rpreted it; but Schuyler held otherwise, claiming that the Council
had a concurrent right to nominate. He went further, and decided that
whenever the law omitted to limit the number of officers, the Council
might do it, and whenever an officer must be commissioned annually,
another might be put in his place at the expiration of his commission.
This would give the Council power to increase at will the number of
officials not otherwise limited by law, and to displace every
anti-Federalist at the expiration of his commission.

Clinton argued that the governor, being charged under the Constitution
with the execution of the laws, was vested with exclusive discretion
as to the number of officers necessary to their execution, whereas, if
left to one not responsible for such execution, too many or too few
officials might be created. With respect to the continuation of an
incumbent in office at the pleasure of the Council, "the Constitution
did not intend," he said, "a capricious, arbitrary pleasure, but a
sound discretion to be exercised for the promotion of the public good;
that a contrary practice would deprive men of their offices because
they have too much independence of spirit to support measures they
suppose injurious to the community, and might induce others from undue
attachment to office to sacrifice their integrity to improper
considerations."[70] This was good reasoning and good prophecy; but
his protests fell upon ears as deaf to a wise policy as did the
protests of Jay's friends when the board of canvassers counted Jay out
and Clinton in.

[Footnote 70: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
1, p. 84.]

The action of the Council of Appointment was a stunning blow to
Clinton. Under Jay's constitution, every officer in city, county, and
State, civil and military, save governor, lieutenant-governor, members
of the Legislature, and aldermen, could now be appointed by the
Council regardless of the Governor; and already these appointments
mounted up into hundreds. In 1821 they numbered over fifteen thousand.
Thus, as if by magic, the Council was turned into a political machine.
Under this arrangement, a party only needed a majority of the Assembly
to elect a Council which made all appointments, and the control of
appointments was sufficient to elect a majority of the Assembly. Thus
it was an endless chain the moment the Council became a political
machine, and it became a political machine the moment