ned the supreme law of the State for forty-four years.

Before adjournment the convention, adopting the report of its
committee for the organisation of a state government, appointed Robert
R. Livingston, chancellor; John Jay, chief justice of the Supreme
Court; Robert Yates, Jr., and John Sloss Hobart, justices of the
Supreme Court, and Egbert Benson, attorney-general. To a Council of
Safety, composed of fifteen delegates, with John Morin Scott,
chairman, were confided all the powers of the State until superseded
by a regularly elected governor.

CHAPTER III

GEORGE CLINTON ELECTED GOVERNOR

1777

After the constitutional convention adjourned in May, 1777, the
Council of Safety immediately ordered the election of a governor,
lieutenant-governor, and members of the Legislature. The selection of
a governor by ballot interested the people. Although freeholders who
could vote represented only a small part of the male population,
patriots of every class rejoiced in the substitution of a neighbour
for a lord across the sea. And all had a decided choice. Of those
suggested as fittest as well as most experienced Philip Schuyler, John
Morin Scott, John Jay and George Clinton were the favourites. Just
then Schuyler was in the northern part of the province, watching
Burgoyne and making provision to meet the invasion of the Mohawk
Valley; George Clinton, in command on the Hudson, was equally watchful
of the movements of Sir Henry Clinton, whose junction with Burgoyne
meant the destruction of Forts Clinton and Montgomery at the lower
entrance to the Highlands; while Scott and Jay, as members of the
Council of Safety, were directing the government of the new State.

Schuyler's public career began in the Provincial Assembly of New York
in 1768. He represented the people's interests with great boldness,
and when the Assembly refused to thank the delegates of the first
Continental Congress, or to appoint others to a second Congress, he
aided in the organisation of the Provincial Congress which usurped the
Assembly's functions and put all power into the hands of the people.
Chancellor Kent thought that "in acuteness of intellect, profound
thought, indefatigable activity, exhaustless energy, pure patriotism,
and persevering and intrepid public efforts, Schuyler had no
superior;" and Daniel Webster declared him "second only to Washington
in the services he rendered the country."[14] But there was in
Schuyler's make-up a tou