The secretary of state had prepared a list covering the important offices in New York, but before he could present it, Lincoln, with the ready intuitions of a shrewd politician, remarked that he reserved to himself the privilege of appointing Hiram Barney collector of the port of New York.
He describes a pivotal moment in which Lincoln asserts his authority over appointments in New York.
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Thoughtful men who reverenced the safeguard known to civil judicial proceedings were appalled.
If Clinton was the Hampden of the colonial period, Robert Yates could well be called its Pym.
This reckless claim amazed his friends as much as it aroused his enemies, and he at once became the object of most cutting reproaches.
The act and the veto amounted to an appeal to the people, and in an instant the country was on fire.
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