Yates
approved. After the ratification of the Constitution, however, Robert
Yates charged the grand jury that it would be little short of treason
against the Republic to disobey it. "Let me exhort you, gentlemen," he
said, "not only in your capacity as grand jurors, but in your more
durable and equally respectable character as citizens, to preserve
inviolate this charter of our national rights and safety, a charter
second only in dignity and importance to the Declaration of our
Independence."

Upon the bench Yates distinguished himself for impartiality and
independence, if not for learning. He abated the intemperate zeal of
patriotic juries, and he refused to convict men suspected of
disloyalty, without proof. On one occasion he sent a jury back four
times to reconsider a verdict of guilty unauthorised by the evidence,
and subsequently treated with indifference a legislative threat of
impeachment, based upon a fearless discharge of duty. He could afford
to be just, for, like George Clinton, he had early embraced the cause
of the Colony against the Crown. From an Albany alderman he became a
maker of the State Constitution, and from a writer of patriotic
essays, he shone as an active member of the Committee of Safety.
Together with John Jay and Robert R. Livingston, he had obstructed the
passage of Lord Howe's ships up the Hudson, and with General Schuyler
he devised measures to repel the British from the northern and western
frontier. He had helped to fix the dividing line between Massachusetts
and New York, and, as one of the Council of Administration, he
governed southern New York from the withdrawal of the British until
the assembling of the Legislature.

Having decided to go outside his own party, Hamilton made no mistake
in picking his man. If Clinton was the Hampden of the colonial period,
Robert Yates could well be called its Pym. He had toleration as well
as patriotism. But he also had an itching desire for office. Some one
has said that the close connection between man and a child is never
more clearly illustrated than in the joy and pride which the wisest
statesman feels in the wearing of a ribbon or a star. It could not be
said of Robert Yates then, as it was said, with good reason, six years
later, that his desire for office extinguished his devotion to party
and his character for political consistency, but it was openly charged
that, upon the suggestion of Hamilton, he urged the grand jury to
support the