USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > The annals of Albany, Vol. III > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
298
Life and Services of
they were associated politically, would prevail in this quarter of the state, on this important trial of the strength of parties, was hardly to be doubted. Yet were the friends of the constitution bound to make the effort, and, in so doing. to leave no part of their moral force out of the controversy. With this object, Mr. Van Rensselaer was solicited, and consented to stand as a candidate for the assembly, at the same elcetion. The sway of anti-federal opinions and feelings at the period may be estimated from the fact that, with all his personal popularity and influ- enee-already very great in the district-he was beaten by an overwhelming majority. But popular majorities, even where the right of voting is restricted as it then was, are not always remarkable for their stability; and happy they should not be-certainly when they chance to be in the wrong.
The constitution having been adopted after a fearful struggle, the government was to be organized and put in full operation under it. Ground enough of difference in regard to it, was still left-barely enough-for parties to stand on; but the popular mind began to sway strongly over to the side of the constitution. In the spring of the very next year, 1789, Mr. Van Rensselaer was again a candidate for the assembly, and was now carried into office by a majority nearly as great as that by which he had been before defeated. And now, having once got right, never was a constitucney more steadfast to a faith- ful publie servant. In the course of the next forty years after he had occasion often to try the strength of their attachment to him; and on no occasion did the county of Albany, whether comprising more or less territory, and whether the elective privilege was less or more extended, ever desert him.
The first session of the legislature, to which Mr. Van Rensselaer was now cleeted, was held in the summer, under the proclamation of the governor, for the special purpose of eleeting, for the first time, senators in congress. The same question which has since, and more than onee, been agitated, respecting the mode of election, divided the eouneils of the state at that period. The federal party,
299
Stephen Van Rensselaer.
and those who desired to clothe the federal government with all necessary strength and stability, insisted on a mode of election which would give the senate, equally with the popular branch of the legislature, a separate and inde- pendent action. Mr. Van Rensselaer was of this number. The anti-federal party preferred a mode of election, by joint ballot or otherwise, which should subject senators in congress more certainly to the popular will of the state, as it should be currently expressed in the annual elections to the assembly. The question to be sure was one grow- ing out of the language of the federal constitution, and therefore, a question of constitutional law; but men of different parties at that day, as well as at this, were wont to read the constitution through an atmosphere of their own, usually too much clouded to allow the light from any objects to pass through it in straight lines ; hence of course they read it differently, and not unfrequently, both sides read it wrong. The legislature on this occasion separated without settling on any mode of electing senators-except for itself; senators were elected by the joint resolution of the two houses.
Mr. Van Rensselaer was now fairly embarked in politi- cal life. The next spring-1790-he was elected to the senate of the state, from the western senatorial district. When we look over this state, and see what the west now is, we hardly know how to credit the fact that, within so few years, the county of Albany, on the North river, was one of the western counties of the state. In the spring of 1794, the same senator from the same western dis- trict was re-elected. He was a member of the senate from his first election down to 1795. In the whole of this legis- lative period, he was a faithful, vigilant, highly influential and useful member. There were few standing committees at that period; but he was from the first, and always, a member of one or more of these, and always of the most important.
In the second year of his senatorial services, 1792, par- ties were thrown into a prodigious ferment by certain proceedings of the state canvassers, in regard to a portion of the votes taken at the gubernatorial election of that
300
Life and Services of
year. Mr. Jay and Mr. Clinton had been the opposing candidates. The popular voice had declared itself, by a moderate majority, in favor of Mr. Jay; but the can- vassers found some informalities, and legal difficulties, which induced them, by a party vote, to reject the returns from three counties, by which Mr. Jay's majority was lost, and Mr. Clinton was declared elected. When the legisla- ture met in the autumn, petitions were poured in upon it from the people, and a legislative investigation was had. It appeared in testimony, that the rejected ballots had at first been regularly deposited in appropriate boxes in the record-room of the office of the secretary of state; and that afterwards, without consent obtained at the office, Mr. Thomas Tillotson, a state senator, and one of the canvassers, in the presence however of several of his fel- lows, took from their place of deposit among the archives of the state, the boxes containing the rejected ballots, and committed them to the flames. However pure the motives for an act of this sort, the act itself was not one which was likely to meet the approbation of the pure and single minded Van Rensselaer. His scornful reprobation of the part enacted by Mr. Tillotson, uttered in no equivocal terms, brought him into a personal collison with that gentleman, which was likely to put his life, or his reputa- tion, or both, into imminent hazard. But those who attempted to deal with him had quite mistaken the temper of tlie man. Though one of the mildest of men in his ordinary demeanor, he was yet one of the firmest. He was the last person on earth to be moved by intimidations. Being in the right, or thinking himself so, he would allow nothing to be wrung from him which would abate, by a feather's weight, the full moral force of the language he had used. Happily, this admirable firmness, with the steadiness and quiet which distinguished his manner, when most pressed upon by difficulties and danger, saved him from an abyss into which, no doubt, the least wavering or trepidation would have plunged him.
When the next election for Governor approached, in 1795, Mr. Jay was again placed in nomination, and, with him, Mr. Van Rensselaer was nominated for Lt. Govern-
301
Stephen Van Rensselaer.
or. The circumstances under which Mr, Clinton had served, as governor, during the current term, were deemed by his party, such as to render unwise his renomination at the present time. Mr. Yates and Mr. Floyd were the opposing candidates. Mr. Jay and Mr. Van Rensselaer were elected by handsome majorities. In 1798, both were renominated, and both reelected, to the same offices. On this occasion, Chancellor Livingston was Mr. Jay's op- ponent-only very lately his strong friend, political as well as personal. The Lt. Governor had no opposing candidate. He was named universally throughout the state, by the anti-federalists, on their ticket with Chancel-
lor Livingston. The design was to detach him, if possi- ble, after the example of the chancellor, from the federal party, and from the support of Gov. Jay. No doubt it was in his power to have given to the chancellor and his friends a complete triumph. It is probable that no one individual in the state, at the period, carried with him a greater personal influence and sway. So desirable was it deemed to secure him, or at least to make the people be- lieve he was secured-that the chancellor's party did not hesitate to employ the fact before the electors, though without the least warrant, as if it had been true. Of course, he took the most prompt and effectual measures, to dis- abuse the public mind on a point of so much importance.
I will not hesitate, on an occasion like this, and when dealing with matters of great historical interest, to say what I think. I think, then, that New York has never seen so pure an administration of its government, as that which was conducted by Mr. Jay. I think this is already the settled verdict of an enlightened public sentiment. He could not have had, during the six years of his ad- ministration, a purer, or more worthy coadjutor than Lt .. Governor Van Rensselaer. Never could there have been, or could there be, a moral spectacle of higher beauty, than was seen in the lofty and universal harmonies of thought and intent, of feelings, character and purposes-the per- fect blending of harmonious colors, till nothing was visible but the white light of truth and integrity-when the hon- est and true-hearted Huguenot, and the honest and true-
26
302
Life and Services of
hearted Dutchman united to administer the government of a free people.
It is not surprising then, when the community -such of them as were attached to the administration and princi- ples of Gov. Jay-came to look after a fit person to be his successor, that all eyes should have rested on the lieu- tenant governor. In January, 1801, a large body of the most respectable freeholders, from various and distant parts of the state, assembled at the Tontine Coffee House in Albany, and unanimously named Mr. Van Rensselaer as their candidate for Governor at the ensuing election. How he received this mark of public approbation and esteem, and with what difficulty his acceptance was finally obtained, appears from the publications of the time. His opponents, for lack of better matter, took serious excep- tions, if not to him, to his party, because he had given to the invitation, more than once, a positive refusal. His nomination was enthusiastically seconded in the city of New York, and in public meetings held in every quarter of the state. His election was advocated everywhere by his friends, on grounds which shewed that his charac- ter, young as he was, was already developed, and was thoroughly understood and appreciated. His competent acquaintance with the interests and business of the state ; his tried and reliable judgment; his unconquerable firm- ness; his decision and energy in emergencies ; his purity ; his many virtues ; his retiring and domestic habits ; his humility ; his urbane and gentle manners-these were the qualities attributed to him by his friends, and in no case denied by his opponents. The rage of party politics was becoming extreme, and in their rancor, poisoned the blood of friends and families. and seemed ready, vulture-like, to tear the vitals of the republic. He was the man-so at least his friends thought-above any other man of the period-the man of peace-fitted to soften the asperities, to reconcile the enmities and calm the turbulent agitations of the time. If his opponents thought differently, they scarcely ventured to say so. They thought he was rich, and that those with whom he had business -relations would be likely to vote for him, and hence they thought
303
Stephen Van Rensselaer.
the genuineness of his republican principles was fairly to be doubted-this they thought, and this they ventured to say. But I should do a great wrong to the party opposed to him, if I should leave it to be inferred that he was defeated on such grounds-or that I supposed so. Mr. Clinton, after having been laid aside for six years, was now brought forward as his opposing candidate. Mr. Clinton was popular, and there was much in his character and history to make him deservedly so. But besides this, the republican party-in which the anti-federalists were now merged-had acquired prodigious strength from the serious apprehensions which were felt in the country on account of some of the measures, and the apparent tenden- cies of the federal government in the course of the last four years. In the midst of the campaign in this state, the election of Mr. Jefferson to the presidency was ant- nounced; the fate of parties in this state was decided, and decided for a long time to come. Mr. Van Rensselaer was defeated, by a majority of a little less than four thousand votes.
With this defeat, Mr. Van Rensselaer's official service in the civil departments of the government-with a single exception, to which I shall advert directly-was ended for several years. I feel certain that, on his own account, he was very far from regretting this discomfiture. It left him, as it chanced, the very leisure and quiet, which he needed. It was in the month of March of this year, and while the election canvass was going on most actively and virulently, that he was called to part with the companion and wife of his youth. How sensibly he was affected by it, I have reason to know, when nearly thirty years afterwards, he referred to this event in a very touching manner, and with many tears, poured his generous sym- pathy into the bosom of a friend under similar bereave- ment. By his first marriage, he had three children, one of whom only-his eldest son-survives.
In October, 1801, a state convention met at Albany to consider and revise the constitution, in regard to two specified subjects. One of these subjects was the proper construction to be given to the twenty-third article of the
304
Life and Services of
constitution, which established the old council of appoint- ment. A violent party controversy had arisen in Mr. Jay's time, concerning the right of nomination. It was claimed by the governor, from precedent and otherwise, to belong exclusively to him; the members of the council challenged an equal right to make nominations. The convention was called mainly to determine this question, and, having a strong party character, was regarded as having been instructed to reverse the doctrine and decision of the governor. The subject of our memoir was a mem- ber of this body, and was opposed to the majority. Col. Burr was the president, but Mr. Van Rensselaer presided during much the greater part of the deliberation, as chair- man of the committee of the whole.
In May, 1802, Mr. Van Rensselaer formed an appropri- ate, and highly fortunate and happy matrimonial union with Cornelia, only daughter of the late William Patter- son, a distinguished citizen of New Jersey, and one of the judges of the supreme court of the United States. This excellent lady, and nine children of the marriage, survive the husband and father. Delicacy would forbid my saying more of the living than concerns the just memory of the dead. These children are all of an age to have developed already their individual characters; and to those who, like myself, believe that the characters of children, as a general thing are just what they are educated to be at the domestic board, they afford the most satisfactory and gratifying proof that the example, instruction and influ- ence of the parents have been worthy of all approbation.
In 1807, the subject of our notice was elected to the Assembly, and with him, as a colleague, his early and tried friend, Abraham Van Vechten. They were elected and served together in the Assembly for three successive years.
In 1810, he was called to a new and distinguished ser- vice. In March of that year, a commission was instituted by the Legislature, for exploring a route for a western canal; and then was laid the foundation of that great system of internal improvements by which New York has so much signalised herself. Seven persons composed the
305
Stephen Van Rensselaer.
commission-though all, I think, did not act. Mr. Van Rensselaer's was the second name; the first was that of Governor Morris; Mr. Clinton was one of the number. In the summer of this year, these gentlemen, accompanied by a surveyor, personally inspected and explored the route of a canal from the Hudson to Erie. They traveled for the most part on horseback ; not always without serious difficulty and much deprivation, from the uncultivated state of the country; sometimes they made the canopy their covering and shelter for the night. They made their report in February, 1811. Mr. Van Rensselaer was in the Assembly when the project of this commission was first agitated, and, startling as the idea was to most men at that day, he entered warmly and heartily into the measure and contributed materially to its success, by his exertions and influence. From the earliest period, he was the unwaver- ing and efficient friend of the Erie canal.
The favorable report made by the commissioners on this occasion, drawn by Mr. Morris, with consummate ability, and yet not without great defects, gave an impulse to the canal project which it never wholly lost, though it shortly after suffered interruption by the intervention of the war. In April, 1811, the legislature again acted on the project, by raising a commission to consider " of all matters relating to inland navigation." Mr. Van Rensse- laer was still one of the commissioners. It was proposed by this commission, to enlist congress, and as far as possi- ble the states individually, to contribute their aid and support to the work-the scheme which, most happily, completely failed. In March, 1812, the commisioners reported, and appealed strongly and eloquently to the pride of New York, to construct the canal, from her own resources, and on her own account. The appeal was so far effectual, that the legislature, in June, authorized them to borrow five millions of dollars, on the credit of the state, for the prosecution of the enterprise. The war occurring just then, the project slept for nearly four years.
The war with Great Britain was declared in June, 1812. This occurrence brought with it the great crisis in the public life of our worthy and distinguished fellow citizen.
306
Life and Services of
The country was without any adequate preparation for the conflict; a state of things which, from the necessity of- our political condition and the frame of our institutions, must always exist, I apprehend, whenever, and as often as we may be driven to make our appeal to arms. Such at any rate, was the case now. Gen. Dearborn had been as- signed to the command of the Northern frontier, with some undigested designs upon Canada. He established his head quarters at Greenbush, as being on the open and natural military route to the enemy's territory, by way of Lake Champlain. But there was a great deficiency of troops for any offensive operations. A regular army, of much magnitude, is not to be recruited and disciplined for ser- vice, in such a country as ours, without time. And hence the necessity in all such cases of a resort to the militia. The first reliance for defence, at least, if not for conquest, must be upon citizen soldiers. A requisition was made on Gov. Tompkins, to order into immediate service a con- siderable body of New York militia. The patriot governor promptly obeyed there quisition, and selected Major Gen- eral STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER for the command.
The public relations between these two individuals were peculiar, and deserve to be stated. They were al- ready regarded as rival candidates for the chief magistracy of the state at the next spring's election-the friends of the General having already named him for that office in their own circles. The lines of party, too, were now very distinctly drawn, and it was the war that was made to divide them. The federalists were charged by their op- ponents, not only with being hostile to the war as having been both premature and unnecessary, but also with dis- positions and designs averse to its vigorous or successful prosecution. Gen. Van Rensselaer was a federalist, and about to become the candidate of the federal party for the office of governor, and to him, therefore, without any ex- press declaration to the contrary, might, perhaps, with an equal show of justice, be attributed the same unpatriotic and odious sentiments which were imputed to the great body of his friends. Without any desire, or attempt, to penetrate the motives which led to the selection of the
307
Stephen Van Rensselaer.
general for command under such circumstances, and ad- mitting that they might have been good and even gener- ous, it is easy to see that, personally, the general was placed in a position of extreme embarrassment and hazard, and that results of great political importance might flow from any determination he might make. If he should decline the command, the proof of a culpable defection, against both him and his party, would be complete. On the other hand, considering his own inexperience in the trade and business of war, the impracticable materials he had to deal with, and the very extraordinary extent of exposed and defenceless territory committed to his immediate military care and keeping-being no less than the entire "North- ern and Western frontiers of the state between St. Regis and Pennsylvania" *- considering these things, and con- sidering, too, how often misfortune alone, in warlike operations, though accompanied with unexceptionable conduct, brings with it the most thorough disgrace, we can not help seeing that his acceptance of this command must subject him personally, to a fiery ordeal, from which he might escape unharmed, and possibly with a burnished and brighter fame, but where the chances were fearfully prevalent that he would be utterly consumed.
But the noble-minded man did not for an instant hesi- tate, when the question was between a probable sacrifice of himself, and a possible service of great value rendered to his country within the line of his admitted duty. What ever might be the views of other federalists, his own were sound and thoroughly patriotic. It was his country that called him to the field, and that was a voice which he could never disobey. Nor was he a loiterer, or a laggard. In an incredibly short time, after receiving the order, he had formed, with excellent and ready judgment, his mili- tary family, thrown off the citizen and put on the soldier, and, having taken a hasty leave of the domestic circle at the Manor House-from which he parted under circum- stances of the most delicate and tender interest-he took up his line of march for the frontier. In ten days only from the date of his orders, we find him at Ogdensburgh,
* General Orders of the Commander-in-Chief-July 13, 1812.
308
Life and Services of
having visited and inspected the post at Sackett's Harbor, on his way. On the 13th of August, he was in the camp at Lewiston-just one month from the date of the call that had been made upon him; and just two months from that day-on the 13th of October-in one of the most gallant and brilliant affairs of the whole war, he carried his victorious arms into the enemy's territory, and planted the American flag triumphantly on the Heights of Queens- town. Unhappily, it was a triumph of brief duration. He gained a complete and glorious victory ; sufficient, if maintained, as it might have been, to have secured the peninsula of the upper province of Canada for the winter, as a conquest to the American arms; but a victory lost as soon as won by the shameful cowardice and defection of his troops.
I can not, in this place, enter into a history of this campaign, or of the brilliant, but finally disastrous affair with which it closed. The abundant materials are already before his countrymen, from which their judgment, and that of posterity, will be made up. There, I think, with perfect security, may his friends rest his claims as a mili- tary commander. His merits in this respect will brighten, as the current of time runs on, and wears away the error, the envy and the prejudice of the day. It is the soldier's hard task to conquer difficuties, as well as enemies. He did it. It would not be easy to find another instance, in which an army has been gathered-created I may say- and formed into a well-trained and well-disciplined corps, fit for active and efficient service, in so brief a space of time, with such wretched materials, under such adverse and discouraging circumstances, and where there was such an utter destitution of appropriate and necessary means. The plan, too, which he projected, for bringing the brief campaign to a brilliant close, the moment that he found himself possessed of an army-by which he proposed to conquer and possess himself of an extensive border terri- tory of the enemy; cut off the forces of the enemy in the upper country, just flushed with victory, from all commu- nication with the lower country; wipe out the disgrace with which the American arms had been already tarnished
309
Stephen Van Rensselaer.
in that quarter; procure winter lodgings for his soldiers in the comfortable dwellings of a British town, easily and safely accessible with all kinds of supplies ; and be ready, in the spring, to begin a new campaign, with superior and eminent advantages already secured-a plan perfectly practicable, with reliable troops-not only justifiable at the time he formed it, but positively justified by every thing that subsequently transpired-this plan must forever commend itself to the approval and admiration of his countrymen, as having been formed with the discretion, the judgment and the skill of a master in the trade of war. I allude, here, to his enterprise originally planned, by which Fort George would have been stormed by the regu- lar troops, while he should have carried the heights, and by which, at one blow, the conquest of the peninsula would have been complete-an enterprise which certainly failed only for want of cooperation, where cooperation was due by every consideration of patriotism and honor.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.