CHAPTER III

THE COUNCIL OF APPOINTMENT—HAMILTON'S VIEW OF—GEiEAT
BODY OF OFFICE-HOLDERS, ITS APPOINTEES—STAR-CHAMBER
POWER—FEDERALIST PARTY FIRST TO ABUSE THE POWER—
CONTROVERSY BETWEEN GOVERNOR CLINTON AND COUNCIL IN
1794—CONTROVERSY BETWEEN GOVERNOR JAY AND COUNCIL
IN 1800—CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 180I—ITS CON¬
STRUCTION OF ARTICLE XXIII—EFFECTS—RISE OF DE WITT
CLINTON   TO   POWER—^ABUSES   OF   THE   PATRONAGE   SYSTEM—

HAMMOND AND THE COUNCIL----GENERAL DESIRE IN   182O FOR

ITS ABOLITION.

The organization of the council of appointment was, ac¬
cording to Hammond, one of the two anomalies in the constitu¬
tion of 1777, the other being the institution of the council of
revision.^ ^   Until the rise of distinct political parties after the
 

1.    In an elaborate monograph entitled "DeWitt Clinton and the
Origin of the Spoils System in New York," Columbia University Press,
1907, Mr. Howard Lee McBain, Ph.D., has undertaken a defense of Clin¬
ton's policy in the distribution of offices in New York in 1801. Mr. Mc
Bain has made a critical and searching examination of the manuscript
minutes of the council of appointment up to 1801, and his essay, which
is a valuable contribution to the literature bearing upon the council, is
based upon a study of these documents.

2.    In an article entitled "The Council of Appointment in New York",
7 P. S. p., 80, Professor J. M. Gitterman maintains that the contests of
the provincial period turned largely upon the question of the appointing
power. Since the royal officials were to be paid from the proceeds of the
provincial taxes, the New York assembly accordingly strove to gain the
right of nominating .all those officials whom the province had to support,
i. e., all except the royal governor. The people came to regard appoint¬
ment and taxation as correlative functions of government and aimed at
the control of both. They desired to secure the appointing power, and
as a first step they demanded the right of voting and apportioning the
taxes and supplies.    After the English revolution of 1688, freeholders of

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