while the best friends of the new Constitution, throughout the Union, had desired the organization of measures for securing the assent and approval of the State of New York to that instrument, there were but few among her citizens who were inclined, and a still smaller number who were qualified, from their associations and their acquirements, to come before the People, and to undertake that delicate but arduous duty.
Robert R. Livingston—firm and patriotic, and possessed of abundant abilities—had evinced, in public, but little interest in the subject. His social position and his high attainments would have amply qualified him for a leader of the People of his native State, in any political emergency, had not an overpowering love of ease prevailed over every other trait in his character, withdrawn him as far as possible from public duties, and rendered him dilatory and uncertain.
James Duane's sympathy with the royal authorities in colonial New York; his collusion with Lieutenant-Governor Colden to frustrate the earlier efforts of his neighbors and fellow-citizens, while the latter were struggling with the Crown for their original political rights; and his concerted opposition to the measures which had been recommended by the Continental Congress of 1774, of which body he had been an active but unworthy member,—had disqualified him for any position through which the People was to be controlled in its political action, and rendered useless any efforts which he might make in a cause which was dependent for its ultimate success on the sympathy of the great body of the People of New York.
John Jáy, a long-tried and faithful servant of the State and of the Congress, was also a native and a citizen of New York, but, like the greater number of the leading friends of the proposed Constitution in that State, he was not adapted for leadership in its support
