ernor," says Weed, "and all the more insane because
of its impossibility. He had been editing with great industry and
ability the _Ploughboy_ and the _Christian Visitant_, and beguiled
himself with a confident belief that farmers and Christians,
irrespective of party, would sustain him. He provided me with a horse
and wagon, and gave me a list of the names of gentlemen on whom I was
to call, but I soon discovered that my friend's hopes and chances were
not worth even the services of a horse that was dragging me through
the mud. Years afterward I learned that in politics, as almost in
everything else, Mr. Southwick was blinded by his enthusiasm and
credulity."[221]

[Footnote 221: _Autobiography of Thurlow Weed_, p. 86.]

But Southwick was not the only blinded one in 1822. On the 10th of
January, Governor Clinton wrote Henry Post "that Yates and Van Buren
are both prostrate, and the latter particularly so."[222] Later in the
year, on August 21, he declared: "Yates is unpopular, and Southwick
will beat him in this city and in Schenectady."[223] In the next
month, September 21, he is even more outspoken. "Yates is despised and
talked against openly. Savage and Skinner talk plainly against him,
and he is the subject of commonplace ridicule."[224] Clinton was the
last person to abandon hope of Yates' defeat; and yet Yates' election
could, without exaggeration, be declared practically unanimous.[225]
Republican legislative candidates fared equally well. Clintonians and
Federalists were entirely without representation in the Senate, and in
the Assembly their number was insufficient to make their presence
appreciable.

[Footnote 222: DeWitt Clinton's Letters to Henry Post, in _Harper's
Magazine_, Vol. 50, p. 507.]

[Footnote 223: _Ibid._, p. 565.]

[Footnote 224: _Ibid._, p. 565.]

[Footnote 225: Southwick received 2910 out of a total of 131,403 votes
cast.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]

CHAPTER XXIX

CLINTON AGAIN IN THE SADDLE

1823-1824

The election in the fall of 1822 was one of those sweeping, crushing
victories that precede a radical change; and the confidence with which
the victors used their power hurried on the revolution prophesied in
Clinton's clever letter to Post. The blow did not, indeed, come at
once. The legislators, meeting in January, 1823, proceeded cautiously,
agreeing in caucus upon the state officers whom the Legislature, under
the amended Constitution, must now e