published several volumes of much value. The most conspicuous of these are The Life of Joseph Brant, The Life of Red Jacket, and Border Wars of the American Revo- lution. At the time of his death he had completed the collection and arrangement of materials for a life of Sir William Johnson, which was finished and published by his son, William L. Stone, himself an accomplished writer.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
Crowds gathered at villages and hamlets along the route at all hours of the day and night to see and greet the novel procession. At Rochester, where the canal crosses the Genesee River, a man was stationed as a sentinel in a boat on the Genesee, and when the Seneca Chief entered the aqueduct he called out :
" Who comes there ?"
" Your brothers from the West, on the waters of the Great Lakes," answered a voice from the Chief.
" By what means have they been diverted so far from their natural course ?" the sentinel inquired.
" Through the channel of the grand Erie Canal," responded the same voice.
" By whose authority and by whom was a work of such magnitude accomplished ?" asked the sentinel.
" By the authority and by the enterprise of the people of New York," cried many voices as one from the deck of the Chief.
A canal-boat called The Young Lion of the West, having on board several distinguished gentlemen, two living wolves, a fawn, a fox, four raccoons, and two eagles, here joined the flotilla, which was everywhere greeted with demonstrations of joy as it glided down the beautiful Mohawk Valley. At Albany, the eastern terminus of the canal, where it is connected with the Champlain Canal, the voyagers were received by a grand civic and military procession, who escorted the governor and his travelling companions to the Capitol, where interesting services were held while bells rang and cannons thundered. People had gathered at the State capital from all parts of Northern New York, Vermont, and even Canada to witness the imposing spectacle. Philip Hone,* the Mayor of New York, made a congratulatory speech, and in the name of his constituents invited the Corporation of Albany to accompany the voyagers down the river and partake of the hospitality of the commercial metropolis. There was a grand illumination in Albany that evening.
* Philip Hone was a prosperous and public-spirited merchant of New York City, where he was born in 1781 and died in 1851. He was a very popular man of business, and in social life a fluent public speaker, and active in all important movements in the city of his birth. Mr. Hone was the chief founder of the Mercantile Library Association of New York. In 1825-26 he was Mayor of New York. He was the life of the Hone Club, composed of the literary and other celebrities of the city. President Taylor ap- pointed him naval officer at New York, which post he held at the time of his deatlı. Dr. J. W. Francis wrote of Mr. Hone as a public-spirited citizen : " From the laying of a Russ pavement to the elaboration of a church portico, from the widening of a street or avenue to the magnificent enterprise which resulted in the Croton Aqueduct, he was the efficient coadjutor of his fellow-citizens."
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