At no time in the history of the State has the Comptroller's office been more ably filled, and occupied a more prominent position, than during the administration of Archibald McIntyre. He had the unbounded confidence of all, and although there were several Councils of Appointment during his term of service which were hostile to him, no one seems to have thought of removing him. He was regarded as a public servant whose services could not well be spared to the State. He was held in a measure responsible for the defeat of Governor Tompkins, and, although Clinton was elected, the Legislature and the Council of Appointment were decidedly hostile both to Clinton and to him, and on February 12, 1821, Mr. McIntyre was removed, and John Savage appointed in his place. His removal would have created far greater dissatisfaction than it did, although the dissatisfaction was considerable, had not his successor been a man of concededly great ability. Mr. McIntyre was, the year of his removal, nominated as the Clintonian candidate for Senator from the middle district, and, although strenuous efforts were made to defeat him, he was elected by a substantial majority.
In 1822 he was, with John B. Yates, appointed agent for the State lotteries. The Constitution of 1821 had forbidden any further lotteries within the State, and authorized the Legislature to pass laws preventing the sale of tickets except in the lotteries already established by law. These were mostly instituted under the law of 1814 for the purpose of aiding literary institutions. By the act appointing him, the agents were invested with sole authority to issue and sell all lottery tickets which, for the future, were to be issued to pay some hundreds of thousands of dollars due various institutions. The legislative intent was carried out by the agents to the satisfaction of the beneficiaries, and also with satisfactory pecuniary results to the agents themselves. Upon his retirement from his agency Mr. McIntyre was able to withdraw both from politics and business.
One would hardly expect to find in the books of account in the Comptroller's office anything in the nature of a history of morals, but the receipts from various lotteries forms a no inconsiderable part of the receipts of the State for a number of years. This opens up a view which almost shocks modern sensibility. Lotteries were not only authorized by the State, but they were in the main devoted to beneficent purposes. Union College owes no inconsiderable part of her early usefulness to money derived from State lotteries. Indeed, the institution of State lotteries in New York may almost be attributed to the efforts of that truly great and good man, the Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Nott. The first moneys ever appropriated by New York for the purposes of free schools were raised by lottery.
John Savage, of Salem, a lawyer, and a Democrat of the "Bucktail" stamp, was the fifth Comptroller, and at the time of his appointment he was not new to public life. He had been district attorney of the fourth district from 1806 to 1811, and again from 1812 to 1813; Member of Assembly from Washington county in 1814, and Member of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses. He rounded out his official career with eight years (from 1823 to 1831) of honored service as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. As a public official it has been said that "he exhibited candor, industry, caution and excellent judgment." No higher qualities can be given to any official. Later in life the positions of Chancellor and Treasurer of the United States were offered to him but declined. During his term of office there was no substantial change or enlargement of the powers and duties of the office, aside from the power given to invest money belonging to the common school fund. The common school fund had its origin in 1805, and was, as the determination for free schools became more manifest, an application to a school system of the Utopian vision of the makers of the State, who sought to pay all the expenses of maintaining the government by interest from its invested funds. The common school fund has, unlike the general fund, steadily increased. By the act of 1805 the proceeds of the first 500,000 acres of vacant and unappropriated land sold by the Surveyor-General were appropriated as a permanent fund for the support of common schools. Other sources of revenue were from time to time turned into this fund, until from its small beginning of $58,757.24 in 1805, it has now productive investments aggregating $4,448,140.77. It is a noteworthy fact that no direct tax for school purposes was laid by the State until 1853, the interest of the fund alone being appropriated. How small a portion the income plays in maintaining the schools of the State to-day can be seen in the fact that the State for the year 1896 appropriated for educational purposes $4,970,134.53, and this is not a quarter of the amount expended in the State for the purpose of free schools, when the local contributions are taken into account. Judge Savage was the last Comptroller who owed his selection to the Council of Appointment.
The Constitutional Convention of 1821, in deference to strong public demand, had abolished that disgraceful anomaly, and by section 6 of article 4 had provided that "the Secretary of State, Comptroller, Treasurer, Attorney-General, Surveyor-General and Commissioner-General shall be appointed as follows: The Senate and Assembly shall each openly nominate one person for the said offices respectively; after which they shall meet again, and if they shall agree in their nominations the person so nominated shall be appointed to the office for which he shall be nominated. If they shall disagree, the appointment shall be made by the joint ballot of the Senators and Members of Assembly. The Secretary of State, Comptroller, Treasurer, Attorney-General, Surveyor-General and Commissioner-General shall hold their office for three years, unless sooner removed by concurrent resolution of the Senate and Assembly."
The Legislature, on the 13th day of February, 1823, elected, in the manner provided by law, William L. Marcy, a lawyer and a Democrat, of Albany, to succeed Savage. There was a contest in the caucus over his nomination, his opponent being Genl. James Tallmadge, a man of conspicuous ability and influence in the Senate. The power of Mr. Van Buren, however, turned the scale in Mr. Marcy's favor. The only public position which he had previously held was Adjutant-General, but from that time on his name is closely linked with the history of the State and Union. He was Comptroller for six years, Judge of the Supreme Court for two years, and United States Senator for two years. He was three times elected Governor, and defeated in his fourth run for that office by William H. Seward. He was appointed Secretary of War by President Polk in 1845, and Secretary of State by President Pierce in 1853. He had for years, under Mr. Van Buren, been a leader of that most influential political body which has become known to history as the "Albany Regency." The remaining members are understood to have been at that time Silas Wright, Azariah C. Flagg, Edwin Croswell, John A. Dix, James Porter and Benjamin Knower. The records of the State show that these men, while building up a compact and powerful political organization, did not neglect their own personal and political advancement.
One of the vouchers in the Comptroller's office played a prominent part in the last of Mr. Marcy's gubernatorial campaigns—a circumstance which, Thurlow Weed says, Mr. Marcy pronounced the most disagreeable of his entire public career. While serving as Supreme Court Judge, and on Circuit in Niagara county, he included in his bill of expenses an item as follows: "For mending my pantaloons, 50c." In the Seward campaign Thurlow Weed, then the editor of the Albany Evening Journal, learned of this fact and published the story. It was taken up by the press generally throughout the State, and Mr. Marcy, with all his fine organization and numberless friends, found himself for the time being, like Spain's chivalry, "laughed away."