Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/701

CLINTON 689 and amid all the intrigues and distractions of party he bore himself in those high places with the dignity, and exercised the spirit, of a saga- cious, far-seeing, and benevolent statesman. Especially he arrested the popular prejudice against himself in regard to his loyalty, by the utmost liberality and efficiency both as mayor and legislator in securing adequate means for public defence, by providing loans to the gov- ernment, by voting supplies of materials and men, and by soliciting the military command to which his admitted courage, talent, and in- fluence seemed to entitle him. But beyond all this, he adopted early and supported ably and efficiently the policy of the construction of canals from Lake Erie and Lake Ohamplain to the tide water of the Hudson, and showed to his fellow citizens, with what seemed a spirit of prophecy, the benefits which would result from those works to the city, the state, and the whole country, in regard to defence, to com- merce, to increase of wealth and population, and to the stability of the Union. He was so successful in this that he was deputed, with others, in the year 1812, by the legislature of the state, to submit that great project to the federal government at Washington, and solicit its adoption or patronage of the policy as a na- tional measure. That government, happily for the state, and fortunately for him, declined, and the occurrence of the war of 1812 put the subject to rest, to be revived at a more propi- tious season. The intellectual vigor, the im- partial spirit, and the energetic resolution which Clinton displayed in these various duties, awa- kened profound and general admiration ; while the manifest beneficence of his system excited enthusiastic desires for material and moral pro- gress. He had thus become identified even in the darkest hour of his political day with the hopes and ambition of his native state, and with the hopes and ambitions of all the other states which waited to be benefited directly by her movement, or to emulate her example. By a system chosen and perfected by himself, and exclusively his own, he had gained a moral position similar and equal to that which Hamil- ton had won before him when, the tide of pop- ular favor having deserted him, and left him destitute of power and influence, he still stood forth an isolated figure, attracting an admiration and exciting an interest which his successful rivals feared to contemplate. But it was not for Clinton to reascend the political ladder until he had released his hold on the lowest step, and had once more touched the ground. His opponents made haste to dislodge him from that last foothold. In January, 1815, he was removed from the mayoralty by a council of appointment in the interest of the republican party. Fortune had gone with greatness, and he sunk into private life without even the means of respectable subsistence. The severity of this proscription, coupled with the greatness of his fall, as well as of his character, awa- kened regrets and sympathies among large classes who did not stop to consider how rashly he had tempted fortune, or how ruthlessly he had wielded the axe against those who had now precipitated him to the ground. In the autumn of that year, and in the obscurity of a retreat to the country, he prepared an argument in favor of the immediate construction of the Erie and Champlain canals. Never has there ap- peared, in this or perhaps in any other country, a state paper at once so vigorous, so genial, so comprehensive, and so conclusive. It was couched in the form of a memorial from the citizens of New York to the legislature of the state, and was deferentially submitted to a public meeting for their adoption. The city adopted the memorial, and appealed to the citizens of the interior portions of the state. They responded with enthusiasm ; other states and territories lent their approving voices. The policy was from that moment certain of suc- cess. It was hindered only by the political prejudices which hung around its advocate. His opponents called these prejudices into new activity. With short-sighted malice, they affected to consider the attractive scheme as not merely a new resort of a ruined politician, but as one original with and devised by him- self, impracticable, absurd, and visionary, al- though for more than a hundred years saga- cious and enlightened statesmen connected with the affairs of the colony and of the state of New York had, with various degrees of dis- tinctness, indicated and commended the ob- noxious policy, and the state itself had at an early day made demonstrations toward its adoption, and had recommended the whole enterprise before the war to the adoption of the federal government. Clinton, if left to designate for his adversaries their mode of opposition, could have preferred no other. It presented him as not merely the advocate, but even the inventor of the system whose pros- pective benefits were already triumphantly demonstrated. He appeared at Albany, at the assembling of the legislature, to commend it. The governor, the organ of the republican party, was silent on the subject. The repub- lican legislature rendered it just enough of favor to encourage and strengthen Clinton, and too little to make it their own and sepa- rate him as a necessary agent from it. It ap- pointed him with others a commissioner to make the necessary surveys and estimates, so- licit grants and donations, and report at the next session. A vacancy in the office of gov- ernor was now to occur by the transfer of the esteemed and popular Tompkins, the chief re- publican character in the state, to the post of vice president of the United States at Washing- ton. Spontaneous demonstrations presented Clinton before the public as a candidate ; the party machinery refused to work in the hands of his adversaries, and he was elected in the summer of 1816 to the office of governor, prac- tically by the unanimous voice of the people. It seemed for a short time as if all partisan or-