ic in garb as well as in thought. Henceforth, New York
Federalists were to get nothing except through bargains and an
occasional capture of the Council of Appointment.

[Footnote 119: George Clinton, 24,808; Stephen Van Rensselaer,
20,843.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]

The election of George Clinton gave the party of Jefferson entire
control of the State. It had the governor, the Legislature, and the
Council of Appointment. It only remained to empower the Council to
nominate as well as to confirm, and the boss system, begun in 1794,
would have the sanction of law. For this purpose delegates, elected by
the people, met at Albany on the 13th of October, 1801, and organised
a constitutional convention by the election of Aaron Burr as
president. Fortune had thus far been very good to Burr. At forty-five
he stood one step only below the highest place in the nation, and now
by a unanimous vote he became president of the second constitutional
convention of the Empire State. His position was certainly imposing,
but when the convention declared, as it did, that each member of the
Council had the right to nominate as well as to confirm, Burr sealed
DeWitt Clinton's power to overthrow and humiliate him.

In its uncompromising character DeWitt Clinton's dislike of Burr
resembled Hamilton's, although for entirely different reasons.
Hamilton thought him a dangerous man, guided neither by patriotism nor
principle, who might at any moment throttle constitutional government
and set up a dictatorship after the manner of Napoleon. Clinton's
hostility arose from the jealousy of an ambitious rival who saw no
room in New York for two Republican bosses. Accordingly, when the
Council, which Jay had refused to reassemble, reconvened under the
summons of Governor Clinton, it quickly disclosed the policy of
destroying Burr and satisfying the Livingstons.[120] President
Jefferson had already sent the Chancellor to France, and the
Legislature had made John Armstrong, his brother-in-law, a United
States senator. But enough of the Chancellor's family remained to fill
other important offices, and the Council made Edward, a brother, mayor
of New York; Thomas Tillotson, a brother-in-law, secretary of state;
Morgan Lewis, a fourth brother-in-law, chief justice, and Brockholst
Livingston, a cousin, justice of the Supreme Court.

[Footnote 120: "Young DeWitt Clinton and his friend Ambrose Spencer
controlled this Council, and they w