olitician blacklegs," and "a set
of desperadoes."[197]

[Footnote 196: DeWitt Clinton's Letters to Henry Post, in _Harper's
Magazine_, Vol. 50, p. 412-7, 563-71.]

[Footnote 197: Martin Van Buren to Rufus King, January 19, 1820;
Charles R. King, _Life and Correspondence of Rufus King_, Vol. 6, p.
252.]

In the Bucktail mind, Daniel D. Tompkins seemed the only man
sufficiently popular to oppose DeWitt Clinton in the gubernatorial
contest. He was remembered as the great War Governor; and the up-state
leaders, representing the old war party, thought he could rally and
unite the opposing factions better than any one else. In some respects
Tompkins' position in 1820 was not unlike that of John A. Andrew in
Massachusetts in 1870, the great war governor of the Civil War. His
well-doing in the critical days of the contest had passed into
history, making his accomplishment a matter of pride to the State, and
giving him an assured standing. Everybody knew that he had raised
troops after enlistments had practically stopped elsewhere; that he
had bought army supplies, equipped regiments, constructed
fortifications, manned forts, fitted out privateers, paid bills from
funds raised on his individual indorsement, and worked with energy
while New England sulked. When the grotesque treaty of Ghent closed
the war, the Governor's star shone brightly in the zenith. At this
time, therefore, Daniel D. Tompkins was undoubtedly the most popular
man personally that ever participated in New York politics. Hammond,
the historian, relates that a father, desiring the pardon of his son,
left the capital better pleased with Governor Tompkins, who refused
it, than with Governor Clinton, who granted it. It is not easy to say
just wherein lay the charm of his wonderful personality. His voice was
rich and mellow; his face, prepossessing in repose, expressed sympathy
and friendship; while his manner, gentle and gracious without
unnaturalness, appealed to his auditor as if he of all men, was the
one whom the Governor wished to honour. His success, too, had been
marvellous. He had carried the State by the largest majority ever
given to a governor up to that time; larger than Jay's triumphant
majority in 1798; larger than George Clinton's in 1801 after the
election of Jefferson and the organisation of the Republican party;
larger even than the surprising vote given Morgan Lewis in 1804, when
Alexander Hamilton and the Clintons combined against Aaron Burr