hought it worse
than the existing Constitution of 1777; yet he approved it because the
provision for amendment afforded the people a means of correcting
defects with reasonable facility, without resorting to the difficult
and dangerous experiment of a formal convention.

The Constitution, however, in spite of the opposition, was
overwhelmingly ratified. The vote for it was 74,732; against it
41,043. And it proved better than even its sponsors prophesied. It
abolished the Councils of Appointment and of Revision; it abolished
the power of the governor to prorogue the Legislature; it abolished
the property qualification of the white voter; it extended the
elective franchise; it made a large number of officers elective; it
modified the management of the canals and created a canal board; it
continued the Court of Errors and Impeachments; it reorganised the
judicial department, making all judges, surrogates, and recorders
appointive by the governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate;
it made state officers, formerly appointed by the Council, elective by
joint ballot of the Senate and Assembly; and it gave the power of veto
exclusively to the governor, requiring a two-thirds vote of the
Legislature to overcome it. No doubt it had radical defects, but with
the help of a few amendments it lived for a quarter of a century.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SECOND FALL OF CLINTON

1822

The new Constitution changed the date of elections from April to
November, and reduced the gubernatorial term from three years to two,
thus ending Governor Clinton's administration on January 1, 1823. As
the time approached for nominating his successor, it was obvious that
the Bucktails, having reduced party discipline to a science and
launched the Albany Regency upon its long career of party domination,
were certain to control the election. Indeed, so strong had the party
become that a nomination for senator or assemblyman was equivalent to
an election, and the defeat of John W. Taylor of Saratoga for speaker
of the Seventeenth Congress showed that its power extended to the
capital of the nation. Taylor's ability and splendid leadership, in
the historic contest of the Missouri Compromise, had made him speaker
during the second session of the Sixteenth Congress; but Bucktail
resentment of his friendly attitude toward Clinton, in 1820, changed a
sufficient number of his New York colleagues to deprive him of
re-election. It was not until th