Tompkins was on the farm when Clinton was in Columbia College; but if the plow lengthened his days, study shortened his nights, and five years after Clinton graduated, Tompkins entered the same institution. Just then it was a stern chase. Clinton had the advantage of family, Tompkins the disadvantage of being a stranger. When the former entered the Legislature, the latter had only opened a law office. Then, but four years later, they met in the constitutional convention, Clinton on the winning side and Tompkins on the right side. The purpose of this convention, it will be recalled, had been to give each member of the Council of Appointment the power to nominate candidates for office—Clinton holding that the Council had the right to nominate as well as to confirm appointments; Tompkins, with barely a dozen associates, took the ground, maintained by Governors Clinton and Jay, that its power was limited to confirmation. This position showed the nerve as well as the independence of the younger man, and he was able proudly to refer to it when, twenty years later, the constitutional convention of 1821, inspired by the popular contempt, achieved the abolition of the Council, and with it the political corruption and favouritism to which it had given rise.
The record of New York politics is a record of long and bitter contests between these chiefs of two antagonistic Republican factions. What the struggle between Stalwarts and Half Breeds was to our own time, the struggle between Clinton and Tompkins was to our ancestors of two and three generations ago. Two men could hardly be more sharply contrasted. The one appeared cold and reserved, the other most gracious and gentle; Clinton's self-confidence destroyed the fidelity of those who differed in opinion, Tompkins' urbanity disarmed their disloyalty; Clinton was unrelenting, dogged in his tenacity, quick to speak harshly, moving within lines of purpose regardless of those of least resistance. Although he often changed his associates, like Lord Shaftesbury, he never changed his purposes. Tompkins, always firm and dignified, was affable in manner, sympathetic in speech, overflowing with good nature, and unpretending to all who approached him. It used to be said that Tompkins made more friends in refusing favours than Clinton did in granting them.
The two men also differed as much in personal appearance as in manner. Tompkins, shapely and above the ordinary height, had large, full eyes, twinkling with kindness, a high forehead wreathed with dark, curly hair, and an oval face, easily and usually illuminated with a smile; Clinton had a big frame, square shoulders, a broad, full forehead, short, pompadour hair, dark penetrating eyes, and a large mouth with lips firmly set. It was a strong face. A dullard could read his character at a glance. To his intimate friends Clinton was undoubtedly a social, agreeable companion; but the dignified imperiousness of his manner and the severity of his countenance usually overcame the ordinary visitor before the barriers of his reserve were broken. Tompkins, on the contrary, carried the tenderness of a wide humanity in his face.
It was hardly creditable to Clinton's knowledge of human nature that he selected Daniel D. Tompkins for a gubernatorial candidate, if he sought a man whom he might control. The memory of the constitutional convention, or a glance into the history of the elder Tompkins, who had stood firm and unyielding in the little settlement of Fox Meadows in Winchester after the American defeat on Long Island, when all his neighbours save two had faltered in the cause of independence, would have enlightened him respecting the Tompkins character. The farmer boy's determined, patient preparation for public life, and his fortitude in the face of conscious disadvantages, ought also to have suggested that the young man was made of sterner stuff than the obedient Theodorus Bailey. Still more surprising is it that Clinton should overlook, or insufficiently consider the fact that Tompkins was now the son-in-law of Mangle Minthorne, a wealthy citizen of New York, and the leader of the Martling Men, of whose opposition he had already been apprised, and whose bitter hostility he was about to experience. If he thought to disarm the enmity of Minthorne by helping the son-in-law, his hopes were raised only to be dashed to earth again.
It is certain DeWitt Clinton had no one save himself to thank for taking this Hercules, whose political direction was conspicuously inevitable from the first. But Clinton wanted an assured victor against Morgan Lewis and the Livingstons, with their Federalist supporters, and, although some people inclined to the opinion that Tompkins had already been promoted too rapidly, Clinton believed his services on the bench had made him the most available man in the party. For three years this young judge, substituting sympathy for severity, had endeared himself to all who knew him. The qualities of fairness and fitness which Greek wisdom praised in the conduct of life were characteristic of his life. From what we know of his work it is fair to presume, had he tarried upon the bench until 1821, he would have been a worthy associate of Smith Thompson and Ambrose Spencer.
Sixty-five Republican members of the Legislature signed the address, drawn by DeWitt Clinton, putting Tompkins into the race for governor; forty-five indorsed the platform on which Governor Lewis stood for re-election. The Clinton address gave no reason for preferring Tompkins to Lewis, but the latter's weakness as an executive, foreshadowed a defeat which each day made plainer, and when the votes, counted on the last day of April, gave Tompkins 4085 majority, the result was as gratifying to Clinton as it was disastrous to Lewis.[153] It was not a sweeping victory, such as Lewis had won over Burr three years before, for the former's weakness was less offensive than the latter's wickedness, but it launched the successful candidate on his long period of authority, which was not to be ended until he was broken in health, if not in character.
Daniel D. Tompkins had the good fortune to begin his administration at a time when England and the United States were about to quarrel over the former's insistence on impressing American seamen into its service, thus giving the people something to think about save offices, and dividing them again sharply into two parties. Indeed, while the election was pending in April, three deserters from the Melampus, a British sloop-of-war, by enlisting on the Chesapeake, a United States frigate of thirty-eight guns, became the innocent cause of subjecting the United States to gross insult. The American government, smarting under England's impressment of its seamen, refused to surrender these deserters, inquiries showing that they were coloured men of American birth, two of whom had been pressed into the British service from an American vessel in the Bay of Biscay. When the Chesapeake sailed, therefore, the Leopard, an English man-of-war mounting fifty guns, followed her to the high seas and demanded a return of the deserters. Receiving a prompt refusal, the Englishman raked the decks of the Chesapeake for the space of twelve minutes, killing three men and wounding eighteen, among them the commander. The Chesapeake was not yet ready for action. Her crew was undrilled in the use of ordnance, her decks littered, appliances for reloading were wanting, and at the supreme moment neither priming nor match could be found. Under these distressing circumstances, the boarding officer of the Leopard took the deserters and sailed for Halifax. The sight of the dismantled Chesapeake, with its dead and dying, aroused the people irrespective of party into demanding reparation or war. "This country," wrote Jefferson, "has never been in such a state of excitement since the battle of Lexington."[154] Immediately the most exposed ports were strengthened, and the States were called upon to organise and equip 100,000 militia ready to march. Among other things, Jefferson ordered British cruisers to depart from American waters, forbidding all aid and intercourse with them.
On the day of Governor Tompkins' inauguration the crippled Chesapeake sailed back into Norfolk; and before the New York Legislature assembled in the following January, England had published its Orders in Council, forbidding all neutral trade with France. Napoleon had also promulgated his Milan Decree, forbidding all neutral trade with England, and the Congress of the United States, with closed doors, in obedience to the recommendation of the President, had ordered an embargo forbidding all foreign-bound American vessels to leave United States ports.
For several years American commerce, centring chiefly in New England and New York, and occupying a neutral position toward European belligerents, had enjoyed unparalleled prosperity. Reaching all parts of the world, it had, indeed, largely engrossed the carrying trade, especially of France and the European powers. As restraints increased, the Yankee skippers became sly and cunning—risking capture, using neutral flags, and finding other subterfuges for new restrictions. The embargo would tie up the ships to rot, throw seamen out of employment, destroy perishable commodities like breadstuffs, and paralyse trade. From the moment of its passage, therefore, merchants and shipowners resisted it, charging that Napoleon's Decree had provoked the British Orders, and that if the former would recede, the latter would be modified. It revived the old charge of Jefferson's enmity to commerce. In the excitement, DeWitt Clinton opposed it, and Cheetham, with his bitter, irritating pen, sustained him. He thought American commerce might be left to solve the difficulty for itself, by allowing merchants to arm their vessels or otherwise encounter the risks and perils at their own discretion, rather than be compelled to abandon the highway of nations to their British rivals, whose sole purpose, he maintained, was to drive us from the ocean and capture French supplies being transported in French vessels.
But the Republicans in Congress stood firmly by the embargo, holding that if George Canning would modify the Orders in Council, which were intended to drive American commerce from the ocean, Napoleon would modify his decrees, which were provoked by the British Orders. It was not a question of avoiding sacrifices, said Governor Tompkins, in his speech to the Legislature, in January, 1808, but whether one sacrifice might not better be borne than another. The belligerents had issued decrees regardless of our rights. If we carried for England, France would confiscate; if for France, England would confiscate. England exacted tribute, and insisted upon the right of search; France demanded forfeiture if we permitted search or paid tribute; between the two the world was closed to us. But the belligerents needed our wheat and breadstuffs, and while the embargo was intended only for a temporary expedient, giving the people time for reflection, and keeping our vessels and cargoes from spoliation, it must prevail in the end by making Europe feel the denial of neutral favours. "What patriotic citizen," he concluded, "will murmur at the temporary privations and inconveniences resulting from this measure, when he reflects upon the vast expenditure of national treasure, the sacrifice of the lives of our countrymen, the total and permanent suspension of commerce, the corruption of morals, and the distress and misery consequent upon our being involved in the war between the nations of Europe? The evils which threaten us call for a magnanimous confidence in the efforts of our national councils to avert them, and for a firm, unanimous determination to devote everything that is dear to us to maintain our right and national honour."[155]