possessor the title of a man of genius, he could,
though thirteen years younger, weigh the strength of conflicting
tendencies in the political world with an accuracy to which Clinton
could not pretend.

[Footnote 173: William Allen Butler, _Address on Martin Van Buren_
(1862).]

On reaching Albany, in November, 1812, Van Buren saw the electoral
situation at a glance; and naturally, almost insensibly, he became
Clinton's representative. He slipped into leadership as easily as
Bonaparte stepped into the history of Europe, when he seized the fatal
weakness in the well defended city of Toulon. Van Buren had approved
embargo, non-intercourse, and the war itself. The discontent growing
out of Jefferson's severe treatment of the difficulties caused by the
Orders in Council and the Berlin and Milan Decrees, seems never to
have shaken his confidence in Republican statesmanship, or aroused
the slightest animosity against the congressional caucus nominee for
President. But he accepted Clinton as the regular and practically the
unanimous nominee of the Republican members of a preceding
Legislature. Although Madison's nomination had come in the way then
accepted, he had a stronger sense of allegiance to the expressed will
of his party in the State. His adversaries, of whom he was soon to
have many, charged him with treachery to the President and to the
party. There came a time when it was asserted, and, apparently, with
some show of truth, that he had neither the courage nor the heart to
keep the side of his convictions boldly and finally; that he was
always thinking of personal interests, and trying to take the position
which promised the greatest advantage and the greatest security. We
shall have occasion, in the course of these pages, to study the basis
of such criticism. But, in the present crisis, had he not been
thoroughly sincere and single-hearted, he could easily have thrown in
his fortunes with the winning side; for at that time he must have had
little faith in the chances of Clinton's election. Vermont had been
given up, Pennsylvania was scarcely in doubt, and the South showed
unmistakable signs of voting solidly for Madison.[174]

[Footnote 174: "DeWitt Clinton was classed by most persons as a
reckless political gambler, but Martin Van Buren, when he intrigued,
preferred to intrigue upon the strongest side. Yet one feeling was
natural to every New York politician, whether a Clinton or a
Livingston, Burrite, Federalis