lect. John Van Ness Yates, the
Governor's nephew, was made secretary of state; William L. Marcy,
comptroller; Simeon DeWitt, surveyor-general, and Alexander M. Muir,
commissary-general. The caucus hesitated to nominate DeWitt because he
was a Clintonian; but forty years of honourable, efficient, quiet
service finally appealed to a Republican Legislature with all the
force that it had formerly appealed to the Skinner Council. There was
more of a contest over the comptrollership. James Tallmadge suddenly
blossomed into a rival candidate. Tallmadge, like John W. Taylor, won
his spurs as a leader of the opposition to the Missouri Compromise. He
had been an ardent supporter of Clinton until the latter preferred
Thomas J. Oakley as attorney-general; then he swung into communion
with the Bucktails. He was impulsively ambitious, sensitive to
opposition, fearless in action, and such an inveterate hater that he
could not always act along lines leading to his own preferment.

Under the new Constitution, county judges, surrogates, and notaries
public were selected from the dominant party with more jealous care
than by the old Council; and if Yates failed to observe the edict of
the Regency, the Senate failed to confirm his appointees. Hammond, the
historian, gives an instance of its refusal to confirm the
reappointment of a bank cashier as a notary public because of his
politics. But the really absorbing question was the appointment of
Supreme Court judges. Though there was no objection to Nathan Sanford
for chancellor, since he would not take office until the retirement of
James Kent, in August, by reason of age limitation, the spirit shown
in the constitutional convention, toward the old Supreme Court judges,
pervaded the Senate. The Governor, who had served with Ambrose Spencer
since 1808, and with Platt and Woodworth from the time of their
elevation to the court, was prompted, perhaps through his kindly
interest in their welfare, to nominate them for reappointment, but the
Senate rejected them by an almost unanimous vote. If the Governor had
now let the matter rest, he would doubtless have escaped the serious
charge of insincerity. The next day, however, without giving the
rejected men opportunity to secure a rehearing, he nominated John
Savage, Jacob Sutherland, and Samuel R. Betts. The suddenness of these
second nominations seemed to indicate a greater desire to continue
cordial relations with the Senate than to help his form