George Clinton
An American Founding Father and American Independence
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
With the refusal of the New York Assembly to appoint delegates to the Second Continental Congress, the Committee of Sixty moved to consider "the ways and means of causing delegates to be elected to meet the delegates of the other colonies ... in general Congress." In March of 1775, the Committee issued a circular letter to all counties, asking them to consider the advisability of a Provincial Convention and to send delegates to such a convention that was to meet in New York City on April 20, 1775. Contrary to their position prior to the First Continental Congress, the freeholders and freemen of Ulster County decided that in 1775 they would select delegates and have a voice in the Second Continental Congress. The struggle, where there was a struggle in the counties of New York for the election of delegates to the Provincial Convention, was mainly between those who favored a Second Congress and those who did not; between those who favored the patriot cause and those who traveled the path of loyalism. In Ulster County, thirty nine deputies from ten towns, seemingly loyal to the patriot movement, assembled at New Paltz on April 7. They proceeded to name three delegates George DeWitt, Levi Pawling, and George Clinton. The only opposition to the patriot, extra legal committee movement in Ulster County seems to have stemmed from Cadwallader Colden, Jr., and Peter and Walter DeBois, protesting that the election was unlawful, and that Provincial Conventions, Continental Congresses, and local committees had "a direct tendency to Sap, undermine, and destroy our most excellent Constitution, and introduce a Republican Government with its Horrid concomitants, faction, Anarchy, and finally Tyranny.” Colden became a victim of social ostracism, but his fear of the extra legal movement in Ulster County did not produce any radical instructions for the delegates to follow at the Provincial Convention. There had been no movement for independence in Ulster County when the delegates were selected to attend the Provincial Convention in April of 1775. The fact of the matter was that Clinton and the other delegates were instructed to follow and adhere to somewhat conservative instructions, calling for the "preserving of our Constitution and opposing the execution of ... oppressive acts of the Brit. Parl. until a reconciliation between G. B. and America on cons't principles can be obtained ... and to concert such measures as may tend to the preservation of the rights and Liberties of America." The delegates were also urged by the inhabitants to ask for a day of fasting so that the people could "implore Divine aid in restoring a happy reconciliation between the mother country and her Amer. colonies." Such instructions were by no means radical in nature, for as the Provincial Convention convened in New York City on April 20, 1775, radical leaders, men like Alexander MacDougall and John Lamb, demanded that the delegates to the Second Continental Congress should make an "unqualified, defiant assertion of American rights, ... whereas the conservative faction of the patriot party emphasized [as did the delegates from Ulster County] the hope for reconciliation with Great Britain." The Provincial Convention met for only two days, but during that period, the delegates elected the old delegates of the First Continental Congress, with the exception of Isaac Low and John Haring, namely Philip Schuyler, Lewis Morris, R. R. Livingston, Francis Lewis and George Clinton, to represent the province of New York in the Second Continental Congress. For all intents and purposes, the five newly elected delegates were traditionally aligned to the Livingston faction in New York politics. And William Smith recorded that, when the guns began to be fired and the news of the battle of Lexington reached New York on April 23, the parties had made their "fatal decisions;" the de Lanceyites had "irrevocably thrown their lot with the crown, while the Livingstons were completely committed to the cause of the Congress." When the Provincial Convention adjourned on April 22, 1775, the delegates to the Second Continental Congress had been instructed to follow similar instructions that were favored by George Clinton and the other Ulster delegates to work for "the preservation and reestablishment of American Rights and Privileges, and for the Restoration of Harmony between Great Britain and the Colonies." But, even before the delegates packed their bags for the trip to Philadelphia, the news of Lexington and Concord traveled throughout the colonies. New York City was in the hands of the mob, business was at a standstill, and armed citizens paraded in the streets. Lord North's conciliatory resolution, that had unfortunately arrived in New York one day after the report from Lexington, aroused little enthusiasm, for by that time, the angered inhabitants had prepared for armed conflict, called for a Committee of One Hundred to enforce the Association and prorogue a Provincial Congress, and looked with interest toward the opening of the Second Continental Congress. The delegates from New York arrived in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, and proceeded to engage themselves in the business of conducting a war. Continental troops were raised, the militia organized, fortifications planned and erected, and ammunition and supplies secured. While accepting the battle of Lexington as a declaration of war, Congress appointed George Washington on June 17, "General and commander in chief of the army of the United Colonies." On July 6, Congress issued its declaration for the use of arms to oppose any attempt by Britain to "effect by force of arms what by law or right they could never effect." Even though the Congress detested the policies of the tyrannical British ministry and prepared to fight rather than submit to Parliament's laws, the hope for reconciliation still prevailed as the members moved to address a last petition to George III The Olive Branch Petition "intreating him to find means to promote a Negotiation for the Establishment of ... tranquility."
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
In this enlightening snapshot of the early political life of George Clinton who unfortunately is overlooked by many colonial historians as one of America’s Founding Fathers, Leo Kanawada provides an enthralling case study based on trustworthy historical evidence and credible research of this prominent New York leader and his decision concerning American independence. Most New Yorkers even most New York patriot leaders emphatically oppose independence as late as July of 1776. Even Clinton himself hedges and vacillates on the question of independence. This much is certain: Clinton does not openly advocate independence, either in the Continental Congress or in New York, prior to the Declaration of Independence; he has no systematic “democratic” program worked out for his colony; and even prior to his election as governor of New York, he advocates no revolutionary changes for New York. To say that Clinton is a radical and that his decision regarding independence springs from an impulse for democratic reform in New York, is misleading. Rather, the key to understanding the emergence of Clinton rests primarily with Clinton’s popularity as a military commander. In the years ahead, Clinton becomes the longest serving governor (21 years) in our nation’s history. As an antifederalist and as vice president of the United States for eight years under Jefferson and Madison, he is recognized nationally when he openly challenges Hamilton and his Federalist papers with his own “Cato” letters. In them, as governor, he advocates forcefully for states’ rights, a Bill of Rights, a limited central government, and for programs to alleviate the growing economic hardships facing the country’s poor. All this while cautioning the nation about the glaring dangers in the rise of a powerful, political aristocratic class and the pitfalls of a strong presidency under the recently adopted United States Constitution.