insisted upon choosing the electors by joint ballot of both bodies, for so strong were the anti-federalists in the lower and more numerous branch that this scheme must have resulted in enabling them to command the choice. Very naturally the Senate, in which the opposite party prevailed, threw out the bill embodying this proposition. The upper house insisted upon concurrent action, which of course would have given to each a negative upon the other; obviously this would have produced a dead lock. Negotiations were entered into, and the Senate offered in compromise to adopt any method which should secure to them the nomination of one senator and one half of the electors. But to this just and even division the Assembly refused to agree. The consequence was that neither senators nor electors were chosen, and in the first electoral college of presidential electors no delegates from New York were present. Nor when the first Congress came together were there any senators from that State.

Mr. John C. Hamilton adverting to this "defective organization of the general government," which rendered the existence of one of its great departments dependent on the action of bodies over which it had no control, justly enough claims that his father's plan would have rendered impossible the occurrence of such an evil. That plan had proposed that the people of each State should choose an electoral college, which should elect the senators to represent that State.

Shortly afterwards the New York State elections occurred. Clinton's resolute and uncompromising opposition to the Constitution, together with the unto

ward result of the effort to choose presidential electors and senators, gave to the contest a peculiar importance. Hamilton threw himself into it with vigor. Yates was nominated to run against Clinton, because though an anti-federalist he was a moderate man, and it was hoped that he might receive enough votes among moderate anti-federalists throughout the State to secure his victory. Hamilton sent forth an address to the people, in which he placed the controversy fairly upon the issue of whether or not the national government should be supported; whether a governor should be chosen who would be in sympathy with the Union, or one who would be in perpetual hostility to it. The people were called upon to select a chief magistrate who "should be free from all temptation wantonly to perplex or embarrass the national government, whether that temptation should arise from a preference of partial confederacies; from a spirit of competition with the national rulers for personal preeminence; from an impatience of the restraints of national authority; from the fear of a diminution of power and emoluments; from resentment or mortification proceeding from disappointment, or any other cause." Upon the other hand he urged that the governor "should be a man of moderation, sincerely disposed to heal not to widen existing divisions, to promote conciliation not dissension, to allay not to excite the fermentation of party spirit, and to restore that cordial good-will and mutual confidence which ought to exist among a people bound to each other by all the ties which connect members of the same society."

This appeal was followed up by the most active ex

ertions on Hamilton's part. He published a series of letters under the signature of H. G., reviewing and criticising with much severity the past career of the great governor of New York. He appears in his zeal to have "stumped" a portion of the State. In every way that offered he gave his mind and his heart, his days and his exertions to the great task of organizing, uniting, encouraging the anti-Clintonian party.

But he labored in vain, so far as his immediate purpose was concerned. The election did not result in the triumph of Yates. Yet the features of the conflict were such that the victor had the despondency of defeat mingled with the satisfaction of success. Clinton had long been autocratic in his party, and for many years his party had ruled the State; he had appeared a sort of despot by election. This year his great power was broken, his prestige destroyed; he won the governorship indeed, but so narrowly that he no longer appeared invincible. A majority of only four hundred and twenty-nine out of twelve thousand three hundred and fifty-three votes was, for its after effects, equivalent to a failure. Henceforth the Federalists ceased to dread their inveterate foe.

In other issues in the same political campaign the Federalists frequently succeeded in grasping the form as well as the substance of success. Out of the six representatives which New York was entitled to send to the new Congress, four were elected by the Federalists. The same party also succeeded in changing the complexion of the Assembly, so that they obtained a majority in both the upper and the lower houses of the State legislature. This at last rendered possible the election of United States senators, and toward

the close of the first congressional session two Federalists were duly chosen,-General Schuyler, a prominent leader of the party in the State, and Rufus King, who had represented Massachusetts in the Federal Convention, and had lately changed his residence and become a citizen of New York. Thus step by step were the Federalists steadily coming to the fore.

CHAPTER VII.

ORGANIZATION. OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT.

THE fourth day of March, 1789, should have witnessed the assembling at New York of the first Congress of the United States elected under the new Constitution. But the mischievous habits of procrastination which had obtained under the old régime had not yet been superseded by the better fashion of punctuality. At the appointed time no more than eight senators and thirteen members of the lower house appeared. The Federalists, full of warm interest and anticipation, experienced no small degree of chagrin from this display of indifference. The few gentlemen who had gathered in due time hastened to despatch pressing circular letters to summon the absentees. But these came in leisurely, as indeed they had some substantial excuse for doing, since many of them were obliged to traverse the long routes between their homes in the far east or south and New

York either on horseback or by sea. At length on the thirtieth day of the month the House of Representatives could gather a quorum, and on the sixth day of April the Senate reached the same point of success. The votes for president and vice-president