liff from New York; James Kent, Ambrose Spencer, Abraham
Van Vechten, and Stephen Van Rensselaer from Albany; Jonas Platt,
Ezekiel Bacon, and Nathan Williams from Oneida; William W. Van Ness,
Elisha Williams, and Jacob R. Van Rensselaer from Columbia; and James
Tallmadge and Peter R. Livingston from Dutchess. There was one new
name among them--Samuel Nelson of Cortland, a young man, yet destined
to become a well-known and influential chief justice of the State, and
an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. The
Federalists of Albany did not return Martin Van Buren, who now made
his home in their city; but the people of Otsego honoured themselves
and greatly strengthened the convention by making him their
representative. He was clearly its leader. Root and Young did more
talking, but when others had argued until argument seemed hopeless,
Van Buren usually spoke the last word with success.

From the first, it was recognised that Clinton's friends were without
influence. They could talk and vote, but the convention was a Bucktail
body, in which the election of delegates, the choice of a president,
the appointment of committees, the selection of chairmen, and the
transaction of business were made party questions. The vote of sixteen
to ninety-four for Daniel D. Tompkins, for president, showed Bucktail
delegates overwhelmingly in the majority. Of the chairmen of the ten
standing committees, all were prominent Bucktail leaders, save Rufus
King, who had practically ceased to act with the Federalists of his
State, and James, Tallmadge, who ended his affection for DeWitt
Clinton when the latter preferred Thomas J. Oakley for attorney-general.

The convention's work centred about three great principles--broader
suffrage, enlarged local government, and a more popular judiciary
system. There was no difficulty in abolishing the Councils of
Appointment and of Revision; in clothing the governor with power of
veto; in fixing his term of office at two years instead of three; and
in making members of the Legislature ineligible for appointment to
office. But, on the questions of suffrage and the judiciary, the
convention was thrown into weeks of violent debate, memorable by
prophecies never fulfilled, and by criticism that the future quickly
disproved. In respect to the suffrage, there were practically three
different views. A few members favoured freehold qualifications; a
larger number believed in universal suffrage; whil