cil of Appointment, composed of Jonathan
Dayton, representing the southern district, Lucas Elmendorff the
middle, Ruggles Hubbard the eastern, and Ferrand Stranahan the
western. Elmendorff had been two years in the Assembly, six years in
Congress, and was now serving the first year of a single term in the
State Senate; but like his less experienced colleagues he was on the
Council simply to carry out the wishes of the leaders. It had been
three years since Republicans had tasted the sweets of office, and a
hungrier horde of applicants never besieged the capital. Yet so
dextrous had politicians become in making changes from one party to
the other, that the Council's work must have ended in a week had not
the jealousies, until now veiled by the war, quickly developed into a
conflict destined to reconcile Ambrose Spencer and DeWitt Clinton, and
to rivet the friendly relations between Governor Tompkins and Martin
Van Buren.

Van Buren desired to become attorney-general. He had been
conspicuously prominent almost from the day he entered the Senate;
and, after the Republicans recovered control of the Assembly, he was
the acknowledged legislative leader of his party. By his persuasive
eloquence, his gift of argument, and his political tact in obtaining
supporters, he secured the passage of a "classification bill" which
divided the military population of the State into twelve thousand
classes, each class being required to furnish one able-bodied soldier
by voluntary enlistment, by bounty, or by draft. "This act," declared
Thomas H. Benton, years afterward, "was the most energetic war measure
ever adopted in the country."[182] There appears to be a general
agreement among writers who have commented upon the character of Van
Buren and his work at this period of his career, that, next to the
Governor among civilians, Van Buren was most entitled to the gratitude
of his party and his State. Besides, his smooth and pleasing address
had become more fascinating the longer he continued in the Senate,
until his influence among legislators was equalled only by the kindly
and sympathetic Tompkins, whose success in the war had won him a place
in the hearts of men similar to that enjoyed by George Clinton after
the close of the Revolution.

[Footnote 182: Edward M. Shepard, _Martin Van Buren_, p. 62.]

But popular and deserving as Van Buren was Ambrose Spencer opposed his
preferment. He saw in the brilliant young legislator an obstacle to