he had the whole power of state and
national administrations, and the most prominent men of the party, led
by Erastus Root. Besides, a new Legislature, elected in the preceding
April, had a Republican majority on joint ballot divided between
Clintonians and Madisonians; and, still further to perplex the
situation, twenty Republican assemblymen absolutely refused to vote
unless Madison were given a fair division of the electors. This meant
the surrender of one elector out of three, an arrangement to which
Clinton dared not consent.

Clinton, though seriously impressed by the gravity of his position,
seems to have done nothing to clear the way; but the hour of crisis
brought with it the man demanded. During recent years a new and very
remarkable figure in political life had been coming to the front.
Martin Van Buren, afterward President of the United States, was
establishing his claim to the position of commanding influence he was
destined to hold during the next three decades. His father, an
innkeeper in the village of Kinderhook, gave him a chance to learn a
little English at the common schools, and a little Latin at the
academy. At the age of fourteen, he began sweeping an office and
running errands for a country attorney, who taught him the law. Then
he went to New York City to finish his education in the office of
William P. Van Ness, an old Columbia County neighbour, at that time
making his brilliant and bitter attack as "Aristides" upon the
Clintons and the Livingstons. A year later, in 1803, Van Buren
celebrated his twenty-first birthday by forming a partnership in
Kinderhook with a half-brother, James J. Van Alen, already established
in the practice. In 1808, he became surrogate; and when the
Legislature convened in November, 1812, he took a seat in the Senate,
the youngest man save one, it is said, until then elected to that
body.

Martin Van Buren had shown unusual sagacity as a politician. Born
under conditions which might have disheartened one of different mould,
bred in a county given up to Federalism, and taught in the law for six
years by an uncompromising follower of Hamilton, he nevertheless held
steadfastly to the Jeffersonian faith of his father. Nor would he be
moved in his fealty to the Clintons, although Van Ness, his
distinguished law preceptor, worshipped Burr and hated his enemies. As
a very young man, Van Buren was able to see that the principles of
Republicanism had established themselves i