Martin Van Buren. Edward Morse Shepard
though forty years later, when Jackson brought him from Louisiana to be secretary of state, he was sometimes reminded of his still earlier Federalism. Morgan Lewis, judge of the Supreme Court and afterwards chief justice, and still later governor, was a brother-in-law of the chancellor. Smith Thompson, also a judge and chief justice, and later secretary of the navy under Monroe and a judge of the federal Supreme Court, and Van Buren's competitor for governor in 1828, was a connection of the family. There were sneers at the Livingston conversion to Democracy as there always are at political conversions. But whether or not Chancellor Livingston's Democracy came from jealousy of Hamilton in 1790, it is at least certain that he and his family connections rendered political services of the first importance during a half century. The drafting of Jackson's nullification proclamation in 1833 by Edward Livingston was one of the noblest and most signal services which Americans have had the fortune to render to their country.
The best offices were largely held by the Clinton and Livingston families and their connections, an arrangement very aristocratic indeed, but which did not then seem inconsistent with efficient and decorous performance of the public business. Burr naturally gathered around him those restless, speculative men who are as immoral in their aspirations as in their conduct, and whose adherence has disgraced and weakened almost every democratic movement known to history. Burr had been attorney-general; he had refused a seat in the Supreme Court; he had been United States senator; and now in the second office of the nation he presided with distinguished grace over the Federal Senate. His hands were not yet red with Hamilton's blood when Van Buren met him at New York in 1803; but Democratic faces were averted from the man who, loaded with its honors and enjoying its confidence, had intrigued with its enemies to cheat his exultant party out of their choice for president. In tribute to the Republicans of New York, George Clinton had already been selected in his place to be the next vice-president. While Van Buren was near the close of his law studies at New York, Burr was preparing to restore his fortunes by a popular election, for which he had some Republican support, and to which the fatuity of the defeated party, again rejecting Hamilton's advice, added a considerable Federalist support. William P. Van Ness, as "Aristides," one of the classical names under which our ancestors were fond of addressing the public, had in the Burr interest written a bitter attack on the Clintons and Livingstons, accusing them, and with reason, of dividing the offices between themselves.
Van Buren was easily proof against the allurements of Burr, and even the natural influence of so distinguished a man as Van Ness, with whom he had been studying a year. Sylvester, his first preceptor, was a Federalist. So was Van Alen, his half-brother, soon to be his partner, who in May, 1806, was elected to Congress. But Van Buren was firm and resolute in party allegiance. In the election for governor in April, 1804, Burr was badly beaten by Morgan Lewis, the Clinton-Livingston candidate, whom Van Buren warmly supported, and Burr's political career was closed. The successful majority of the Republicans was soon resolved into the Clintonians, led by Clinton and Judge Ambrose Spencer, and the Livingstonians, led by Governor Lewis. The active participation of judges in the bitter politics of the time illustrates the universal intensity of political feeling, and goes very far to justify Jefferson's and Van Buren's distrust of judicial opinions on political questions. Brockholst Livingston, Smith Thompson, Ambrose Spencer, Daniel D. Tompkins—all judges of the State Supreme Court—did not cease when they donned the ermine to be party politicians; neither did the chancellors Robert R. Livingston and Lansing. Even Kent, it is pretty obvious, was a man of far stronger and more openly partisan feelings than we should to-day think fitting so great a judicial station as he held. The quarrels over offices were strenuous and increasing from the very top to the bottom of the community.
The Federalists in 1807 generally joined the Lewisites, or "Quids." Governor Lewis, finding that the jealousy of the Livingston interests would defeat his renomination by the usual caucus of Republican members of the legislature, became the candidate of a public meeting at New York, and of a minority caucus, and asked help from the Federalists. Such an alliance always seemed monstrous only to the Republican faction that felt strong enough without it. The regular legislative caucus, controlled by the Clintonians, nominated Daniel D. Tompkins, then a judge of the Supreme Court, and for years after the Republican "war-horse." Van Buren adhered to the purer, older, and less patrician Democracy of the Clintonians. Tompkins was elected, with a Clintonian legislature; and the result secured Van Buren's first appointment to public office. A Clintonian council of appointment was chosen. The council, a complex monument of the distrust of executive power with which George III. had filled his revolted subjects, was composed of five members, being the governor and one member from each of the four senatorial districts, who were chosen by the Assembly from among the six senators of the district. The four senatorial members of the council were always, therefore, of the political faith of the Assembly, except in cases where all the senators from a district belonged to the minority party in the Assembly. To this council belonged nearly every appointment in the State, even of local officers. Prior to 1801 the governor appointed, with the advice and consent of the council. After the constitutional amendment of that year, either member of the council could nominate, the appointment being made by the majority. Van Buren became surrogate of Columbia county on February 20, 1808. There was no prescribed term of office, the commission really running until the opposition party secured the council of appointment. Van Buren held the office about five years and until his removal on March 19, 1813, when his adversaries had secured control of the council.
At this time the system of removing the lesser as well as the greater officers of government for political reasons was well established in New York. It is impossible to realize the nature of Van Buren's political education without understanding this old system of proscription, whose influence upon American public life has been so prodigious. The strife over the Federal Constitution had been fierce. Its friends, after their victory, sought, neither unjustly nor unnaturally, to punish Governor Clinton for his opposition. Although Washington wished to stand neutral between parties, he still believed it politically suicidal to appoint officers not in sympathy with his administration.[1] Hamilton undoubtedly determined the New York appointments when the new government was launched, and they were made from the political enemies of Governor Clinton—a course provoking an animosity which not improbably appeared in the more numerous state appointments controlled by Clinton and the Republican council. After the excesses of the French Revolution the Republicans were denounced as Jacobins and radicals, dangerous in politics and corrupt in morals. The family feuds aided and exaggerated the divisions in this small community of freehold voters. Appointments were made in the federal and state services for political reasons and for family reasons, precisely as they had long been made in England. Especially along the rich river counties from New York to the upper Hudson were so distributed the lucrative offices, which were eagerly sought for their profit as well as for their honor.
The contests were at first for places naturally vacated by death or resignation; the idea of the property right of an incumbent actually in office lingered until after the last century was out. It is not clear when the first removals of subordinate officers took place for political reasons. Some were made by the Federalists during Governor Jay's administration; but the first extensive removals seem to have occurred after the elections of 1801. For this there were two immediate causes. In that year the exclusive nominating power of the governor was taken from him. Each of the other four members of the council of appointment could now nominate as well as confirm. Appointments and removals were made, therefore, from that year until the new Constitution of 1821, by one of the worst of appointing bodies, a commission of several men whose consultations were secret and whose responsibility was divided. Systematic abuse of the power of appointment became inevitable. There was, besides, a second reason in the anger against Federalists, which they had gone far to provoke, and against their long and by no means gentle domination. This anger induced the Republicans to seek out every method of punishment. But for this, the abuse might have been long deferred. Nor is it unlikely that the refusal of Jefferson, inaugurated in March of that year, to make a "clean sweep" of his enemies, turned the longing eyes of embittered Republicans in New York more eagerly to the fat state offices enjoyed by their insolent adversaries of the past twelve years.
The Clintons and Livingstons had led the Republicans to a victory at the state election in April, 1801. Later in that year George Clinton, now again governor, called together