fying
the conduct of Clinton, was now left in the air, without the means of
gracefully getting down.

Meantime, the new Council of Appointment, elected in February, and
controlled by DeWitt Clinton, had reversed the work of Lewis. Marinus
Willett surrendered the mayoralty to DeWitt Clinton, Maturin
Livingston gave up the recordership, Thomas Tillotson turned over the
secretaryship of state to Elisha Jenkins, Sylvanus Miller again became
surrogate of New York, and John Woodworth was dismissed from the
office of attorney-general. Under the Constitution, the Legislature
elected the treasurer of the State, an office which Abraham G.
Lansing, brother of the Chancellor and father of Garrett, had held
continuously since the defalcation of McClanan in 1803. Lansing was
wealthy, and, like his brother, a man of the highest character for
integrity and correct business methods, but he had followed Lewis to
defeat and now paid the penalty by giving place to David Thomas, who,
like McClanan, was also to prove a defaulter. Thus, within a year
after Tompkins' inauguration, an entire change of persons holding
civil offices in the State had taken place, the Governor shrewdly
strengthening himself by assuming to have helped the winners, and
weakening Clinton by permitting the disappointed to charge their
failure to the Mayor.

The nomination of a Republican candidate to succeed Jefferson, gave
Tompkins further opportunity of strengthening himself at the expense
of DeWitt Clinton. For months the latter had been urging the claims of
George Clinton for President, on the ground of the Vice President's
hitherto undisputed right to promotion, and because Virginia had held
the office long enough. But a congressional caucus, greatly to the
disgust of Monroe and the Clintons, and without the knowledge of the
Vice President, hastily got together according to the custom of the
day and nominated James Madison for President and George Clinton for
Vice President. The disappointed friends of Monroe and Clinton charged
that the caucus was irregular, only eighty-nine out of one hundred and
thirty-nine Republican representatives and senators having attended
it, and could they have agreed upon a candidate among themselves
Madison must have been beaten. Leading Federalists waited until late
in April for DeWitt Clinton to make some arrangement which their party
might support, but, while Federalists waited, the threatened
Republican bolt wasted itself in a