and a great grief to Hamilton--the more
so since it was not easy to find an available successor. The mention
of DeWitt Clinton raised the cry of youth; Ambrose Spencer had too
recently come over from the Federalists; Morgan Lewis lacked capacity
and fitness. Thus the contention continued, but with a leaning more
and more toward Morgan Lewis, a brother-in-law of Chancellor and
Edward Livingston.

Lewis' youth had promised a brilliant future. He graduated with high
honours at Princeton, and when the guns of Bunker Hill waked the
country he promptly exchanged John Jay's law office for John Jay's
regiment. In the latter's absence he retained command as major until
ordered to the northern frontier, when he suddenly dropped into a
place as assistant quartermaster-general, useful and important enough,
but stripped of the glory usually preferred by the hot blood of a
gallant youth. In time, the faithful, efficient quartermaster became a
plodding, painstaking lawyer, a safe, industrious attorney-general,
and a dignified, respectable judge; but he had not distinguished
himself, nor did he possess the striking, showy characteristics of
mind or manner often needed in a doubtful and bitterly contested
campaign. Heretofore place had sought him by appointment. He became
attorney-general when Aaron Burr gave it up for the United States
Senate; and a year later, by the casting vote of Governor Clinton, the
Council made him a Supreme Court judge. In 1801 the chief-justiceship
dropped into his lap when Livingston went to France and Lansing became
chancellor, just as the chancellorship would probably have come to him
had Lansing continued a candidate for governor. In 1803 he wanted to
be mayor of New York.

But with all his ordinariness no one else in sight seemed so available
a candidate for governor. The Livingstons, already jealous of DeWitt
Clinton's growing influence, secretly nourished the hope that Lewis
might develop sufficient independence to check the young man's
ambition. On the other hand, DeWitt Clinton, equally jealous of the
power wielded by the Livingstons, thought the Chief Justice, a kind,
amiable man of sixty, without any particular force of character,
sufficiently plastic to mould to his liking. "From the moment Clinton
declined," wrote Hamilton to Rufus King, "I began to consider Burr as
having a chance of success. It was still my reliance, however, that
Lansing would outrun him; but now that Chief Justice Lewis is h