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 (3 51 "^ . 
 

 GEORGE CLISLTON 
 
 SOME OF HIS 
 COLONIAL, REVOLUTIONARY AND 
 POST-REVOLUTIONARY SERVICES 
 
 An Address by 
 
 RALPH EARL PRIME, D.C.L., LL.D. 
 
 delivered before 
 
 THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 
 OF 
 
 NEWBURGH BAY AND THE HIGHLANDS 
 
 March 24, 1903 
 
t362 
 ■CuP^Z 
 
 The 
 
 Ja Jj 
 
Introductory. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ H^HE following address, by invitation of the Historical Society 
 -*■ of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands, was delivered by 
 
 Ralph Earl Prime, D.C.L., LL.D., at a meeting of that Society 
 at Newburgh, March 24th, 1903. 
 
 Mr. Prime spent his boyhood days in Newburgh, and intro- 
 ducing his address referring to that fact said : 
 
 " As we stand here to-day in this hillside City and look 
 '^ down upon, and over the beautiful bay, which lies at the end 
 " of the hill-slope, and at those grand hills over yonder, clad in 
 " green in the sunlight, and in deep blue in the shade; a very rock 
 " fortress and defence to the middle and upper Hudson River; 
 " many are the personal memories that come to some of us. Among 
 " the earliest of my recollections is this scene. Across there, in the 
 " little Presbyterian parsonage at Mattewan, east of Fishkill Land- 
 " ing, I was born. Wonder that it has not long since passed away, 
 " as so many of our landmarks go. Brought across the Hudson in 
 ♦' arms, here in Newburgh I spent my early boyhood days. I well 
 
** remember, though so far away, in the years that are gone, the 
 " romp and play of my childhood on these hillsides. I remember the 
 " gardens and the gorgeous lawns of those days, to which I was ever 
 " welcomed as a little fellow, and all of which was my boy domain. 
 " The old Scotch Church is gone now, with the other vanished 
 " landmarks that give way, despite their memories, to the onward 
 "ceaseless and destructive march of a so-called better taste, and 
 " the demand of improvement, which, with all its merit, is a verit- 
 " able vandal, and has no regard for sentiment or memories. The 
 " man of God, who, in those days, loyal to his Divine Master, stood 
 " in the pulpit of that Church, proclaimed the Gospel of peace, I 
 " well knew in my childhood, and continued to know when I was 
 " grown to manhood. He was my friend, later became a soldier, 
 " and with me served the god of war for a time." 
 
 "Other respected and honored names of those days I have 
 " not forgotten, the two Downings, the Monelles, the Rankins, the 
 " McCroskereys and others. How well I remember them all; yet 
 " they live almost only in memory to-day." 
 
 " I am glad to come back here at this time, and cannot help 
 " recalling these recollections of my youth ; though our purpose 
 " to-day is to recall somewhat of other events, further back than 
 " the memories of any of us, and only known as history ; events 
 " that are inseparable from these scenes we can look upon to-day." 
 
3>- 
 
GEORGE CLINTON 
 
 SOME OF HIS 
 
 COLONIAL, REVOLUTIONARY AND 
 POST-REVOLUTIONARY SERVICES 
 
 BY 
 COL. RALPH EARL PRIME 
 
 IN presenting any part of the life or doings of any great man, it 
 is difficult, nay impossible, to avoid presenting also other men 
 and other things. What a man thinks and does, what his opinions 
 and impulses are, what his relation to coincident events and affairs, 
 his heredity, his environment, the effect upon him of the opinions 
 and the personality of other men, the influence of all these varied 
 things that happen, and of which he is a part, all these things 
 are so interwoven with the man himself, that in order to get a 
 just appreciation of him, it is necessary to consider them as well. 
 This is peculiarly true in the story of George Clinton, as we shall 
 see. The people among whom he lived, the locality where he 
 lived, the great Hudson River Valley so intimately connected 
 with him in his career, the events and the sufferings of the people, 
 of whom he was a part, during the period that preceded the 
 Revolution, the events of that Revolution itself, all these neces- 
 sarily have much to do with the life of George Clinton. 
 
 It hence will be impossible to the present task, to omit a large 
 consideration of all of these, in attempting to set out something 
 of the place which George Clinton occupied in history, and in 
 order to enable us to judge of his character and of what he did. 
 Therefore, although much will be said about the events of the 
 Revolutionary War and of other men, yet are we in fact dealing 
 with George Clinton. 
 
 Many of the events that happened then, though inconspicuous 
 when compared with others, were in fact momentous to us. The 
 
6 George Clinton 
 
 men who acted their part then, have their place in history, though 
 we do not often dwell upon their story. Among them were many 
 who, out of real native worth, wrought great things, and they 
 have come to be historic and to be inseparable from the story of 
 our country and the State. Some of them were specially fitted 
 by nature and by heredity, for their work, and were called of 
 God to it, and of none can this be more truly said than of 
 George Clinton. 
 
 This country of ours gives equal opportunity to all, and God 
 forbid the time when the worship of wealth shall so take posses- 
 sion of it that it shall make wealth the symbol of personal worth. 
 Notwithstanding any of our fears, I believe it will never come. 
 But although we endorse the abstract sentiment of our fathers 
 that all men are born free and equal, yet there is an heredity of 
 fitness, which cannot be counted out, and men become trained in 
 long lines of blood and development for the work God has for 
 them to do. 
 
 George Clinton came of a line of soldiers and true men. His 
 great-grandfather, William Clinton,^ was a soldier in the royalist 
 army and he fought for Charles I., in those days that produced 
 the Cavaliers and the Roundheads. Irving gives his name as 
 Gen. Charles Clinton. 2 The King fell and the great Protector 
 came to be the fountain-head of English liberty, at least of that 
 period, and of the freedom which we enjoy with its development, 
 which includes religious liberty. In the fall of that King, the 
 blood was spilled that flowing in his veins meant oppression 
 and repression, but spilled upon the ground it enriched England 
 and fertilized it and gave a new start and an impulse to 
 the growth of constitutional liberty. The triumph of the 
 Roundheads drove out the followers of the King, and William 
 Clinton found refuge in France for a time, but later he went 
 to Scotland. 3 There he married. We know nothing of his 
 religious tendencies, prejudices or opinions before Charles I. 
 fell, but presumptively from his official rank in the army of the 
 King they were toward the establishment. I have before this 
 wondered if by breathing the Scotch Presbyterian air, or perhaps 
 by the influence of a good Scotch wife, there was planted in him, 
 and through him in the line of his descendants, some of the 
 
 I. Clinton Papers; vol. i, p. 15. 2. Irving's Washington; book 2, p. 70. 
 3. Clinton Papers; vol. i, p. 15. 
 
Gkorge Clinton 7 
 
 stern Calvinistic iron and sinew and spirit which grew and 
 developed and came out to notice in the line of his descendants 
 and in the person of his great-grandsons, James and George 
 Clinton, both of whom, just before the Revolutionary war, were 
 in the Church records of Orange County as District trustees of 
 a Presbyterian Church. 1 The Tory historian, Jones, writing of 
 George Clinton, speaks of him as a " rigid, true Presbyterian," a 
 "hypocrite. "2 
 
 But William Clinton did not escape in Scotland from perse- 
 cution as a result of his former royalist connections and perhaps 
 his yet treasured loyalty to the memory of the fallen King. It 
 may have been in a degree, a *' fool's errand " that begat trouble 
 for him. Even the best men sometimes will talk, and a soldier's 
 life of adventure and danger is full of romance, and of story, 
 and none more than a soldier likes to talk of his campaigns and 
 dangers. He was at all events compelled to seek safety and fled 
 with his wife to Ireland and there soon after died, leaving an 
 only son, James, then only two years old. James married and 
 his son Charles (named perhaps for the King or Prince Charlie) 
 was born to him in County Longford, Ireland, in 1690.2 
 
 The stories of the strange new things in this then new world 
 across the seas, and the opportunity for adventure, filled the 
 mind and excited imagination and attention in the old world. 
 Perhaps those stories offered gratification of the spirit of adven- 
 ture in Charles Clinton, then grown to be nearly forty years of 
 age, and created in him desire, and nerved him, in 1729 to organ- 
 ize an expedition of 70 souls and with them to cross the great 
 stormy sea. They sailed in the ship " George and Annie " for 
 America.* When we think of the ships of this day, and the ships 
 of those days, what a ship the " George and Annie " must have 
 been ! Would we to-day, even the most adventurous of us, trust 
 ourselves in such a craft to cross the now familiar waters ? 
 
 It is said that their destination was Philadelphia. The voy- 
 age was not itself without adventure. The strange actions of the 
 ship's captain begat suspicion among the voyagers and we are 
 told that the company sought to induce their leader, Charles 
 Clinton, to assume command of the ship.** We at once imagine 
 he must have already shown among his qualities, fitness to com- 
 
 I. Ruttenber's History of Newburgh; p. 299. 2. Jones History of N. Y. ; 
 vol. 2, p. 326. 3. Clinton Papers; vol. i, p. 15. 4. Idem. 5. Idem. 
 
8 George Clinton 
 
 mand on sea as well as on land, to have induced such an offer of 
 command. He declined the task however and then the evidently- 
 well to do party, by large gifts of money, induced the crafty- 
 captain to fulfil his engagement and to put them safely ashore in 
 America, and the whole company bound for a new land were 
 glad indeed to be landed on the shores of Massachusetts Bay,' 
 where they tarried until 1731, and then took up a further tramp, 
 and a new stage in their journey, and came to the grand river and 
 beautiful valley of the Hudson, and made their home at Little 
 Britain, then in Ulster County, N. Y. 
 
 Charles Clinton, the leader of the colonists, was educated it 
 seems to be a civil engineer. He became a lawyer. Later he 
 was first Judge of his county. The instincts born in him and 
 inherited from his grandfather, with the ever conscious necessity 
 of protection from the savages of the forest, led him also to 
 become a soldier, and they fortified and defended the farms, and 
 later we find him the Lieutenant Colonel of the Militia Regi- 
 ment of his county. His was no paper title only, for he served 
 the colony with his regiment in the field and was actively 
 engaged in campaigns, far from Little Britain, along the north 
 borders and along the great lake and in the wilderness resisting 
 the French and Indians, who came down from the then French 
 Canada, to ravage the British colony of New York.^ 
 
 Two sons had been born to him, James Clinton and George 
 Clinton, both to write their names high on the historic roll of 
 sons of New York ; James as a Major General in the war for 
 independence and from whom sprang De Witt Clinton, a dis- 
 tinguished son, a name not necessary to enlighten a New Yorker 
 about, but the younger son, George, became not only distin- 
 guished as a general officer and a soldier, but a most prominently 
 great figure in the early history of the State and the nation and 
 a leader of the people. These two sons, as mere boys, accom- 
 panied their father and his regiment in the French and Indian 
 wars, the eldest, James, as captain of one of the regimental com- 
 panies, and George as a lieutenant, no doubt in his brother's 
 company. 3 They thus early showed themselves as worthy sons 
 and scions of a soldier family, and, as very young fellows, they 
 distinguished themselves, also among their other adventures, 
 
 I. Clinton Papers; vol. i, p. 15. 2. Irving's Washington ; book 2, p. 71. 
 3. Idem; p. 71. 
 
George Clinton 9 
 
 by capturing an armed French vessel on Lake Champlain.i 
 Charles Clinton was a patriot and on his death bed in 1773, 
 being 88 years of age. charged his sons to stand by the liberties 
 of their country.^ They were born to it and needed not the 
 admonition. 
 
 But it is with the story of George Clinton that we have to do 
 to-day. 
 
 George Clinton was born at Little Britain, Ulster, now 
 Orange County, July 26, 1739.^ Adventure was a large part of 
 his story. In 1755, when only 16 years of age, he was for a time 
 a sailor boy and sailed from New York on a privateer,* but 
 returning home when scarce 20 years old, as lieutenant he 
 accompanied his father and brother in the same regiment, to the 
 Canadian frontier and Lake Champlain in the French and Indian 
 wars, in the Wilderness, and along Ontario and against Fort 
 Frontenac. ^ 
 
 The peace between Great Britain and France in 1763, brought 
 the three Clintons home to peaceful pursuits. George, born to 
 conflict of one kind or another, turned about for occupation 
 most to his taste, and chose the calling of his father. He became 
 a lawyer, and was admitted to the bar in 1764 by Governor Cad- 
 walader Colden,^ lawyers in those days being licensed by the 
 Governor of the Colony. Strange that when later on he became 
 General Clinton and Governor Clinton he sent the grandson of 
 the same Cadwalader Colden to Kingston Jail as a spy.' 
 
 Those days did not offer continuous occupation to the coun- 
 try lawyer, and it seems not to have met all the demands of 
 Clinton's nature, and so he added politics to the things that in- 
 terested him, and thus early in his life came before the people in 
 that line. He became Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of 
 his county, and engaged in legal strifes generally, and not of 
 his own, only. That was a greater place in those days than in 
 these, although there was then less money in it. His father had 
 risen from a legal practitioner, whatever it then was, to the 
 bench, and so also the son, for he soon became Surrogate and 
 Probate Judge of the County,^ and, according to the practice 
 then, and for long years later, and perhaps in some places until 
 
 I. Clinton Papers ; vol. i, p. 17. 2. Irving's Washington ; book 2, p. 71. 
 3. Clinton Papers, vol. i., p. 17. 4. Idem; p. 17. 5. Idem; p. 17. 6. Idem; 
 p. 18. 7. Idem; p. 788. 8. Idem; p. 18. 
 
lo George Clinton 
 
 these days, the general adviser of widows and of the representa- 
 tives of estates of deceased persons. In 1768 he was chosen a 
 member of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York, 
 and sat in that body for seven successive years. ^ 
 
 The grievances of the colonies and their complaints, against 
 the then existing kind of British rule, and of taxation without 
 representation had reached abroad and was loudly heard in the 
 mother country. I wonder if such rule was not on the whole 
 for the benefit of the future of our country, for what would 
 have happened we do not know, if the colonies had then been 
 colonies of that ''veiled republic " of to-day. But even then the 
 Colonists had their friends in England. Pitt, the great Com- 
 moner, espoused their cause. Col. Isaac Barre, in old Westmin- 
 ster Hall, in the sitting of Parliament, in a public speech called 
 the colonists " Sons of Liberty." ^ As the opprobrious epithet 
 *' Beggars of the Sea " Avas adopted by the victorious Dutch 
 sailors who swept the sea and nailed the broom to the masthead 
 and used it for a figurehead on their ships, and made the epithet 
 a title of honor, our ancestors took up those words " Sons of 
 Liberty " and formed an organization, necessarily secret, but 
 which had its members in many American cities and towns, and 
 there are some of us who to-day are most happy to include in 
 our genealogical story a descent from one of the later acknowl- 
 edged " Sons of Liberty." 
 
 Just to enumerate a few only of the grievances of the colo- 
 nies against British rule : Town meetings were forbidden ; juries 
 
 1. N. Y. Civil List, Ed. of 1888, pp. 311, 312. 
 
 2. The words of the speech of Col. Barre in that connection were: " They 
 planted by your care ! No ; your oppressions planted them in America. They 
 fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated, unhospitable country, where 
 they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is 
 liable ; and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle, and 
 I will take upon me to say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of 
 God's earth ; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met 
 all hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own 
 country, from the hands of those who should have been their friends. 
 
 " They nourished up by your indulgence ? They grew by your neglect of 
 them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in 
 sending persons to rule them in one department and another, who were 
 perhaps the deputies of deputies to some member of this house, sent to spy 
 out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions and to prey upon them ; men 
 whose behavior on many occasions had caused the blood of those Sons of 
 Liberty to recoil within them ; men promoted to the highest seats of justice, 
 some who, to my knowledge were glad, by going to a foreign country, to 
 escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own." 
 
George Clinton ii 
 
 were drawn to consist only of those who favored the rule of the 
 King and had set themselves against the cause of the colonies ; 
 persons accused of crime were sent to Nova Scotia and even to 
 England for trial ; the stamp act had been enacted and its time 
 of taking effect approached ; the Quebec act was passed, adding 
 all the land west of the Alleghanys to the Canadas ; the billet- 
 ing act which quartered troops upon the people, a thing utterly 
 unheard of in these days. As Vv^e, in these days, look back to 
 those days, we wonder at the accumulating list of wrongs and 
 the increasing oppression suffered by our fathers, and at their 
 long-endured oppression, their patience, and yet their loyalty to 
 legal rule. 
 
 A Congress, composed of representatives of nine of the col- 
 onies, met in New York October 7, 1765, and strongly protested 
 against the Stamp act and other acts in repression of trade and 
 commerce, and claimed the right of petition, of trial by jury, of 
 taxation only by representatives of those taxed. 
 
 The meeting and the action of that Congress demonstrated 
 the possibility of united action by all the separate colonies. 
 
 The decade that followed did not serve to ameliorate the condi- 
 tions nor to reconcile the people, for more and other oppressions 
 came. The tea tax followed. The attempt to quarter troops 
 upon the people and their resistance brought on the Boston mas- 
 sacre. The quartering of troops upon the people was no imag- 
 inary burden, but so real a wrong and grievance and outrage, 
 that it later occupied a prominent place in the long list of 
 wrongs and grievances recited in the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. It touched most sharply sensibilities and personal rights. 
 It invaded the home life, and its sanctity. It came as close as 
 could be to all who suffered from it. It was a continual threat 
 to those whose houses had not yet been invaded, that their turn 
 might come next. It was a continual menace and was most 
 heartily resented. 
 
 The Boston tea party of December, 1773, belongs to that 
 period. In November, 1773, in the port of New York, another 
 tea party was held and three tea ships were sent back to Eng- 
 land, and of the cargo of tea in another, eighteen chests were 
 found on board and were thrown into the bay. A merchant ship 
 commanded by Captain Chambers arrived, and the Sons of Lib- 
 erty, disguised as Indians, boarded her and the tea was thrown 
 
12 Geopge Clinton 
 
 overboard by them.^ In November, 1773, New York merchants, 
 even earlier than in Boston, refused to allow the landing of tea 
 either with or without duty paid." 
 
 Another Continental Congress, historically called the first but 
 really the second Continental Congress, met September 5, 1774, 
 in Philadelphia. Twelve of the thirteen colonies were repre- 
 sented. Not yet was independence even thought of. It adopted 
 the celebrated " Articles of Association." It approved the resist- 
 ance of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to the enforce- 
 ment of the obnoxious acts and counseled in cases of attempted 
 enforcement that all America ought to support opposition 
 thereto. It also summoned another Continental Congress to 
 meet in Philadelphia, May loth, 1775. 
 
 In the colony of New York especially, the Association pledge, 
 a document for individual signatures pledging resistance to 
 English oppression, was most widely circulated and signed.' 
 Signature was pressed upon all. Everyone must sign or decline 
 to sign. The lines were drawn between those who sustained the 
 crown and the patriots who maintained the rights of the colo- 
 nies and resented and resisted their wrongs. It was not designed 
 as an act of rebellion, but as a bond and pledge of union in 
 opposition to oppression. It served to distinguish who was 
 who ; to call out the brave who were courageous enough to 
 
 1. Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution, vol. 2, p. 586. The destruction 
 of tea was by men disguised by Indians and called " Mohawks." There may 
 have been an understanding at both Boston and New York, for in each tea 
 party the actors were disguised as Indians. 
 
 2. Bancroft, U. S., vol. 4, p. 172. Irving's Washington, Book I, p. 245. 
 
 3. Calendar of Revolutionary manuscripts on file in office of Secretary of 
 State, Vol. IV., pp. 5 to 99. The form of the Association pledge was as fol- 
 lows ; " Persuaded that the salvation of the rights and liberties of America 
 depend under God, on the firm union of its inhabitants in a vigorous prosecu- 
 tion of the measures necessary for its safety ; and convinced of the necessity of 
 preventing anarchy and confusion which attend the dissolution of the powers of 
 
 government, we, the freemen, freeholders and inhabitants of , being 
 
 greatly alarmed at the avowed design of the Ministry to raise a revenue in 
 America, and shocked by the bloody scene now acting in Massachusetts Bay, 
 do, in the most solemn manner, resolve Never to Become Slaves ; and do asso- 
 ciate, under all the ties of religion, honor and love to our country, to adopt and 
 endeavor to carry into execution whatever measures may be recommended by 
 the Continental Congress or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention, for 
 the purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposing the execution of the 
 several arbitrary acts of the British Parliament, until a reconcilation between 
 Great Britain and America on Constitutional principles (which we most ardently 
 desire) can be obtained ; and that we will in all things follow the advice of the 
 General Committee respecting the purposes aforesaid, the preservation of peace 
 and good order, and the safety of individuals and property." 
 
George Clinton 13 
 
 stand by the cause of the colonies ; and to black list those who 
 dared not, and place them with those who clung to the aristo- 
 cratic relations with the rich and the official classes. 
 
 The names of James Clinton and George Clinton are found 
 of course among those who signed the Association pledge. 
 
 Through all this period of ferment George Clinton had lived 
 and grown as the people grew, strong and heroic, and loving the 
 liberty which was sought more and more. He was forward in 
 all that concerned those who resented the wrongs heaped upon 
 the colonies. He emerged from his local sphere of Ulster 
 County in 1768, when he was elected representative from his 
 county to the Thirtieth General Assembly of the Colony of 
 New York.i That Assembly was elected for five years, and com- 
 menced its session October 27, 1768, but by its action in Decem- 
 ber of that year, so offended the Governor of the Colony, that on 
 the 2d day of January, 1769, it was dissolved by him.^ 
 
 Early in 1769 the Thirty first General Assembly of this Col- 
 ony was elected under the cry of " No Lawyers and no Presby- 
 terians." The lawyers were devoted to the vital principles of 
 civil liberty and the Presbyterians were engaged in efforts to se- 
 cure religious equality before the law, which was denied by the 
 Government.^ 
 
 The General Assembly met in April, 1769. George Clinton 
 had been again chosen a representative of his county,* and took 
 his seat in the body. It was a -stormy body. It had a strong 
 Tory party in it, which was all subservient to the prerogatives 
 of the King, and to the influences of the aristocratic element in 
 the colony. The patriots were divided into two factions, one 
 for radical resistance, and the other for resistance, too, but for a 
 more conservative and quiet treatment of the matter. ^ 
 
 It is not strange that such a man as Creorge Clinton was, 
 while a member of that General Assembly of the colony, a rep- 
 resentative of the people, felt their grievances keenly, and his 
 feeling was intensified by such an environment, the Tory element 
 so strong, and the party of the people divided in counsel and in 
 action. He threw himself with might and main in favor of the 
 cause of the people against such rule as Great Britain gave them. 
 While sitting in that Colonial Legislative Assembly, and not by 
 
 I. N. Y. Civil List, Ed. of 1888, pp. 311, 312. 2. Idem, p. 109. 3. Idem, 
 p. 109. 4. Idem, p. 312. 5. Idem, p. 109. 
 
14 George Clinton 
 
 any means twenty-seven years of age, he became at once a ;:^romi- 
 nent figure, and among all who surrounded him he became the 
 leader of the party protesting and petitioning for redress, and 
 resenting the grievances of the people and the encroachments on 
 the liberties of the Colonists. The Assembly was attacked as 
 having betrayed the cause of the people. Alexander McDougal, 
 a patriot of the City of New York, afterward a Major-General in 
 the Continental Army, issued a circular charging the Assembly 
 with disloyalty to the people and with abandonment and be- 
 trayal of their cause. ^ He was arrested, and for months was 
 imprisoned and then brought before the Assembly for trial, and 
 it was George Clinton who, with ardor and zeal, defended Mc- 
 Dougal before that body.- 
 
 It can well and most truly be said that George Clinton was no 
 demagogue, and he was very near to the people. 
 
 The General Assembly refused to carry out the recommenda- 
 tion of the previous Continental Congress, and refused to use or 
 circulate or enforce the Articles of Association. ^ The Conti- 
 nental Congress of 1774 had appointed another Continental Con- 
 gress to sit in May, 1775, and the General Assembly of New 
 York refused to appoint deputies to that Congress.* 
 
 A committee appointed by the Conservative Merchants of 
 New York, and known as the Committee of Sixty, and also 
 known as the Executive Committee, issued a call for a Provin- 
 cial Convention to meet in New York City in March, 1775, to 
 elect deputies to represent the Colony of New York in the Con- 
 tinental Congress. 5 George Clinton was elected a member of 
 that Convention. It sat in New York April 20, 1775. 
 
 What a month was that month of April, 1775 ! The day be- 
 fore the Convention sat, April 19, 1775, was made eternally a 
 part of the history of our country by the conflicts at Lexington 
 and at Concord Bridge, where patriot blood flowed and bap- 
 tized a patriot people, for a great struggle, and sealed the cer- 
 tainty of American independence. The General Assembly of the 
 Colony of New York had held its last meeting April 3, adjourn- 
 ing to May 3, but it was never to meet again. The same Com- 
 mittee of Sixty, which called the Convention to elect deputies to 
 
 I. McDougal's circular, signed "A Son of Liberty," in full in Clinton 
 papers, Vol. I., p. no, 2. N. Y. Civil List, Ed. of 1888, p. no. 3. Idem, p. ng. 
 4. Calendar of Rev. MS,, Vol. L, p. 3. 5. Idem, p. 3. 
 
George Clinton 15 
 
 the Continental Congress, added to the events of that month of 
 April by issuing a call inviting the counties to elect delegates to 
 a Provincial Congress, ^ and George Clinton was chosen one of 
 those delegates.^ That body met May 22, and then became in 
 fact the successor of the General Assembly of the Colony, for 
 the powers of the Assembly were in fact superseded and assumed 
 by that Provincial Congress in May, 1775, and that General As- 
 sembly never met again, although it had a life on paper, by rea- 
 son only of being from time to time, nine times prorogued,^ 
 until May, 1776, after which no pretense even on paper recorded 
 its continuing life, and it was never afterward heard of. The 
 very name of Colony had become distasteful to the patriot peo- 
 ple, and was dropped, and the Colony of New York disappeared 
 from history, and from April, 1775, came to be known as the 
 Province of New York. 
 
 What an atmosphere had been made by these events for the 
 Second Continental Congress, and how events hurried on one 
 after another. 
 
 The Convention met April 20, 1775, the next day after Lex- 
 ington. Young man as he was, George Clinton's place as a 
 patriot leader had already been fixed and made evident, and the 
 Convention named him one of the representatives of the Province 
 of New York to the Continental Congress. 
 
 The Continental Congress met May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, 
 and it was on that very day that Ticonderoga fell into the hands 
 of the patriots, led by Ethan Allen. George Clinton took his 
 seat May 15, 1775, having for associates as representatives from 
 New York such men as John Jay, Philip Livingston, William 
 Floyd, Francis Lewis and Lewis Morris. 
 
 Clinton having been also elected in May a member of the 
 Provincial Congress, it is very difficult to see how he could 
 discharge the duties of his position in the two bodies, the Pro- 
 vincial Congress and the Continental Congress meeting at the 
 same time, at places then very distant from each other, but we 
 cannot assume that he slighted either patriotic duty. 
 
 War was inevitable, though there was no formal declaration 
 of war, and preparations for conflict went on. On June 15, 1775, 
 George Washington, who was a member from Virginia of the 
 Continental Congress, was appointed by that body General and 
 
 I. N. Y. Civil List, Ed. of 1888, p. 113. 2, Idem. 3. Idem, p. 312. 
 
i6 George Clinton 
 
 Commander-in-Chief, and measures were taken to raise an army. 
 On June 17, two days later, Bunker Hill had been fought, and 
 Warren had given up his life for his country. 
 
 We can scarce understand the hour and the circumstances in 
 which those men lived. As we read the story of those early 
 conflicts, how long drawn upon was the patience of those pa- 
 triotic men ! Stung and rasped and goaded by the continued 
 oppressive rule, and the accumulating oppressions suffered by 
 the people, the repeated collisions with the King's army, and the 
 blood of their fallen fellows that cried out from the ground for 
 vindication, they yet sought to make terms with the King, and 
 in proclaiming a general fast throughout the United Colonies, 
 directed that the people should recognize the King as their law- 
 ful sovereign, and look to God for restoration of their rights and 
 for reconciliation with the parent State. 
 
 Final action toward independence was not taken in any form 
 until June 7, 1776, when Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, 
 moved in Continental Congress a resolution that " these United 
 Colonies are and of right should be free and independent States." 
 This resolution was debated two days, and then further consid- 
 eration postponed until July 2, in order that delegates might 
 consult their constituents about it, and, meanwhile, it was re- 
 ferred to a committee of five, of which Jefferson was chairman. 
 That resolution contained the germ of the immortal Declaration 
 of Independence, and on the 2d day of July, 1776, the Congress 
 adopted the resolution amplified in these words, " Resolved that 
 these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and in- 
 dependent States, and that they are absolved from all allegiance 
 to the British crown, and that political connection between them 
 and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dis- 
 solved." This, we see, was the real Declaration of Independence. 
 Washington was already in the field. New York had been in- 
 vaded, and at the summons of Washington Clinton at once hur- 
 riedly left Philadelphia and the deliberations of the Congress 
 and went to the defense of his State, not, however, until he had 
 voted, July 2, 1776, for the first resolution, the real Declaration 
 of Independence, but before the document we know as the Dec- 
 laration of Independence had been written out by Jefferson and 
 reported ready for individual signature by the members of that 
 
George Clinton 17 
 
 Congress. We cannot but regret that his name is not written at 
 the foot of that document, amidst that galaxy of immortal names, 
 and adding another to the four representatives of New York who 
 signed the paper, few, indeed, for our great Empire State; but 
 his obedience to the call of the great commander, and to arms 
 and to a higher duty, will ever explain to those who read or hear 
 the reason why, and will place his name in honor with them. 
 
 The actual separation of the several colonies, each from the 
 other, becomes most apparent when we consider the fact, that 
 although the Continental Congress raised its moneys for the war 
 and had troops which were, in fact, raised by authority of the 
 Continental Congress, and officers were appointed by it, yet in 
 the several colonies the legislative bodies to a large extent di- 
 rected military matters within their bounds, and there were 
 troops called Regiments of the Line of each Colony, as the New 
 York line, the Massachusetts line, etc., and there were Commit- 
 tees of Safety in the colonies which also exercised authority of a 
 very actual nature. Still, with all this divided authority, the 
 practical unity of the people in the cause is exemplified in the 
 other fact that there was so little substantial division and dissen- 
 sion. There were remarkable personal enmities and jealousies. 
 Place seekers abounded then as now, who would risk their coun- 
 try's cause for their own gain. There were many who coveted 
 the places and command of others. There were those who as- 
 pired even to the place that Washington occupied, and bitter and 
 libelous things were both written and said of him. But how su- 
 preme was Washington above them all. We stand in admiration 
 of his colossal figure, and his incomparable character, despite of 
 all libels and enmities and ambitions of others. Secure in his 
 place of command, and in the confidence and affection of his 
 countrymen, which he was never by any mistake or misfortune 
 to lose. How truly after his death, more than twenty years 
 later, was it said of him by the great John Marshall in the Halls 
 of Congress, " First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts 
 of his fellow-citizens. "1 
 
 I. Speech of John Marshall in the House of Representatives, and resolu 
 tion moved by him adopted by the House December ig, i7qq 
 
 " Mr. Speaker 
 
 The melancholy event which was yesterday announced with doubt, has been 
 rendered but too certain. Our Washington is no more ! The hero, the patriot. 
 
i8 George Clinton 
 
 And how his death brought from the lips even of Jefferson, 
 the words, "Washington's fame will go on increasing until the 
 brightest constellation in yonder heavens shall be called by his 
 
 and the sage of America ; the man on whom in times of danger every eye was 
 turned, and all hopes were placed, lives now only in his great actions, and in 
 the hearts of an affectionate and afflicted people. 
 
 If, sir, it had not been usual openly to testify respect for the memory of those 
 whom Heaven has selected as its instruments for dispensing good to man, yet 
 such has been the uncommon worth, and such the extraordinary incidents, 
 which have marked the life of him whose loss we all deplore, that the whole 
 American nation, impelled by the same feelings, would call with one voice for 
 a public manifestation of that sorrow, which is so deep and so universal. 
 
 More than any other individual, and as much to one individual as was 
 possible, has he contributed to found this our wide-spreading empire, and to 
 give to the western world independence and freedom. 
 
 Having effected the great object for which he was placed at the head of our 
 armies, we have seen him convert the sword into the ploughshare, and sink 
 the soldier in the citizen. 
 
 When the debility of our federal system had become manifest, and the bonds 
 which connected this vast continent were dissolving, we have seen him the 
 chief of those patroits who formed for us a constitution, which, by preserving 
 the union, will, I trust, substantiate and perpetuate those blessings which our 
 Revolution had promised to bestow. 
 
 In obedience to the general voice of his country, calling him to preside over 
 a great people, we have seen him once more quit the retirement he loved, and, 
 in a season more stormy and tempestuous than war itself, with calm and wise 
 determination pursue the true interests of the nation, and contribute, more 
 than any other could contribute, to the establishment of that system of policy, 
 which will, I trust, yet preserve our peace, our honor, and our independence. 
 
 Having been twice unanimously chosen the chief magistrate of a free 
 people, we have seen him at a time when his re-election with universal suffrage 
 could not be doubted, afford to the world a rare instance of moderation, by 
 withdrawing from his station to the peaceful walks of private life. 
 
 However the public confidence may change, and the public affections 
 fluctuate with respect to others, with respect to him they have, in war and in 
 peace, in public and in private life, been as steady as his own firm mind, and 
 as constant as his exalted virtues. 
 
 Let us then, Mr. Speaker, pay the last tribute of respect and affection ta 
 our departed friend. Let the grand council of the nation display those senti- 
 ments which the nation feels. For this purpose I hold in my hand some reso- 
 lutions, which I take the liberty of offering to the House. 
 
 Resolved, That the House will wait on the President, in condolence of this 
 mournful event. 
 
 Resolved, That the speaker's chair be shrouded with black, and that the 
 members and officers of the House wear black during the session. 
 
 Resolved, That a committee, in conjuction with one from the Senate, be 
 appointed to consider on the most suitable manner of paying honor to the 
 memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
 fellow-citizens." 
 
 Marshall stated afterward, in his Life of Washington, that these resolu- 
 tions were drafted by Col. Henry Lee of Virginia, who could not be in his 
 place to offer them. It is a remarkable fact that there are at least three differ- 
 ent versions of the resolutions, one other of which is as follows: "Unani- 
 mously Resolved, i. That this house will wait on the President of the United 
 States, in condolence of this national calamitj'. 2. That the speaker's chair 
 be shrouded in black, and that the members and officers of the house wear 
 
George Clinton 19 
 
 name."^ No more lofty words were ever written than compose 
 theletter of the Senate of the United States to John Adams, 
 then President of the United States, condoling with him upon 
 the death of Washington. ^ 
 
 As we sail upon our Hudson River which flows always so 
 peacefully, or hurry along its waters on our way to and from 
 
 mourning during the session. 3. That a joint committee of both houses be 
 appointed to report measures suitable to the occasion and expressive of the 
 profound sorrow with which Congress is penetrated on the loss of a 
 citizen first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
 men." 
 
 1. Daneslie's Life of Jefferson, p. 358. 
 
 2. Letter to John Adams, President, adopted by the Senate of the United 
 States, December 23, 1799: 
 
 "Sir : 
 
 The Senate of the United States respectfully take leave to express to you 
 their deep regret for the loss their country sustains in the death of General 
 George Washington. 
 
 This event, so distressing to all our fellow-citizens, must be peculiarly 
 heavy to you, who have long been associated with him in deeds of patriotism. 
 Permit us, sir, to mingle our tears with yours. On this occasion it is manly 
 to weep. To lose such a man at such a crisis, is no common calamity to the 
 world. Our country mourns a father. The Almighty Disposer of human 
 events has taken from us our greatest benefactor and ornament. It becomes 
 us to submit with reverence to him "who maketh darkness his pavilion." 
 
 With patriotic pride we review the life of our Washington, and compare 
 him with those of other countries who have been pre-eminent in lame. Ancient 
 and modern times are diminished before him. Greatness and guilt have too 
 often been allied ; but his fame is whiter than it is brilliant. The destroyers 
 of nations stood abashed at the majesty of his virtues. It reproved the in- 
 temperance of their ambition, and darkened the splendor of victory. The 
 scene is closed, and we are no longer anxious lest misfortune should sully his 
 glory ; he has traveled on to the end of his journey, and carried with him an 
 increasing weight of honor ; he has deposited it safely, where misfortune can- 
 not tarnish it, where malice cannot blast it. Favored of Heaven, he departed 
 without exhibiting the weakness of humanity. Magnanimous in death, the 
 darkness of the grave could not obscure his brightness. 
 
 Such was the man whom we deplore. Thanks to God, his glory is con- 
 summated. Washington yet lives on earth in his spotless example ; his spirit 
 is in Heaven. Let his countrymen consecrate the memory of the heroic 
 General, the patriotic statesman, and the virtuous sage. Let them teach their 
 children never to forget that the fruits of his labors and his example are their 
 inheritance." 
 
 Note. — In this connection, though not related to the death of Washington, 
 but to the person and story of the man, it is interesting to note here two fairly 
 authenticated facts, little known, that when Rochambeau came with the French 
 troops to our assistance and D'Estaing came with a fleet of war vessels, in order 
 that there should not be an element of dissension, the King of France ^ent to 
 Washington a temporary commission as Marshal in the French army, that he 
 might outrank Rochambeau in command of the French troops, and also a com- 
 mission as Admiral in the French navy, that he might outrank D'Estaing and 
 command him in the movements of the French war vessels. 3 
 
 3. Our French Allies, 1778 to 1781, pages 373 to 378. Harper's Book of 
 Facts, page 833, under date of May 11, 1780. Clinton papers, Vol. I., p. 100. 
 
20 George Clinton 
 
 the marts of commerce and of trade and of a ceaseless industr}^, 
 those beautiful waters, fringed with the most bounteous gifts of 
 nature, its shores now abounding with all that wealth and art can 
 add, we are altogether unconscious of the sounds and the para- 
 phernalia of war, those scenes once heard and knew, and of the 
 men who wrought for us there, and the intimate and important 
 relation that this river had to that great birth struggle of our 
 country. Yes, we seldom think of the men who, born on, or 
 near its shores, had great place in those days, a hundred and 
 more years ago. 
 
 The importance of the Hudson River as a means of access to 
 New York City from the north and the danger involved in its 
 possession by an enemy as cutting in two the colonies was well 
 recognized before the war of the Revolution. The French had 
 several times attempted this line of attack from her Canadian 
 colony. Such an attack was planned by the French in 1689, and 
 Frontenac in an attempt to accomplish it came down from the 
 north, and penetrated as far as Schenectady which he burned, 
 and scarce any parallel to that campaign for ferocity and blood 
 and massacre is to be found in the stories of the most savage 
 warfare. Later came Montcalm over the same ground and on 
 the same errand. Clinton was not ignorant of what all that 
 meant, for he too, as we have already seen, when only 19 years 
 of age had fought on the northern borders of New York and 
 had participated in successful resistance to the incursions of the 
 French. And when the Revolutionary War broke out and re- 
 sistance to the bitter end became the fixed purpose of the Ameri- 
 can people, the strategists of the English army did not originate, 
 but adopted, the long well-known scheme, of expeditions north 
 from New York City by the valley of the Hudson, and south 
 from the Canadian border and by the Lake Champlain and the 
 Hudson River to New York. The destruction of the vessels in 
 Lake Champlain, the attack on Forts Clinton and Montgomery, 
 the attack upon the army of Washington at and the battle of 
 White Plains, the treachery of Arnold and his plan to deliver 
 West Point to the enemy and the battle of Saratoga with the 
 surrender of Burgoyne were all parts of the general plan and 
 persistent attempt to catry out such a project. 
 
 No American officer of intelligence and of general informa- 
 
George Clinton 21 
 
 tion as to the history of the past of the colonies, but knew of the 
 importance of the Hudson River in the struggle for independence. 
 Washington, of course, saw and appreciated all that the occupa- 
 tion of the valley of the Hudson would mean to the fate of the 
 colonies. No one to-day with that hindsight, so accurate to 
 pick up the results of the might-have-been, fails to appreciate it 
 at once. To separate New England from New York and the 
 other colonies west and south, would mean to take our cause in 
 detail and strike at will against our divided forces. Separated 
 from each other and by so grand a v»^aterway, which, once pos- 
 sessed, could be held securely by small armed craft, and with the 
 port of New York at the south and Albany at the north garri- 
 soned with troops, communication would be severed, supplies 
 cut off and re-inforcements prevented. 
 
 Washington saw and took the situation in, and one of his 
 letters on the subject is an example of terse and yet of all em- 
 bracing statement. 
 
 At the instance of the Continental Congress, towai"d the 
 end of May, 1775, action was taken in the Provincial Congress, 
 toward the fortification of the Highlands, and a few days 
 later George Clinton, then called Colonel Clinton, who probably 
 was then attending its session, and Mr. Tappan, two of its 
 members, were sent to the Highlands to inspect both banks 
 of the Hudson River and to report the most proper place for 
 erecting one or more fortifications. Only 14 days later, that 
 committee having visited the Hudson River valley and in- 
 spected its possibillities of defense, reported recommending the 
 building of Forts Constitution and Clinton and Montgomery, 
 which forts the Provincial Congress then directed to be con- 
 structed. Dissensions and rivalries and other sores, so often the 
 bane of almost every war, however, hindered the work almost 
 a year. 
 
 We may rest assured that the time spent by Clinton in 
 Philadelphia during sessions of the Continental Congress was 
 not occupied only with the legislative and deliberative duties of 
 that body. Washington needed to know of the matters con- 
 cerning New York, and to be accurately informed of the military, 
 situation there, and its military resources and of the possibilities 
 of the Hudson River. Many and long were the conferences be- 
 
 / 
 
22 GEORot Clinton 
 
 tween Washington and Clinton concerning these things, and the 
 Highlands, and their defense, during the waiting days and days 
 of preparation, and while they were fellow-members of the Con- 
 tinental Congress.! No one was better qualified than Clinton 
 to tell to Washington just what he wanted to know and to sup- 
 ply to the great commander the information so necessary to 
 possess and there was no one better qualified with whom to ad- 
 vise in order to measure and to plan the necessary defenses for 
 the whole line in the impending struggle. These conferences 
 also enabled Washington to measure up the capacity of the 
 young patriot for other responsibilities, for it seems beyond 
 doubt that it was at that time that he acquired such confidence 
 in the powers and capacities and character of Clinton, such a 
 sense of the sincerity of his patriotism, such an admiration for 
 his personality, that he was enabled later, as he did, to write so 
 warmly and positively of him to others, and to commend him to 
 others as one who could be relied upon and trusted for most 
 responsible places ; and to commend his zeal and his work, and 
 to entrust him with such important military command. The 
 friendship between the two, commenced at that time, afterwards 
 continued to grow and develop. Washington became the close 
 friend of Clinton, and during the years that followed the friend- 
 ship never cooled, but became more and more close and inti- 
 mate ; and that friendship, despite all differences of opinion 
 survived the war and continued through the life of Washington. ^ 
 It is impossible to trace fully all the steps of Clinton in all 
 his work in those eventful days. No doubt so young and so 
 active a man as he was, he strove to perform conscientiously his 
 full duty to New York as a member of its Provincial Congress 
 and also to discharge his other duties as a member of the Conti- 
 nental Congress so long as he remained a member of that body, 
 until active duties as a soldier called him away, and perhaps also 
 to keep hold on a private business at home. It must have been 
 a most difficult task in those times, before the era of railroads 
 and the telegraph. No one could ever guess the events of a day 
 to come, much less of a longer future. With a people divided in 
 
 1. Irving Washington. Book 2, p. 70. 
 
 2. In the last will and testament of Washington, Clinton is mentioned in 
 language which indicates, that they were so close, that they made joint invest- 
 ments, long after the termination of the war. 
 
Georg£ Clinton 23 
 
 sentiment, between, on one side, those of the aristocratic Tory 
 party not to be trusted with any measure of confidence or 
 good faith or even simple-hearted friendship ; and on the other 
 side, self-sacrificing, patriots, devotedly determined on the acqui- 
 sition of liberty in some form. Those who had little doubt of 
 the ultimate end, must have been most anxious all the time. 
 
 We cannot here recall all that was done by that Continental 
 Congress nor all the events in which Clinton figured during its 
 first year. He faithfully attended its earlier sessions. In Decem- 
 ber, 1775, he had been appointed by the Provincial Congress of 
 New York a Brigadier-General of the Militia of the Province. 
 From his oft-expressed sense of his unfitness to command large 
 bodies of soldiers, it will not be possible to assume that he sought 
 the place. It was the general sense of the people of New York, 
 that he was a man of patriotism, of ability, of honesty, and 
 faithful in all things entrusted to him. Perhaps a recollection 
 of his prowess as a young soldier in the French and Indian wars, 
 suggested and secured his appointment to military command, 
 unsought by him and perhaps without his knowledge. How 
 much it took him from his duties in the Continental Congress, 
 we do not know. But we do know that apparently he was 
 attentive and faithful in those duties until July, 1776, when he 
 was called away to the defense of New York. 
 
 The militia of those days were not as the militia of these 
 days. The City of New York was a hot-bed of Tory sentiment 
 and the local militia were not to be trusted. The country dis- 
 tricts were true. From the agricultural country the ranks of 
 the militia regiments were filled, with the toilers in the fields. 
 But the harvests, too, must be cared for to feed the people, and 
 the alternation of service in the two fields, must have rendered 
 duty most difficult, and the hold upon the service of the patriot 
 and his response to the call to arms, a difficult one. Yet we 
 believe that the ear of the patriot farmer soldier was sharp to 
 hear the call, when it came, whenever and wherever it should 
 find him. 
 
 When in December, 1775, George Clinton was appointed by 
 the Provincial Congress a Brigadier-General of the Militia of 
 the Province of New York, he was assigned to a district in which 
 was the county of Orange and his own county of Ulster. It 
 
24 George Clinton 
 
 was therefore to him that fell with his other duties a most per- 
 plexing and difficult task. When we keep in mind that he was 
 to keep in touch with the militia of his command, to be ready 
 for any emergency, to regard and obey various calls to duty and 
 the distance from each other of the places in which he was to 
 discharge those duties, then his difficulties become apparent. 
 
 In the midst of those duties in the Continental Congress, and 
 as we have shown, after he had voted July 2, 1776, for the resolu- 
 tion declaring the Independence, he with Washington forsook the 
 place for the camp and field. If they had not so promptly gone to 
 the soldier's post of duty, they might also a few days later have 
 affixed their names to the immortal paper we call the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. Washington commanded and Clinton 
 obeyed, and the camp and field took the place of deliberative 
 legislative work, and the eloquence of arms took the place of 
 eloquence of words. 
 
 From the moment of the appointment of George Clinton in 
 December, 1775, as Brigadier General in the Militia of the Prov- 
 ince, he justly conceived the conviction thas his place was with 
 the troops, and his place of service the camp and the field, rather 
 than in the conferences of the Provincial or the Continental 
 Congress, and yet he lingered and discharged his duties in those 
 conferences until his State was invaded and the command of 
 Washington came to him to leave for active service. 
 
 George Clinton was not filled with any foolish vanity about 
 his own ability as a soldier. After the battle of White Plains, 
 and in November, 1776, he wrote to the Committee of Safety 
 that he was told that war consisted of strategem and deceptions, 
 but he did not understand much of the refined art of war.^ 
 Later, possessed with a sense of his own unfitness for so high a 
 command of men, he desired to resign his command, but was 
 met by the assurance of the Committee of Safety that his coun- 
 try could not afford to dispense with his services in the field. ^ 
 In March, 1777, he again proposed to resign his command, and 
 wrote that his intention was not from any disgust of the service, 
 but that from fatal experience he found that he was not able to 
 render to his country the service which they had reason to expect 
 of him, considering the command he had been entrusted with.^ 
 
 1. Clinton Papers, vol i, p. 400. 2. Idem, p. 409. 3. Idem, p. 642 
 
George Clinton 25 
 
 Elsewhere he writes, that he would gladly command a regiment 
 or a company for the privilege of serving his country. 1 And 
 again, that he would as lief command a company as a brigade, 
 and asked leave to resign his high commission. ^ Writing to the 
 convention he says : " I will most cheerfully turn into the ranks 
 "and do the duty of a private, and from the knowledge I have 
 "as an officer of the necessity of discipline and subordination, I 
 *' trust at least I shall be an obedient soldier." ^ 
 
 His faithfulness to this notion could not obscure his own sense 
 of his lack of military knowledge and experience, or his own 
 modest measure of his military ability. 
 
 It is refreshing to find such sentiments somewhere, when we 
 read of so much ambition, and jealousy, and envy of officers not 
 content to serve except in high places. 
 
 In March, 1777, he was appointed by the Continental Con- 
 gress a Brigadier-General in the Continental Army, This 
 appointment, it is said, was made at the earnest recommenda- 
 tion of Washington. He then wrote to Washington, "My 
 "precarious state of health and want of military knowledge 
 •'would have rather induced me to have led a more retired life 
 " than that of the army, had I been consulted on the occasion, but 
 "as early in the present contest I laid it down as a maxim not to 
 "refuse my best, though poor services, to my country in any 
 "way they should think proper to employ me, I cannot refuse 
 "the honor done me in the present appointment." His refer- 
 ence to his state of health reminds us that he was in that 
 eventful year, 1775, thrown upon a bed of serious sickness 
 and for months lay seriously ill, and his friends feared the worst 
 and were most profuse in their expressions of gladness at his re- 
 covery.* 
 
 None questioned Clinton's sincerity in what he said and 
 wrote. He was one of the soldiers of the Revolutionary war 
 who served from a sense of duty and not from military pride or 
 love of personal glory. His whole service, civil and military, 
 show modest worth and devoted patriotism. 
 
 Almost at once upon his appointment as Brigadier-General 
 in the Continental Army, Clinton was assigned to the command 
 of the defenses of the Highlands and the Hudson River, and 
 
 I. Clinton papers, Vol. I., p. . 2. Idem, p. . 3. Idem, Letter of 
 
 Clinton, p. 654. 4. Idem, p. 214. 
 
26 George Clinton 
 
 thereafter it was most difficult even when called to serve in the 
 highest civil office, to draw him from his post, to take upon him- 
 self any other duty, no matter how exalted. 
 
 Having on previous occasions sought to lay down his com- 
 mand of the militia, in May, 1777, he wrote to the President of 
 the Provincial Convention, " For many reasons, as well as that 
 "arising from my appointment in the Continental Army, lead me 
 " to wish to have no further command of the militia. I therefore 
 "beg leave to resign my commission as Brigadier-General of the 
 " Counties of Ulster and Orange, and that you will be pleased to 
 "accept this as my resignation of the command to me thereby 
 " given. "1 This resignation, it seems, was treated as those of 
 previous occasions, and the convention of representatives refused 
 to relieve him, 2 and later we find him exercising powers as Brig- 
 adier-General of Militia and calling them out for service. 
 
 This paper cannot be more than a comparatively short sketch 
 of so active and eventful a life as that of George Clinton, and we 
 cannot follow in detail all that he did as a soldier. His service 
 in the Highlands, at Forts Clinton and Montgomery, have been 
 much written of, and so much written of, that we are glad to 
 know that there were other places where he served. But his 
 conspicuous personal bravery displayed in the defense of these 
 forts no doubt has singled them out for the pen of the writer. 
 The)/^ belong to the series which ended eleven days later in the 
 surrender of Burgoyne. Surely those were glorious fights. 
 Overwhelmed with the hordes of the enemy, and vastly outnum- 
 bered, the defense was desperate and brave. His escape from 
 death, and the escape of his brother James, seem like miracles. It 
 was to be beaten at one point to fly to and fight at another, and 
 though the forts were lost, like many other fights in the Revolu- 
 tionary war, they were parts of a great and glorious campaign 
 which closed with a triumph, and as defeats, developed a sense 
 of ability to fight, which opened the eyes of the enemy, and 
 taught those who lost to-day that other fields were before them 
 to win and gave a consciousness of resource. The river counties 
 of the Hudson, from Kingsbridge to Poughkeepsie, became most 
 familiar ground to Clinton and his command. Fort Washing- 
 ton and Kingsbridge, Yonkers and Eastchester, White Plains, 
 
 I. Clinton Papers, Clinton letter, Vol. I., p. 80S. 2. Idem, p. 836. 
 
George Clinton 27 
 
 North Castle, along the Croton River and at Peekskill, at Ram- 
 apo and Haverstravv, at the order of the Committee of Safety 
 into New Jersey with his brigade, and at Hackensack ; on secret 
 expeditions through Westchester County hunting the cowboys ; 
 all these places witnessed his services as a soldier. On October 
 28, 1776, he with his brigade was at the battle of White Plains. 
 On the night before that battle he wrote to McKesson, the 
 Chairman of the Committee of Safety, giving some of the events 
 of the day, and at the end of the letter threw in a message to 
 his wife, showing that amidst the excitement of camp and battle 
 he knew he had a wife and a home. He also wrote, '' Pray let 
 " Mrs. Clinton know that I am well and that she need not be 
 " uneasy about me. It would be too much honor to die in so good 
 "a cause." 
 
 He was not over-content with idle watching in the High- 
 lands, and in August, 1777, wrote to Washington that it 
 would have been equally agreeable to have headed the militia 
 and marched to the re-enforcement of the northern army as to 
 have commanded where he was, at Fort Montgomery. Had he 
 marched to reinforce that army he would have been in the 
 surrender of Burgoyne. 
 
 Clinton had become so important a factor and his work so 
 wide known to the enemy that a price was put upon his head, 
 and the British authorities in New York regarded him of im- 
 portance enough to offer a reward of ^^500 for his capture and 
 delivery to the authorities in New York. 
 
 In these recent days we have been celebrating the centennial 
 of West Point, but we have not heard nor read of the mention of 
 George Clinton's name in all that has been said or written. It 
 should be added to the story that on the 20th day of December, 
 1777, Clinton wrote to Washington suggesting the fitness of 
 West Point as a stronghold and a defense of the Hudson River. 
 This suggestion no doubt occasioned the first occupation of the 
 place for public purposes. 
 
 When the time came for the acknowledgment by Great Britain 
 of the independence of the colonies, it fell to the lot of George 
 Clinton to occupy a most prominent place. He was Governor 
 of the State of New York, and he was also a General officer of 
 the Continental army. The evacuation by the British troops of 
 
28 George Clinton 
 
 the City of New York was to take place. The negotiations were 
 conducted personally between Washington and Sir Guy Carle- 
 ton. Clinton was in command of the troops along the Hudson, 
 and as to its terms and all of the details of that evacuation, 
 Washington consulted with Clinton. It is said that Clinton re- 
 quested of Washington the command of the troops that should 
 take possession of the city and that Washington accorded to 
 him that honor. Gen. Knox, however, seems to have had 
 command of the troops that took possession of Fort George. 
 The day came and the British marched out and took boats to 
 the transports in the harbor and our own service-weathered 
 veterans marched in. The mounted men were in advance, first 
 the dragoons, followed by the light infantry, the artillery, more 
 light infantry, the Massachusetts troops, Washington and Clinton 
 following on horseback and riding together, escorted by a squad-- 
 ron of Westchester Light Horse, commanded by Capt. Delevan. 
 Then came the Lieut. Governor of New York and the Council. 
 Then followed Gen. Knox and a body composed of war-worn 
 officers of the army, then a body of citizens on horseback and 
 last a long line of citizens on foot. What a scene that must 
 have been and how it must have affected the patriot hearts of 
 those who were true through all the years of British possession. 
 The feelings of such can best be expressed by the words of a young 
 woman who was then present and who wrote of what she saw in 
 these words : " We have been accustomed to military display in 
 " all the finery of garrison life. The troops that marched out 
 " were equipped as for show, and with their scarlet uniforms 
 " and burnished arms made a brilliant display. The troops 
 " that marched in v/ere ill-clad and weather beaten, and made a 
 " forlorn appearance ; but they were our troops. As I looked 
 " on them and thought of all they had done, and suffered for us, 
 " my heart and my eyes were full and I admired and gloried in 
 " them the more, because they were weather-beaten and for- 
 " lorn."i 
 
 That was a great day for the patriot army. That evening 
 George Clinton, who was then as has just been said. Governor 
 as well as General, acted as host and entertained Washington 
 and the officers of the army at Fraunces' Tavern in Broad street 
 
 I. Irving' Washington, Book 4, p. 69. 
 
George Clinton 29 
 
 at a great dinner. Imagination alone must supply the story of 
 what then took place, the loud rejoicing which must generally 
 have prevailed, the solemn sense of what it all meant, to the 
 people, to the country and to the future, which no doubt filled 
 the thoughts of some at least of those who composed what could 
 not be other than a hilarious company. 
 
 The following Monday, Clinton gave another dinner in New 
 York to Luzerne, the French Ambassador, and to Washington 
 and his generals, and to 1,000 other gentlemen. It was royal in 
 its conception and compass and befitting to the hour. On the 
 following Thursday, Washington took leave of his staff and the 
 officers of his army and of Clinton, his trusted friend, and took 
 his way to Annapolis to surrender to the Continental Congress 
 the powers he had exercised for seven years. The peaceful work 
 of sending forward a new nation on its mission, of peace, of 
 freedom, and progress, and leadership, had commenced, and those 
 who were great in war were to turn their attention to the pur- 
 suits of peace. Surely they had a noble example in that of 
 AVashington. 
 
 We have done with the Revolutionary War as related to 
 Clinton. But meanwhile other events of a civil nature had 
 taken place to which he was most intimately related. 
 
 The Declaration of Independance having been adopted, the 
 Continental Congress advised the States, each for itself, to adopt 
 some form of government. A long period elapsed before many 
 changes were made in the form of government into which the 
 States had drifted, and the history of the government under 
 written constitutions is most interesting. Strange that Rhode 
 Island retained her old colonial charter until the year 1843. 
 New Jersey was the first State to accomplish the task of framing 
 a constitution. New York was next in order. The same con- 
 vention of the representatives of the State of New York, which 
 meeting at White Plains, received by post-rider the news of the 
 signing of the Declaration of Independence on the loth day of 
 July, 1776, and adopted or ratified it, undertook to comply with 
 the recommendations of the Continental Congress and to form 
 a system of government for the State and assumed the task of 
 framing a written constitution. The work of evolving that 
 document fell to the hands and lot of John Jay, and what a task 
 
30 George Clinton 
 
 it was. That convention migrated to many places during the 
 events of the war. It was to meet in New York City, July 8, 
 1776, and proceed with the work of framing a form of govern- 
 ment. The fleet of Lord Howe had appeared near Sandy Hook 
 and the meeting was held at White Plains. It also met at 
 Harlem, at Fishkill and finally at Kingston. What was the form 
 of government to be? The great idea of a government of the 
 people, by the people, for ihe people, that we talk of to-day, was 
 most certainly the goal of these men. There was no precedent 
 to follow. No republic had existed for hundreds of years. 
 There was no pattern of a written constitution to help those men 
 in framing one for New York. The document prepared was re- 
 ported March 12, 1777, and was considered for a whole month by 
 the Convention, and was adopted April 20, 1777. The instru- 
 ment took up in detail the wrongs suffered, and reciting them 
 one after another used them as reasons for a new order of 
 things, and enacted the provisions for government which in- 
 sured against any more of it. The paper was nearer to the 
 people than any of the revised constitutions of these days. The 
 experience with a king seemed to dictate that even the chief 
 Executive should not exercise many of the powers we are now 
 without question or hesitation accustomed to grant to him. The 
 convention sat until May 13, 1777, but did not adjourn without 
 adopting resolutions recording the thanks of the people to 
 George Clinton for his faithful services as delegate to the Con- 
 tinental Congress and to the colony of New York and to the 
 State. 
 
 The Constitution, among other things, provided for a Gov- 
 ernor as the Chief Executive of the State and for a Lieutenant 
 Governor, who should discharge the duties of Governor in his 
 absence. Among all the competent patriots of those days, and 
 there were many, the choice of the people, it seems, was not 
 difficult, nor was the affection and the confidence of the people 
 iincertain, for from among them all, and without the nomination 
 of any political convention, George Clinton was chosen both, 
 first Governor, and first Lieutenant Governor, as though they 
 wanted him and him only. Clinton had again and again before 
 this been made to know the esteem of the people. As we have 
 said, he was elected to the Thirtieth and Thirty-first General 
 
George Clinton 31 
 
 Assemblies of the colony ; to the convention that appointed dele- 
 gates to the Continental Congress, and he was elected a delegate 
 to that Continental Congress, and voted for the Declaration of 
 Independence. He was elected a member of that Provincial 
 Congress of New York which met at White Plains in July, 1776, 
 received news of the Declaration of Independence, and which 
 caused it to be read and ratified it, and then changed its own 
 name from the Provincial Congress of New York to " the Conven- 
 tion of Representatives of the State of New York." That was the 
 same convention that was called upon to frame the first Consti- 
 tution of the State of New York, and now, under that Constitu- 
 tion, Clinton had been elected Chief Magistrate of the new State. 
 It is interesting in these times to read what was said and written 
 in those times by some, concerning this man, who occupied so 
 large a place in the hearts of the people. Judge Jcnes, the Tory 
 historian, already mentioned in this paper, wrote of him : " He 
 "lived at Kingston, paid his address to and married a pretty 
 "Dutch girl. Miss Tappan, daughter of an eminent, substantial 
 '* burgher of that Corporation. This match was the foundation 
 " to all his after-greatness. His wife had a brother, a Chris- 
 *' topher Tappan, one of the Trustees of and Clerk to that corpo- 
 ** ration, a young fellow of influence and of fortune, and well re- 
 ''spected at Kingston. In the Dutch towns of the Province of 
 " New York (Kingston is entirely so) the inhabitants are all re- 
 " lated. Cousins in the fifteenth degree are looked upon as 
 " nearly related as cousins germain are in an English town. 
 " The Tappan family, in consequence of this kind of consan- 
 "guinit)'', was related to almost the whole town. Clinton, in 
 " right of his marriage, of course became also related. Clinton 
 "had art, cunning, and a good share of understanding. He was 
 " a rigid, true Presbyterian, and had a good deal of hypocrisy. 
 " He made the most of his connection. The Congress of 1774 
 " ordered committees appointed in every city, county, town and 
 "district to see that their resolutions were carried into execu- 
 " tion, with full power and authority to punish any person who 
 '• should disobey them. Clinton was elected Chairman of the 
 "Ulster County Committee, and of that of the corporation of 
 *' Kingston. Clinton was now in full power, and despotic as the 
 " King in France and as cruel and arbitrary as the Grand Turk. 
 
32 George Clinton 
 
 " He now condemned, imprisoned, and punished loyalists most 
 "unmercifully. They were by his orders tarred and feathered, 
 " carted, fined, whipped and banished, and in short every kind 
 **of cruelty, death not excepted, was practiced by this emissary 
 "of rebellion. "1 This was the verdict of a Tory against a pa- 
 triot, honored in war, honored in peace, and honored in history. 
 Its statements do not pass even with much salt. At most it 
 amuses us. 
 
 But some things were said, even by those on his own side 
 against Clinton. General Schuyler, whom Bancroft says owed 
 his place to his social position and not to any military talent, 
 owned that Clinton was virtuous and loved his country, yet 
 when he was elected Governor, foolishly, for an American, wrote 
 of him, " His family and connections do not entitle him to so dis- 
 tinguished a pre-eminence." ^ How foolish a man this Schuyler 
 was ! The aid of Vermont was needed and the co-operation of 
 all New England was necessary ; yet Schuyler gave leave for 
 half the New England militia to go home at once and the rest to 
 follow in three weeks, and then called upon Washington to sup- 
 ply their places by troops from south of the Hudson River, say- 
 ing that one southern soldier was worth two from New Eng- 
 land.^ We may well wonder if some of the same mistaken 
 measures of the value of a New England or a Yankee soldier 
 was not possessed by others of several generations nearer to us. 
 
 But when Washington heard that Clinton had been elected 
 Governor of the State of New York, he wrote to the Committee 
 of Safety, " His character will make him peculiarly useful at 
 *' the head of your State." 
 
 Clinton elected Governor, it was with the greatest difficulty 
 that he could be induced personally to leave the field and camp 
 and his military command in the Highlands and proceed for a 
 few days to Kingston and take the oath of office. Message after 
 message was sent to ?iim, and messenger after messenger went 
 for him before he responded. Pierre Van Cortlandt for the 
 Council wrote him of his election as Governor and also as Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor, and asked him to come with all convenient 
 speed and take the oath of office. Clinton replied, writing from 
 
 I. Jones' History of N, Y., Vol. 2, p, 326. 2. Bancroft's History of U, S., 
 Vol. 5, p. 580. 3. Idem, p. 381, 
 
George Clinton 33 
 
 Fort Montgomery, that if he was left to his own inclinations he 
 would decline both offices, but conceiving himself not at liberty 
 to refuse his services to whatever office called by the suffrages of 
 the public, he would repair to Kingston to take the oath as soon 
 as the safety of the post would permit ; that he thought his elec- 
 tion as Governor left the office of Lieutenant-Governor vacant 
 and a resignation unnecessary ; but lest there might be a differ- 
 ence of opinion he resigned that office ; that he expected an at- 
 tack by the enemy on his post, which required his steady atten- 
 tion there until their intentions were certainly known. 
 
 To General Putnam he also wrote that he had been sum- 
 moned by the Committee of Safety to give attendance on the 
 making of the Government, but till the designs of the enemy 
 were more certainly known, and he had Washington's leave, he 
 could not think of leaving his post. 
 
 He wrote to Washington that he had received a second sum- 
 mons to take the oath of office. 
 
 Clinton did not take the oath of office until July 30, 1777. 
 He was congratulated by many upon his assuming office. The 
 Church at Kingston congratulated the State that they " had a 
 " Governor who understands and therefore lives the Christian re- 
 " ligion," which brought from Clinton the words, that he " re- 
 lied upon Divine Providence and the prayers of fellow citizens 
 put up in his behalf to render his service effectual, in promoting 
 the happiness of the people, and for himself besought that it 
 might please the Supreme Ruler of all events to crown them with 
 great glory and success."^ 
 
 As Governor he did not regard himself as relieved from his 
 duty to obey military orders, for the next day after taking the 
 oath of office as Governor, Washington wrote desiring him to 
 repair to Fort Montgomery immediately if he possibly could con- 
 sistent with his duties as Governor. This request he regarded 
 as a command, and obeyed and prorogued the Legislature to a 
 more convenient season when he could meet them. 
 
 Although he had accepted the office and assumed the duties 
 of Governor, Clinton gave more of his time and energy to his 
 military command in the field and did not relieve himself, by as- 
 suming civil duties, from his duties in camp and field. Wash- 
 ington counted on him as a soldier. Putnam kept up communi- 
 
34 George Clinton 
 
 tion with him whenever he was away from camp discharging his 
 duties as Governor, keeping himself informed of where he could 
 be reached, in emergencies, when conflict and battle was threat- 
 ening and was expected, and wrote to and sent for Clinton, 
 securing his return to the command, as though no battle on the 
 Hudson could be risked without Clinton and his influence on the 
 militia of New York and New England. 
 
 We have been accustomed to hear of the war governors, those 
 who were Governors of the State during the period of the Civil 
 War, who however never saw the enemy and never were in a 
 skirmish, much less a battle. But George Clinton was a veri- 
 table War Governor, a War Governor in every sense, for while 
 he was Chief Magistrate of his State he actually commanded and 
 led the troops both in and out of his State and with them per- 
 sonally fought the enemies of his country on the field of battle. 
 
 What a galaxy of men were among the first Governors of 
 those new States ; each State a new and independent nation. 
 What a roll it was ! These were some of them : George Clinton 
 was Governor of New York ; John Hancock was Governor of 
 Massachusetts ; Thomas Chittenden of Vermont ; Jonathan 
 Trumbull of Connecticut ; William Livingston of New Jersey ; 
 Patrick Henry of Virginia ; John Rutledge of South Carolina. 
 
 The first Legislature of the State of New York under that 
 constitution of 1777, was to have met in July, but Governor 
 Clinton was too busy in the field to meet them and he prorogued 
 it until Sept. 9, 1777 on which day they assembled at Kingston, 
 and the next day they met the Governor for the first time in the 
 Court Room and he delivered to them his first message, orally, 
 and it was almost wholly devoted to measures for prosecution of 
 the war. He must have remained a few days only, attending to 
 the demands of his office as Chief Magistrate, for we find him on 
 October 4th at New Windsor, his military headquarters, in short 
 communication with the front, the forts in the Highlands, and 
 on the 6th of October was at the head of his command in Forts 
 Clinton and Montgomery and in the very front of the fight de- 
 fending these posts. 
 
 Each of the States was in fact at this period a new and 
 independent nation. We do not seem to realize in these days 
 that fact. As colonies of Great Britain they were separate 
 
George Clinton 35 
 
 colonies, and often were at odds as to their boundaries, and this 
 was especially so as between New York and Connecticut and be- 
 tween New York and New Jersey. The sea coast front was a 
 great matter to each of them and to New York, hemmed in as 
 she was, it was most important and she held her own until she 
 got a lion's share. All the Continental conferences and con- 
 gresses that preceded the war were wholly voluntary conferences 
 without other than moral power. When the independence was 
 declared their power was realized only because it was accepted by 
 the people. The Legislative bodies in the different colonies or 
 Provinces claimed and asserted and had established each for 
 itself, such power and such independentcontrol, that each sent 
 and recalled and substituted, their representatives in the Conti- 
 nental Congress just as they pleased, and that body had become 
 a mere creature of the Colonial or Provincial or State Legisla- 
 tures. It was not until after many of the States, New York 
 among the number, had fully organized a separate and independ- 
 ent State government, that any sort of a bond uniting the 
 colonies in war or in government was devised. In November, 
 1777, the Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Conti- 
 nental Congress and were recommended to the States, which were 
 asked to ratify and adopt the bond. New York and several 
 other States adopted at once the Articles of Confederation, but 
 New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland held off and did not come 
 in for from two to four years, so that until 1781 it was not an 
 accepted bond for all. 
 
 In the midst of the throes of a war on which their liberties 
 depended, and to which war, union was as necessary as guns and 
 men, it was that spirit of independence which could not be 
 downed and was uppermost in the minds and hearts of the patri- 
 ots in the separate States, that led the Legislatures to keep a 
 strong hand on the Continental Congress. 
 
 And the Articles of Confederation after the war had ended 
 did not prevent the assertion of the sovereign rights of the free 
 and independent States. Year after year it became more and 
 more apparent that it was a mere rope of sand, and scarce more 
 than a treaty to prevent conflicts between the States, and for 
 mutual defence against outside foes. In fact its second section 
 expressly declares, "each State retains its sovereignty, freedom 
 
36 GeorCe Clinton 
 
 and independence and every power, jurisdiction and right which 
 is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United 
 States in Congress assembled," and the third section in the 
 plainest of language declares the paper to be a mere "firm league 
 of friendship." 
 
 A common enemy in time of war was itself a mutual bond of 
 union, but the war was at last over, and the relation ot the 
 States to each other was such as to cause ceaseless friction, which 
 the Articles of Confederation did not reach. There was no real 
 union between the States. There was no executive ; no central 
 government. Each State was in law and in fact just what the 
 Articles recognized, a separate nation. We need not here recall 
 the irritating causes of trouble which grew out of the existing 
 conditions. 
 
 A remedy was demanded and a convention was called of 
 delegates representing all the States, but it was expressly stated 
 that the only object and their only authority was to frame and 
 propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation.* George 
 Clinton was then Governor of the State of New "Vork. We do 
 not doubt, but if he had not been Governor, he would have been 
 called to that public service as a delegate to that convention. 
 The fact that he was Governor imposed upon him duties that 
 forbade his absence from the State on such a service. The con- 
 vention met in Philadelphia, May 14, 1787, and set about its 
 work. It became apparent that no amendment of the Articles 
 of Confederation would furnish the remedy desired, and al- 
 though not delegated or called or authorized to any such 
 purpose, they abandoned the purpose and authority of the 
 convention, and assumed without any authority whatever to 
 frame the document we call the Constitution of the United 
 States, an instrument concerning which it has been said our 
 fathers wrote better than they knew. Yet even that document 
 at first had faults and required radical amendments, to secure its 
 acceptance by the States. It contained no bill of rights. It 
 wholly omitted those words contained in the Articles of Confed- 
 
 I. In his speech in the convention -which framed the Constitution of the 
 United States, Mr. Lansing, a delegate from New York, so declared and in- 
 stanced the credentials of the delegates as testimony of the fact, and that New 
 York would never have concurred in sending delegates if she had supposed 
 otherwise. Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States, 
 vol. 3, p. 129. 
 
George Clinton 37 
 
 ■eration limiting the powers of Congress and reserving to the 
 States the powers not granted to Congress. It contained no 
 reservations of any rights whatever to the States. 
 
 When the Constitution came down to the Legislature of New 
 York for adoption or ratification, George Clinton opposed it and 
 sought to make the act of New York a conditional acceptance. 
 His opposition has been often criticised and condemned, and un- 
 justly. 
 
 It is always difficult to get a complete view of all the sur- 
 roundings that influence action, and it is entirely unfair to judge 
 of the men of those days, unless we get a comprehensive view of 
 the environment that existed, and the schooling in which they 
 had been trained. Many of our fellow-citizens have been taught 
 to look upon any statement of what is called the doctrine of 
 States rights even as of those days, as only another sort of cop- 
 perheadism, as a form of treason and a most horrible and de- 
 testable and dangerous manifestation of a terrible political 
 heresy. A study of the history of our country easily serves to 
 show that such an opinion comes of a most lamentable lack of 
 knowledge and want of acquaintance with our history, and ignor- 
 ance concerning the underlying principles of our government. 
 
 Recall, if you will, the story of our forefathers, and the 
 school in which they were educated, and the experiences which 
 wrought in them the iron characters from which we have prof- 
 ited. They came across the seas bringing with them a purpose 
 of local self-government, and left behind them, and hated by 
 them too, the strong central government which had restrained 
 the swelling in the heart for, and any active manifestations of any 
 form of, what we now call, Anglo-Saxon Liberty. Was it strange 
 that the other extreme at once developed in this new country, 
 separated so far, by the almost trackless seas from the land, then 
 almost an absolutism, which they had left behind. The towns 
 in Connecticut and almost generally, in New England, erected 
 each its independency. They clung with the severest tenacity to 
 the charters they had obtained. The distances of those days 
 were almost insuperable obstacles to the withdrawal of those 
 chartered privileges. The attempts that were made to with- 
 draw them, only induced the Colonies to cling to them with the 
 greater tenacity and determination not to lose them. Popular 
 
38 Georoe Clinton 
 
 sovereignty grew strong in such a soil and environment. Whert 
 larger colonies were chartered, and it was sought to withdraw 
 the earlier charters, and to aggregate into larger communities 
 the territory and the smaller colonial governments, they refused 
 to give up their charters and resisted the new order of things. 
 We recall the Gov. Andros war, and the story of the Charter 
 Oak, as two only of the many instances of resistance to that early 
 form of centralization. The influence of New Engand spread to 
 the other colonies and the principle which manifested itself in 
 the opposition, or hesitancy, not to use stronger terms, of the 
 patriots who did not fall over each other in a race to be foremost 
 in the cheerful acceptance of the proposed Constitution of the 
 United States, is to be laid to account, not of any lack of en- 
 thusiastic and patriotic devotion to country, but to education in 
 adversity and in trial in the founder period, which came to our 
 forefathers in resisting centralization, so often attempted to be 
 forced upon them by the powers from which they had fled 
 across the seas. 
 
 A convention was elected in New York to consider and act 
 upon the proposed Constitution of the United States, and to this 
 convention George Clinton was elected and became its Presi- 
 dent. He and his fellows had a right as they did, to look at the 
 Constitution on its merits, as having what were in reality serious, 
 but remediable, defects, and had a right also to look at and 
 criticize it, as the volunteered work of a convention chosen to do 
 an entirely different thing, and not at all to frame that Consti- 
 tution. He did not, however, counsel the rejection of the work 
 as that which the convention was neither authorized nor invited 
 to do, but he did propose that it should be accepted condition- 
 ally, the condition being its amendment in certain particulars, 
 among others, the insertion of the bill of rights, and the restor- 
 ation of the limitation on the powers of Congress and of the 
 reservation to the States of all the powei-s not granted in the 
 instrument. These were in the Articles of Confederation and 
 they were not rightly omitted from the Constitution, and they 
 were not light conditions nor were they immaterial. To give 
 unlimited powers to Congress was to take from the States all 
 sovereignty whatever. To reserve to the States all powers not 
 granted to Congress was to continue to the people of the States 
 
George Clinton 39 
 
 full and unlimited sovereignty, as to all powers not enumerated, 
 and further it was only to continue the same reservation patri- 
 otic men had inserted in the Articles of Confederation ; and the 
 catalogue of those surrendered for the general good, being speci- 
 fied, and being few, were easy to be read, though their compre- 
 hensiveness, as we have since learned, was marvelous. 
 
 It will be wholly aside from truth to claim that George 
 Clinton was beaten in this fight and it would be most ungener- 
 ous to claim that he compromised. The result in the end was 
 so near that for which he strove that when he and those he led 
 agreed to a ratification of the Constitution, not on a condition 
 that it should be amended, but a ratification with a statement of 
 how it was to be understood and interpreted, and with a recom- 
 mendation that it should be so amended, and which amendments 
 with others soon followed, we may well put aside all criticism of 
 Clinton for any so-called opposition or hesitancy in the matter. 
 Let il be remembered that the only test vote in that convention, 
 before the final vote, showed the party of Clinton to be largely 
 in the majority, and without a considerable number of that party 
 the small majority necessary could not have been obtained in 
 favor of ratification. George Clinton, let it be remembered, was 
 the President of the Convention. On the final vote all the 
 delegates from Ulster County, save Clinton alone, voted solid 
 against the ratification of the Constitution. He is not recorded 
 as voting on the question. It is not possible at this time to say, 
 whether in those times it was the custom for the presiding 
 officer to vote at all, save when the convention was evenly 
 divided. It certainly can never be laid to the charge of Clinton 
 that he was lacking in moral courage. He would have dared to 
 vote. He did not shirk any official duty. He most certainly 
 would have voted with his colleagues from Ulster if he was of 
 the same opinion with them, and felt at liberty as presiding 
 officer to vote at all, except by a casting vote. How he actually 
 felt can be best evidenced by his own words. In his address or 
 message to the legislature the following December, he said of 
 the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United 
 States already ratified : " A declaration of rights, with certain ex- 
 ** planations, are inserted in order to remove doubtful construc- 
 " tions, and to guard against undue and improper administra- 
 ** tion, and that it was assented to in the express confidence that 
 
40 Georgs Clinton 
 
 ** the exercise of different powers would be suspended until it 
 " (the constitution) should undergo a revision by a general con- 
 '* vention of the States, * * * * nothing short 
 " of the fullest confidence of obtaining such revision could 
 *' have prevailed upon a sufficient number to have ratified it 
 " without stipulating for previous amendments." 
 
 In the haste of some, the more to glorify illustrious and great 
 men, already become human idols, it has often been said that we 
 owe to the eloquence of Alexander Hamilton the ratification by 
 New York of the Constitution of the United States. I am dis- 
 posed to believe that it was rather to the eloquence of events, 
 than to the eloquence of words, that we are indebted for that 
 result. We all know that the constitution was to be of force 
 when nine of the States had ratified it. New York and Virginia 
 had long discussions in their conventions and meanwhile the 
 action was being taken in other States. The fight waxed warm 
 in New York about the provisions which were in the Articles of 
 Confederation and were not in the Constitution. News came 
 suddenly and unexpectedly to the convention that New Hamp- 
 shire had acted and had, June 21, 1788, ratified the Constitution.^ 
 Virginia ratified it on the 25th of June, but that fact was not 
 known in New York until long after the action of New Hamp- 
 shire had had its effect. It was on the 25th of June and long 
 before the action of Virginia was known in New York that 
 Chancellor Livingston rose in his place, and with the dignity 
 that became the great lawyer and jurist, the highest judicial 
 officer of the State, called attention of the convention to the fact 
 that New Hampshire was the ninth State that had thus acted; 
 that the constitution was no longer a question, but was a fact ; 
 that the confederation of the States was hence dissolved, and 
 that a nation had been born, and that New York, the Empire 
 State, with all its possibillities, was no part of that nation ; that 
 New York now stood practically outside the league of States, 
 with that league arrayed against it ; to the danger to the future 
 of the State and its people impending from such a position. ^ It 
 needed not any oratory of words to face the consideration of the 
 new momentous dilemma which Livingston stated in a question, 
 whether New York should place itself out of the Union ? 
 
 I. Curtis Constitutional History of the U. S., Vol. I, p. 677. 2. Idem, p. 677. 
 
George Clinton 41 
 
 The convention, July 26, 1788, by a slender majority, 
 instead of ratifying the Constitution on condition of amend- 
 ment, was thus forced to ratify it with a recommendation of 
 amendments, which were proposed, and in which recommenda- 
 tion five others — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, 
 North Carolina and South Carolina — joined. The patriotism of 
 those men, and of George Clinton with them, was fully justified, 
 as will be at once seen. In the first Congress eleven amend- 
 ments of the Constitution were proposed to the States. Of 
 these amendments ten were ratified by the requisite number of 
 States and became a part of the Constitution, and this was so 
 soon done that an eminent historian has written that ihey "were 
 " so soon added after its adoption that they may fairly be con- 
 "sidered part of the original instrument."^ These amendments 
 embraced, practically, the bill of rights, the limitation of the 
 powers of Congress and the reservation to the States of all the 
 powers not delegated to Congress. They were the principles 
 for which George Clinton had fought. The adoption of them so 
 quickly and in the short way provided for in the Constitution 
 itself, made unnecessary a convention of the States for a general 
 revision, and satisfied the utmost demand of the most bitter op- 
 position. 
 
 Think for a moment how those very amendments secure our 
 liberties ! What were they, and what did they secure ? Relig- 
 ious liberty, freedom of speech and of the press, the right of the 
 people peaceably to assemble and petition for redress of griev- 
 ances, the right of the people to bear arms, and the States each 
 to have its own militia, no quartering in times of peace of sol- 
 diers on the people, security of the people, their persons, houses 
 and effects from unreasonable search, no warrant to arrest the 
 citizen without probable cause, and then only supported by oath 
 or affirmation, the accusation of capital and infamous crime only 
 by a Grand Jury, no one to be put in jeopardy twice for same 
 crime, no one to be compelled to be a witness against himself or 
 to be deprived of life, liberty or property save by due process of 
 law, private property to be taken only for the public and only in 
 compensation, public trials and by impartial juries and in the 
 district where the crime was committed, the accused to be in- 
 
 I. Johnson's American Politics, p. 16. 
 
42 Georoe Clinton 
 
 formed of the crime charged and to be confronted with the 
 witnesses, and to have witness and counsel for himself, the gen- 
 eral right of trial by jury, excessive bail not to be required, and 
 the reservation to the people and to the States of the powers 
 not delegated to the United States. These were the rights se- 
 cured to us by the amendments. Would any one of us to-day 
 sacrifice any one of them ? Was the fight of George Clinton to 
 secure them a worthless fight ? To him and to those who stood 
 by him, we stand to-day indebted for those words which secure 
 to us our liberties as American citizens. 
 
 With the ratification of the Constitution of the United States 
 by eleven of the thirteen States, a new era opened. Though in 
 some respects the States remained sovereign, yet in other re- 
 spects the United States had become a nation, and had taken 
 her place among the nations of the earth. How far beyond the 
 conception of any of those who had part in that movement 
 has been its development to the postion of a world power which 
 it occupies. 
 
 Clinton was re-elected Governor of New York from 1777 to 
 1795, s^^ consecutive terms of three years each, and again in 
 1801 for a further term of three years, and he served the State as 
 its Chief Magistrate in all for twenty-one years, a record never 
 equaled in this country. Three times he was chosen without an 
 opponent. In 1783 he was elected over General Schuyler, in 
 1789 over Robert Yates, in 1792 over John Jay, and in 1801 over 
 General Stephen Rensselaer — each certainly a most formidable 
 opponent, but in each count the result showed the hold he had 
 upon the respect and confidence of the people of this great 
 State. 
 
 It is not our purpose to call to mind at this time, more than 
 has already been done, his great and patriotic services to the 
 State. Let it be added, however, that in a very large sense it is 
 to him belongs the honor of having conceived the idea of the 
 great inland artificial waterways that have been so much to the 
 commerce of this State, and during his administration as Gov- 
 ernor, in 1792, the first legislative act to that end was passed, 
 being the act for subscription and issue of stock for the West- 
 ern and Northern Inland Navigation Company. In his early 
 boyhood campaigns as a young soldier Clinton had acquired 
 
George Clinton 43 
 
 personal knowledge of the feasability of connecting Lake Cham- 
 plain and the Hudson River, and the Hudson River with Lake 
 Ontario by the Mohawk River and Lake Oneida. These water- 
 ways he as Governor actually proposed. It was he who con- 
 ceived the idea of those mighty waterways. It was left to his 
 nephew, DeWitt Clinton, to complete and enlarge the concep- 
 tion in the Erie Canal, which connected the Hudson, not with 
 Lake Ontario, but still further west with Lake Erie. 
 
 It was in the incumbency of Clinton as Governor that a far- 
 seeing interest in public education gave birth to its supervi- 
 sion by the State in the establishment of the University of the 
 State of New York, with its Board of Regents of the University- 
 The act was passed May i, 1794 and George Clinton became the 
 first of the Chancellors of the University, in a line which to this 
 time has continued, and has contained the names of those who 
 for learning and high character have reflected honor and credit 
 on the State. 
 
 It remains to call brief attention to the national repute of 
 Clinton. He became as we have seen the intimate friend of 
 Washington, and as such became well known outside of his own 
 State. His determined fight for amendment to the Constitution 
 of the United States won him strong regard and respect among 
 the people of other States. The Constitution as it existed pro- 
 vided that each elector should vote for two candidates for Presi- 
 dent and not for any for Vice-President. General Washington was 
 unanimously elected President, receiving the vote of every Elec- 
 tor, but for the office of President Clinton received votes in the 
 Electoral Colleges in 1789,111 1792 and in 1796 and again in 1804. 
 In 1800 no electoral votes were cast for him, but in 1804 the 
 manner of voting by the Electors having been changed, Clinton 
 was elected Vice-President of the United States, having also 6 
 votes for President, and in 1808 he was again elected to the same 
 office. 
 
 It is difficult at this distance of time to measure the influence 
 of Clinton in the national affairs of that period. During his first 
 term as Vice-President, the Presidential office was filled by Jeffer- 
 son, that colossal figure in American politics, and in his second 
 term James Madison was President. Those were not by any 
 means quiet times. The trouble was brewing that resulted in the 
 Second War of Independence, the War of 1812. The threat as 
 
44 George Clinton 
 
 understood and published by Adams, was made, which was in fact 
 a threat of nullification and of secession of New England. ^ It 
 was a trouble fomented by the Federalists, the very party which 
 had been at the framing of the Constitution most strongly de- 
 termined on a strong central government. 
 
 To be Vice-President, seems in our history to have almost al- 
 ways been fatal to the future of the unlucky man. True, John 
 Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Van Buren, each of whom 
 was chosen Vice-President, afterwards reached the Presidental 
 office by election to it, but they three are the only ones out of the 
 whole list of twenty-five, and with those three names the list has 
 ended, and of those five who reached it because of succession on 
 the death of the President during the term, not one of them has 
 ever been elected President. Had George Clinton lived longer, 
 his great and wide popularity might have added his name to the 
 list of Presidents, but he died in office as Vice-President, in the 
 Spring of the last year of his second term and before the candid- 
 ates were nominated for the next succeeding election. To be 
 Vice-President also seems to be the eclipse for a time of great 
 personal usefulness. The office seems to separate the incumbent 
 from all active participation in the great events as they pass, for 
 he is perforce a calm observer only, having no hand in them, 
 in fact, relegated to comparative obscurity. A mere pre- 
 siding officer of the Senate with no other duties, powers or 
 privileges, he is relegated to a life of uninteresting routine, 
 and as the years go by it becomes more so. 
 
 Clinton died at Washington, April 20, 1812. It was before 
 the time of railroads or the telegraph. Transportation was slow 
 and wearisome and by stage-coach. Had railroads then existed 
 no doubt his remains would have been brought to his native 
 State, the State he loved and served so well and which had so ap- 
 preciated and honored him, and would have rested in the soil of 
 New York. As it was he was buried in the old Congressional 
 Cemetery at Washington at the end of a long line of graves in 
 which repose all that was mortal of the great and worthy and 
 honored men who there found a last resting place. 
 
 I. The fact was denied, but it remains that it was asserted by John Quincy 
 Adams, and it is inconceivable that he should have manufactured a lie. The 
 violence of the times was such that it was charged that Adams had no ground 
 for the charge and that he was paid for what he did by a foreign mission. 
 
George Clinton 45 
 
 He was a unique character. His official history is by far the 
 most honorable of any of the sons of New York. He was most 
 certainly a man of the people. He was a brave, resourceful and 
 persistent soldier, who was most modest, depreciating his own 
 qualities, most considerate of others and supremely trusted by 
 the great commander. He was a patriot of the truest type, and 
 every act of his sprang from the sincere love of his country. He 
 was a statesman far seeing, conscientious and courageous. A 
 leader and not a follower. As an official, it can be said 
 of him, in the language of the days now passing, he esteemed 
 every place in which the people placed him, a public trust. 
 
 New York may well remain proud of the memory of her first 
 Governor. 
 
 
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