ompkins, on the contrary, carried the tenderness of a wide humanity
in his face.

It was hardly creditable to Clinton's knowledge of human nature that
he selected Daniel D. Tompkins for a gubernatorial candidate, if he
sought a man whom he might control. The memory of the constitutional
convention, or a glance into the history of the elder Tompkins, who
had stood firm and unyielding in the little settlement of Fox Meadows
in Winchester after the American defeat on Long Island, when all his
neighbours save two had faltered in the cause of independence, would
have enlightened him respecting the Tompkins character. The farmer
boy's determined, patient preparation for public life, and his
fortitude in the face of conscious disadvantages, ought also to have
suggested that the young man was made of sterner stuff than the
obedient Theodorus Bailey. Still more surprising is it that Clinton
should overlook, or insufficiently consider the fact that Tompkins was
now the son-in-law of Mangle Minthorne, a wealthy citizen of New York,
and the leader of the Martling Men, of whose opposition he had already
been apprised, and whose bitter hostility he was about to experience.
If he thought to disarm the enmity of Minthorne by helping the
son-in-law, his hopes were raised only to be dashed to earth again.

It is certain DeWitt Clinton had no one save himself to thank for
taking this Hercules, whose political direction was conspicuously
inevitable from the first. But Clinton wanted an assured victor
against Morgan Lewis and the Livingstons, with their Federalist
supporters, and, although some people inclined to the opinion that
Tompkins had already been promoted too rapidly, Clinton believed his
services on the bench had made him the most available man in the
party. For three years this young judge, substituting sympathy for
severity, had endeared himself to all who knew him. The qualities of
fairness and fitness which Greek wisdom praised in the conduct of life
were characteristic of his life. From what we know of his work it is
fair to presume, had he tarried upon the bench until 1821, he would
have been a worthy associate of Smith Thompson and Ambrose Spencer.

Sixty-five Republican members of the Legislature signed the address,
drawn by DeWitt Clinton, putting Tompkins into the race for governor;
forty-five indorsed the platform on which Governor Lewis stood for
re-election. The Clinton address gave no reason for preferring
Tompkin