A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3Alexander, De Alva Stanwood
History
A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3
Alexander, De Alva Stanwood
New York (State) -- Politics and government
He regarded the people who might seek homes west of the
Alleghanies with something of the suspicion Jay entertained for the
propertyless citizens of New York. The day would come, he believed,
when those untutored, backwoods settlers would outnumber their
brethren on the Atlantic coast, and he desired some provision in the
Constitution which would permit the minority to rule such a majority.
If these views shrivelled his statesmanship, it may be said to his
credit that they discovered a prophetic gift most uncommon in those
days, giving him the power to see a great empire of people in the
fertile valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries.[79] Fifteen
years later Robert R. Livingston expressed the belief that not in a
century would a white man cross the Father of Waters.
[Footnote 79: Gouverneur Morris seemed to find history-making places.
With Washington and Greene he opposed the Conway cabal; with Jay and
Livingston he drafted the Constitution of the State; with Hamilton and
Madison he stood for the Federal Constitution, the revision of its
style being committed to his pen. Then Washington needed him, first in
England, afterward as minister to France; and when Monroe relieved him
in 1794 he travelled leisurely through Europe for four years, meeting
its distinguished writers and statesmen, forming friendships with
Madame De Staël and the Neckers, aiding and witnessing the release of
Lafayette from Olmutz prison, and finally assisting the young and
melancholy, but gentle and unassuming Duke of Orleans, afterward King
of France, to find a temporary asylum in the United States. He
returned to America ten years after he had sailed from the Delaware
capes, just in time to be called to the United States Senate.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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