Cato V, Part I: Context

Continuing with the theme of “opposition” which I seem to have inadvertently established over the course of the past few months – between examinations of the thoughts and convictions of Samuel Bryan (1759-1821) and Patrick Henry (1736-1799) – I’d like to take the opportunity just now to explore the insights of yet another member of the Founding Generation whose contributions to the history and development of the United States of America tend to get overshadowed amidst discussions of the small handful of individuals who seem habitually to inhabit the forefront of our imaginations. The likes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, and Hamilton will likely never cease to be objects of fascination and reverence for a certain portion of the human race, of course, and this is not without reason. These were (most of the time) terribly intelligent, insightful, and prudent men whose thoughts, actions, and expressions helped to define the structure and character of perhaps the single most influential nation of the last hundred years of human history. That being said – and as I hope I’ve succeeded in pointing out in the past – they did not accomplish the great feats for which they continue to be memorialized without a great deal of assistance. Washington did not wield the various powers of the executive branch in isolation for eight years, Jefferson did not draft the Declaration of Independence singlehandedly, and Madison was but one of many whose efforts produced the United States Constitution. The American Revolution was not the product of one man’s efforts, or even those of the whole of the Continental Congress. Rather, it took an entire nation of people – men and women, soldiers and statesmen, merchants and diplomats, farmers and sailors – to make America happen, and many more since then to keep it a going concern.

Not everyone who fits the definition of Founder, however, would have considered themselves members of that same cohort. That is to say, not everyone who made a valuable and lasting contribution to the advancement of American liberty and the wellbeing of the American people did so by cooperating with those we have come to consider the great heroes of the Revolution. Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814), for example, or the aforementioned Samuel Bryan, or the pseudonymous authors of such anti-constitutional tracts as the Brutus (Robert Yates) and Plebian (Melanchthon Smith) letters lent their countrymen an invaluable service by seeking to frustrate rather than aid the ultimately successful efforts of better-known figures like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Though the likes of Warren, Bryan, Yates, and Smith ultimately failed in their attempts to defeat the ratification of the proposed constitution – thus seemingly consigning them to the role of historical “losers” – the insights which they shared with their countrymen as to the dangers posed by the creation of a centralized national government proved essential to the eventual success of the American experiment. Not only did their well-intentioned and well-argued objections to certain aspects of the proposed constitution serve as a direct catalyst for the eventual adoption of the Bill of Rights – an addition to the governing charter of the United States of America whose value is likely inestimable – but they also helped to reaffirm for a people yet still flush with the ego-swelling glow of military victory that the battle for American liberty continued far beyond the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783. The price for winning the freedom of the American people may have been a given sum of blood, sweat, and treasure, but the cost of maintaining it – as the Anti-Federalists named above sought to affirm – was nothing less than constant vigilance. Bearing all of this in mind, it might fairly be said – in most any situation up to and including the American Founding – that even when opposition to the dominant perspective is outwardly unsuccessful it can still yield tremendous benefits for society as a whole. Certainly this is how the efforts of the Anti-Federalist ought to be regarded.

Consider, to that end, the writings of one Cato, author of seven letters published in the New York Journal over the winter of 1787/88. They were not the lengthiest efforts among the Anti-Federalist canon, to be sure, nor the most influential or well-known. Nevertheless, there is a quality of insight to the commentaries Cato put forward – and in particular Cato V – that make them particularly striking. It was not just that he took issue with the authority granted to the President, the taxing power of Congress, or certain problematic implications of the amending formula. Most of the Anti-Federalist held forth on at least one of these subjects, and often in much greater depth than Cato even seemed interested in attempting. No, it was the manner in which Cato approached the issues in question – the direction from which he launched his attack – that arguably set him apart. Mixing unromantic pragmatism with plain-spoken philosophical rigor, he managed to dissect and explain certain of the assumptions taken for granted by his fellow detractors of the proposed constitution in a way that was straightforward and penetrating where they could often be ponderous and even facile.

This may all have been for naught, of course. Among a corpus of literature which failed to achieve its intended purpose of foiling the ratification of the proposed constitution – even when one grants that the effort itself yielded a number of significant social benefits – it would be very hard indeed to establish conclusively that the writings of Cato in particular were much regarded at the time of their publication. Among a substantial body of literature since grouped under the heading of “The Anti-Federalist Papers,” Cato’s essays were brief – as noted above – and few, and hardly among the most famous of their number. Perhaps, then, it is only to the 21^st century reader that they appear all that conspicuous. And yet, conspicuous they are. Cato seemed to see things that his compatriots didn’t, or was more willing to explore the essence of their various shared convictions. The questions he asked and the assertions he posed may not have caused much of a stir in the late 1780s – if for no other reason than that relatively few people encountered them – but they nevertheless seemed to approach some of the fundamental assumptions that have been circulating in the world of politics and political philosophy since the fall of the Roman Republic. What is the value of elections to a free people? How often should they be held? How large should a legislature be? And how can it best be protected from corruption? Cato had answers to each of these inquiries that are arguably as valid today as they were at the time his letters were originally published. This isn’t to say that he was always right, of course, or that he was able to accurately predict the development of certain concepts in the realm of applied political science. Unlike some many of his Anti-Federalist cohorts, however, who concentrated primarily and specifically on the text of the proposed constitution and the implications thereof, Cato seemed to address himself to the broader conversation about the nature of republican government in America that the events of 1776 launched and which remains vital to this day.  

To that end, and with Cato V as our particular subject, we must now turn our attention to the topic of authorship. As with most of the Anti-Federalist Papers, the identity of the individual who originally drafted the Cato essays has not been affirmed for certain. Indeed, in all likelihood it never will be. Such was the nature of polemicists in the 18^th century Anglo-American world, of course. Anonymity was part of the standard formula, the purpose of which was both to stave off potential reprisal and to prevent individual reputation from effecting how the substance of the piece in question was considered. That being said, most scholars – though certainly not all of them – tend to agree that Cato was likely the penname of one George Clinton (1739-1812), seven-term Governor of New York (1777-1795, 1801-1804) and two-term Vice-President (1805-1812). As Clinton has only been discussed in these pages in passing – and as he presents such a fascinating figure – I see no reason to disagree with this assessment and every reason to move forward under the assumption that Cato V was his doing.

Part of what makes George Clinton so enduringly fascinating, of course, is his unusual biography when compared to those of his fellow Founders. A born and bred New Yorker, Clinton was the son of Presbyterian Irish immigrants of Scottish descent who arrived in America in the late 1720s seeking relief from a religious regime in Britain that placed often severe restrictions on the liberties of non-Anglican Protestants. Though seemingly a man of some means in his native Ireland – he evidently paid for the passage of up to ninety-four of his friends and neighbors – Clinton’s father Charles appeared to have met with some kind of reversal upon his arrival in New York that forced him and his family to spend the next several years eking out a relatively meagre existence on a three hundred acre farm in rural Ulster Country. By way of comparison, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), under whom George would later serve as Vice-President, inherited five thousand acres upon the death of his father in 1757, while the Mount Vernon estate of George Washington (1732-1799) encompassed at its height some eight thousand acres. In spite of this setback, however, Charles Clinton was evidently a man of talent and charisma who enjoyed a degree of success in public office that belied his otherwise humble circumstances. After being appointed Justice of the Peace and then Judge of Common Pleas for Ulster County – a type of civil court responsible for hearing cases in which the amount in controversy was between five pounds and twenty pounds – he gained enough favor with Governor Sir Charles Hardy (1714-1780) to secure the office of Lt. Col. of the New York Provincial Militia in 1756. In this position, granted him in the midst of the Seven Years War (1754-1763), the elder Clinton commanded a regiment during the British attack in August, 1758 upon the French garrison at Fort Frontenac (now within the bounds of Kingston, Ontario), the success of which doubtless reflected well upon his leadership.

Interestingly enough, it was at Frontenac at that Charles’ youngest son George first began to make a name for himself. Having previously served aboard a privateer in the Caribbean following the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and France, George was granted a commission in the New York Provincial Militia not long after his father’s rise to leadership therein and served alongside his brother James (1736-1812) as a Lieutenant under their father’s command. During the subsequent attack on the French position at Frontenac in the late summer of 1758, George reportedly proved himself instrumental in helping to cut off communications between that very same post and France’s North American headquarters in Montreal and Quebec City. Quite possibly in recognition of this feat – and doubtless in part due to the influence of his father – Clinton was shortly thereafter granted his first civil appointment as Clerk of the aforementioned Court of Common Pleas for Ulster Country, a position he would maintain from 1759 until shortly before his death. After next reading the law under New York City attorney William Smith, passing the provincial bar in 1764, and establishing a practice in his native Ulster Country, he was appointed District Attorney for that selfsame precinct, and then elected as its representative in the New York General Assembly in 1768. Seven years later, upon the commencement of hostilities between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies in the spring of 1775, Clinton was chosen by this same body of legislators to serve as Brigadier General of the New York Militia in charge of Ulster, Orange, Westchester, and Dutchess counties.

Because these four districts bracketed the Hudson River – access to which was considered to be of tremendous strategic importance by British and American authorities alike – and because they were also home to some of the wealthiest “manor lords” in all of New York – the sympathies of which tended towards Loyalism – Clinton’s appointment was an exceedingly significant one. Widespread pro-British sympathies made the possibility of hostile infiltration a very real one, and in the event that local Loyalist landowners managed to turn over control of the Hudson Valley to the British authorities that were then occupying New York City, New England would have found itself effectively cut off from the rest of the Thirteen Colonies. Despite these high stakes – or perhaps because of them – Clinton attacked his posting with alacrity, winning both the support of the militiamen under his command and the admiration of the Continental Congress. Said body, upon the recommendation of the aforementioned New York General Assembly, accordingly offered Clinton a commission as a Brigadier General in the Continental Army, an office which he reluctantly accepted in the early spring of 1777. The newly-minted general, it seemed, though he claimed to prefer, “A more retired Life than that of the Army,” nonetheless believed it essential, “Not to refuse my (but tho poor) Services to my Country in any way they should think proper to appoint me.”

Though Clinton would remain a general officer of the Continental Army until its formal disbandment in November, 1783, his attentions were very quickly redirected back into the domestic political arena. In June, 1777, under the terms of New York’s inaugural constitution as a free and independent state, he was elected Governor by a narrow margin of 1,828 to 1,199 over Philip Schuyler (1733-1804), one of the aforementioned Hudson Valley manor lords and a man whose pedigree stretched back to the 1650s and the settlement of the Dutch New Netherland colony. In light of Clinton’s comparatively humble origins, his victory in 1777 was viewed by New York’s patrician elite as something of an upset. His defeated rival Schuyler accordingly communicated soon thereafter to fellow New Yorker John Jay (1745-1829) – likewise descended on his mother’s side from Dutch New Netherland homesteaders – that the new Governor’s, “Family + Connections do not Entitle him to so distinguished a preeminence.” While Clinton may not have intended to emphasize the sense of disdain with which he was thus regarded by the state’s political elite – that is to say, he did not seem initially to view himself as acting in opposition to New York’s landed interests – his actions while in office and his ability to keep hold of the same soon enough marked him out as the terror of the Empire State’s long-standing socio-political status quo.

Clinton’s subsequent realignment of New York politics over the course of the 1770s and 1780s were made possible largely thanks to the comparatively wide-ranging authority bestowed upon the office of Governor by the framers of that state’s inaugural constitution. Whereas the governing charters of states like North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Delaware described a relatively weak chief executive elected to a one year term by a joint-sitting of the relevant general assembly – thus placing the executive authority in subordination to the legislative authority – the Governor of New York was chosen by a statewide ballot to serve a period of three years between elections. Pursuant to the popular mandate which this procedure would seem to impart, the Empire State’s chief executive was also possessed of a great many additional responsibilities besides those of seeing the laws faithfully executed and serving as commander-in-chief of the state militia. Along with reserving the authority to prorogue – i.e. adjourn – the General Assembly on their own recognizance for up to sixty days at a time – a power which, of those states named above, only South Carolina saw fit to grant its chief executive – the Governor of New York was also given the presiding seat on two exceptionally powerful bodies within the state government. One, the Council of Revision, granted the Governor, the Chancellor – being the presiding officer of the highest court in the state – and the Justices of the state’s Supreme Court, “Or any two of them,” the responsibility of reviewing any and all legislation approved by the General Assembly for the purpose of suggesting possible modifications. While this would seem to operate in practice like the veto power possessed by most chief executives in the United States as of the early 21^st century – to the point that a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly could likewise overturn a negative vote by the Council – only South Carolina likewise granted this privilege to its governor as of the late 1770s.

The other body to which New York’s chief executive was a party, the Council of Appointment, consisted of the Governor and four state senators chosen by the General Assembly from among the state’s four senatorial districts. This quintet – within which the Governor alone held the power of nomination – was possessed of the authority to name and commission, among other offices, the State Comptroller, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Surveyor General, the aforementioned Chancellor, the Justices of the New York Supreme Court, all sheriffs, all district attorneys, all lower court judges, all city and county clerks, every mayor, and all military officers. Understandably – and very much in keeping with the generally elitist and patrician tone of the Empire State’s first constitution – the existence of this committee gave the sitting chief executive a tremendous amount of influence over the composition and character of the state’s entire body of non-legislative civil officials. Elections, law enforcement, the judiciary, land sales, tax collection, municipal government, and even local record-keeping; all of these responsibilities fell within the ability of New York’s governor to effect via the appointment of certain individuals to certain offices. Likewise, given the sheer number of roles to be filled, the ability of a sitting Governor to engender loyalty and cooperation via patronage was second-to-none within the contemporary United States.

Naturally, the intention of the framers of New York’s first constitution – among them the aforementioned John Jay, Robert Livingston (1746-1813), leader of one of the most powerful factions in New York state politics, and Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816) – was that the chief executive of the Empire States would use the powers granted it by said document to maintain the preeminence of the landed elite against the increasingly raucous agitations of the middling and lower classes. In the hands of George Clinton, however, they accomplished something else entirely. In addition to using a mix of patronage and populism to cultivate a broad alliance of middling professions and small-scale property owners whose interests had theretofore been ignored by the political elite – merchants, manufacturers, schoolteachers, lawyers, yeoman farmers, and the like – he also used the circumstances of the ongoing war between the United States and Great Britain to effectively create a new electoral constituency out a previously disenfranchised community. Clinton accomplished this latter feat by directly attacking the wealth of the abovementioned population of large-scale landowners whose multitude of tenants, because they rented rather than owned the property on which they lived, did not qualify as voters.

Hereditary ownership of semi-feudal estates like those of the Livingston or Van Rensselaer families – the latter of which encompassed some three thousand tenants by the time of its dissolution in 1839 – had resulted in relatively frequent uprisings by discontented renters over the course of New York’s colonial history. And though disturbances of this nature were customarily put down by colonial authorities who naturally supported the property rights of the social class to which most of them belonged, the circumstances of the Revolution added a new wrinkle to the situation. Since many of the manor lords in question, as noted above, were avowed supporters of the Crown, and since the New York General Assembly had approved legislation in 1779 – the Confiscation Act – which allowed for the public seizure of Loyalist property, it was therefore both possible and politic in the late 1770s for the government of New York to take possession of the relevant estates and see to their redistribution. This, under Clinton’s leadership, is exactly what happened, resulting in the emergence of a massive new cohort of small-scale landowners – many of them former tenants of the dispossessed manor lords – and the collection of over three million dollars in land sales by the state government. Not only were New York’s traditional landed elite greatly weakened by this turn of events, but the resulting constituency of renters-cum-yeoman proved fiercely loyal to the chief executive under whose leadership their financial emancipation was finally realized. The economic stability provided by the aforesaid land sale revenues – particularly welcome in light of the ongoing British occupation of New York City and its lucrative port facilities – likewise contributed to Clinton’s increasingly unassailable popularity, resulting in his unopposed reelection in 1780, 1783, and 1786.