When he took up the work of organisation, therefore, it was with no wish to become a leader; he simply desired to guide the spirit of resistance along orderly and forceful lines.

Of all the men of that busy and brilliant age, no one advanced more steadily in the general knowledge and favour.

The qualifications of those who might vote for members of the Legislature greatly restricted suffrage.

The proposition that no authority should be exercised over the people except such as came from the people necessarily opened the door to an election of the governor by the people; but how to restrict his power seems to have taxed Jay's…

The only governors with whom Jay had had any experience were British governors, and the story of their rule was a story of astonishing mistakes and vexing stupidities.

To go no farther back than Lord Cornbury, the dissolute cousin of Queen Anne, not one in the long list, covering nearly a century, exhibited gifts fitting him for the government of a spirited and intelligent people, or made the slightest…

Their disposition was to be despotic, and to prevent a repetition of such arbitrary conduct, Jay sought to restrict the governor's power in making appointments to civil office.

But in practice it subordinated the governor to the Council whenever a majority of the Assembly was politically opposed to him, and the annual election of the Council greatly increased the chances of such opposition.

When, finally, the Council of Appointment set up the claim that the right to nominate was vested concurrently in the governor and in each of the four senators, it practically stripped the chief executive of power.

The anomaly of the Constitution was the absence of provision for the judicature, the third co-ordinate branch of the government.

The spirit that nerved a handful of men to embargo vessels and seize munitions of war covered by British guns never wanted courage, and this historic band now prepared to resist a conservatism that seemed disposed simply to change the name…

They had well-formed notions of a popular government, and their replies to proposed changes broke the force of the opposition.

Otherwise, New York would probably have had the distinction of being first to set the example of freedom.

As it became known to the country, it was cordially approved as the most excellent and liberal of the American constitutions.

Although a product of the Revolution, framed to meet the necessities growing out of that great event, its general provisions were decidedly conservative.

Although freeholders who could vote represented only a small part of the male population, patriots of every class rejoiced in the substitution of a neighbour for a lord across the sea.

If they were indignant that Gates succeeded him, they did not want him to govern them, however much it may have been in his heart to serve them faithfully.

By profession he was an able and wealthy lawyer; by occupation a patriotic agitator.

Scott, no doubt, was sometimes mistaken in the proper course to pursue, but he was always right from his point of view, and his point of view was bitter hostility to English misrule.

Young John, breathing the air of independence, scorned to let his life and property depend upon the pleasure of British lords and a British ministry, or to be excluded from the right of trial by a jury of his neighbours, or of taxation by…

Indeed, it has been given to few men in New York to inspire more passionate personal attachment than George Clinton.

A patriot never lived who was more bitter in his hostility to English misrule, or more uncompromising in his opposition to toryism.

He was a typical Irishman--intolerant, often domineering, sometimes petulant, and occasionally too quick to take offence, but he was magnetic and generous, easily putting himself in touch with those about him, and ready, without…

The result of the election proved a great surprise and something of a humiliation to the ruling classes.

The absence of violent democratic innovations was the Constitution's remarkable feature.