he making of the Constitution of 1777. The people of New
York City, as well, who had increased over fifty per cent. in twelve
years, clamoured for a radical change in conditions that seemed to
them to have no application to life in a republic.

Nevertheless, the politicians were slow in recognising the necessity
of amending the State Constitution. Although trouble increased from
year to year, governors avoided recommendations; and legislators
hesitated to put in motion the machinery for correcting abuses. After
Clinton had defeated Tompkins for governor, in 1820, however, the
agitation suddenly blazed into a flame. Tammany resolved in favour of
a convention having unlimited powers to amend the Constitution.
Following this suggestion, Governor Clinton, in his speech to the
Legislature in November, 1820, recommended that the question be
submitted to the people. But the Bucktails, indifferent to the views
of their opponents, pushed through a bill calling for a convention
with unlimited powers, whose work should subsequently be submitted in
gross to the people for ratification or rejection.

Governor Clinton preferred a convention of limited powers, a
convention that could not abolish the judiciary or turn out of office
the only friends left him. Nevertheless, it was not easy for a
governor, who loved popularity, to take a position against the
Bucktail bill; for the popular mind, if it had not yet formally
expressed itself on the subject, was well understood to favour a
convention. When, therefore, the bill came before the Council of
Revision, Clinton thought he had taken good care to have a majority
present to disapprove it, without his assistance. Van Ness and Platt
were absent holding court; but, of the others, Joseph C. Yates, the
only Bucktail on the bench, was presumably the only one likely to
favour it. Chancellor Kent, in giving his reasons for disapproving the
measure, contended that the Legislature had no constitutional
authority to create a convention of unlimited powers, and, if it did,
it should require the convention to submit its amendments to the
people separately and not in gross. Spencer agreed with the
Chancellor. Yates, as expected, approved the bill, but there was
consternation in the Council when Woodworth agreed with Yates.
Woodworth was the creature of Clinton. He had made him a judge, and,
having done so, the Governor relied with confidence upon his support,
in preference to that of either Van Nes