manager, his lack of tact, impatience of control, and
infirmity of temper, had crippled the organisation. In less than three
years the party had lost a United States senator, suffered the
separation of a family vastly more important than federal appointees,
and sacrificed the prestige of victory, so necessary to political
success.

CHAPTER VI

GEORGE CLINTON DEFEATS JOHN JAY

1792-1795

Burr's rapid advancement gave full rein to his ambition. Not content
with the exalted office to which he had suddenly fallen heir, he now
began looking for higher honours; and when it came time to select
candidates for governor, he invoked the tactics that won him a place
in the United States Senate. He found a few anti-Federalists willing
to talk of him as a stronger candidate than George Clinton, and a few
Federalists who claimed that the moderate men of both parties would
rally to his support. In the midst of the talk Isaac Ledyard wrote
Hamilton that "a tide was likely to make strongly for Mr. Burr,"[56]
and James Watson, in a similar strain, argued that Burr's chances, if
supported by Federalists, would be "strong."[57]

[Footnote 56: James Parton, _Life of Aaron Burr_, Vol. 1, p. 187.]

[Footnote 57: _Ibid._, 188.]

Clinton's firm hold upon his party quickly checked Burr's hope from
that quarter, but the increasing difficulty among Federalists to find
a candidate offered opportunity for Burr's peculiar tactics, until his
adherents were everywhere--on the bench, in the Legislature, in the
drawing-rooms, the coffee-houses, and the streets. Hamilton had only
to present him and say, "Here is your candidate," and Aaron Burr would
cheerfully have opposed the friend who, within less than two years,
had appointed him attorney-general and elected him United States
senator. But Hamilton deliberately snuffed him out. The great
Federalist had finally induced John Jay to become the candidate of his
party. This was on February 13, 1792. Two days later, the
anti-Federalists named George Clinton and Pierre Van Cortlandt, the
old ticket which had done service for fifteen years.

In inducing John Jay to lead his party, Hamilton made a good start.
Heretofore Jay had steadily refused to become a candidate for
governor. "That the office of the first magistrate of the State," he
wrote, May 16, 1777, "will be more respectable as well as more
lucrative than the place I now fill is very apparent; but my object in
the course of the presen