1784, "particularly with respect to Columbia College." There were no greater names in the State than these three names. Duane and Jay, particularly the latter, had been the framers of the State constitution of 1777. In this constitution and in their earlier work in the Continental Congress they had shown themselves slow to break with Great Britain, conservative in temper, and aristocratic in sentiment. With Hamilton, they were at this time stemming the tide of popular indignation against the Tories. They were all by nature and legal training conservative and aristocratic. They were Columbia men and would be apt to think first of the college in any system of instruction. But they were also public-spirited and broad-minded men and had the interests of the people at heart. They were admirably fitted for the work of constructive statesmanship, and the Revolution had given them more liberal and progressive ideas. However, they were not truly democratic in spirit. A system of education in which the power should move from the college center at New York outward to the State would be more congenial to them than a system in which the power should move directly from the people. Hamilton was a member of the assembly, where during these very months he led a gallant fight against Governor Clinton upon the subject of granting the Federal Congress a permanent revenue. Hamilton exerted every power to induce this concession to the central Government, but failed. He succeeded, however, in securing the appointment of delegates from New York to the constitutional convention which met in May, 1787. Robert Yates and John Lansing, jr., were Hamilton's colleagues upon this delegation.

These men were strong partisans of the governor, and Lansing, also a member of the assembly, opposed Hamilton upon educational as well as political matters. The opposition of Clinton, Yates, and Lansing to Hamilton in regard to the ratification of the Federal Constitution need not be recounted here. In that famous struggle Duane and Jay and Hamilton acted as a unit. But Hamilton's views were known to favor a far greater degree of centralization than that in the Constitution, while Duane and Jay were not so extreme in their distrust of popular power. Hamilton had been earnest in his attention to the interests of Columbia since his appointment as a regent, serving on very many of the important committees and frequently attending meetings of the regents.

The date is wrongly given as
Thursday was the 15th, and

February 15, 1787, the regents met. Thursday, February 16, in the records. this date is supported by a subsequent reference in the records. The legislature was already in session. There was quite a large attendance of the regents at this meeting. Richard Varick, speaker of the assembly, presided. Duane, Rogers, Livingston, and Mason, of the committee upon the "state of the university," were present. Hamilton, Jay, and the remaining members were absent. Fortunately, the

report of the committee is spread upon the minutes. It is presented "by order of the committee, Jas. Duane, chairman." An analysis of this remarkable report is necessary in order to appreciate some of the provisions of the subsequent legislation. Three subjects are considered the university, academies, and public elementary schools.

1. The university. They recommend amendment of the former acts in the following particulars:

a. Changes in "point of form" are needed in regard to filling vacancies in the offices of chancellor and vice-chancellor, in the manner of calling and adjourning meetings, in regard to the annual meetings and the presiding regents, in the absence of official regents.

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(b) Changes in the substance of its constitution" are necessary in order "to render the university beneficial according to the liberal views of the legislature. They recommend "that each respective college ought to be intrusted to a distinct corporation with competent powers and privileges, under such subordination to the regents as shall be thought wise and salutary." The reasons are that:

1. While the regents are the only body corporate" in whom "not only the funds, but the government and direction of every college are exclusively vested," due care can not be given to each institution, owing to the "dispersed situation" of the regents.

2. The "remedy adopted by the second act was to reduce the quorum to a small number, but thus placing the rights of every college in the hands of a few individuals, your committee have reason to believe, excited jealousy and dissatisfaction when the interests of literature require that all should be united."

2. "Academies for the instruction of youth in the languages and useful knowledge." These should receive "liberal protection and encouragement "

a. By incorporation, which would secure their property and remove the disadvantages arising from their "establishment by private benevolences."

b. By a "permanent superintendence" which "would greatly contribute to the introduction of able teachers, and the preservation of the morals of the students as well as their progress in learning."

3. Public elementary schools. "But before your committee conclude they feel themselves bound in faithfulness to add that the erecting public schools for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic is an object of very great importance, which ought not to be left to the discretion of private men, but be promoted by public authority. Of so much knowledge no citizen ought to be destitute, and yet it is a reflection as true as it is painful that but too many of our youth are brought up in utter ignorance."

A draft of a bill was presented which appears to have applied only to the university and the academies. It is a misfortune that this draft can not be found. It would throw a great light upon the question of the authorship of the act of 1787. The committee recommended laying the matter before the legislature and their report and the proposed bill were put into the hands of Mr. Varick to present to the legislature. Mr. Varick, being speaker of the assembly, evidently turned the matter over to Hamilton, for the next morning, February 16, Hamilton presented a bill in the assembly entitled "An act to render more effectual an act entitled 'An act for granting certain privileges to the college heretofore called King's College, for altering the name and charter thereof, and erecting an university within this

State.' The next day this bill was read the second time and committed to committee of the whole. Hamilton seems never to have been able to push his bill further. It may be that the Clintonian opposition to Hamilton was making itself felt even in the matter of educational reform, and that the Columbia men thought their plan more likely to succeed by attempting to capture the independent movement for a new university law then in progress in the senate under the leadership of Ezra L'Hommedieu. It can not be discovered what was Clinton's position in this matter. Shortly after the board had been filled by Columbia men by the amendatory law, Clinton had resigned the chancellorship. This was in April, 1785, and he seems to have attended only two of the meetings of the board until its reorganization after the law of April, 1787. An examination of the Clinton papers (MS.) at the State library at Albany fails to give any clue to his views upon the university. From the catholic tone of his first message to the legislature, from his known democratic opinions, from his magnifying the importance of the State, from his political opposition to Hamilton, from his refusal to mix in the affairs of the university while it was under the domination of the Columbia party, and from the fact that he was again made chancellor upon the reorganization in 1787 upon a truly State basis, it may well be supposed that he represented the State or popular side in this struggle, at least after the antagonism became pronounced.

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Popular attempt at reorganization. It has already been seen that two attempts were made to erect academies on Long Island, one at Flatbush, the other at East Hampton. The assembly journal shows that a petition of Jesse Woodhull and others was presented in 1785, for a law enabling them to raise £200 by lottery to finish an academy at Goshen, Orange County. During this time also a plan was formed of founding a college at Schenectady, in which Dr. John H. Livingston was interested. He was the regent who had moved for a committee to devise means for promoting literature throughout the State, and, although a professor in Columbia, was not a narrow partisan of that institution. He became the principal of Erasmus Hall shortly after it was incorporated. We find indications that there was a call for new educational institutions in every part of the State. As early as 1779 an application was made to the assembly for an act enabling "the trustees of the freeholders and commonalty of the town of Kingston to erect a college or university in the said town." The matter was referred to a committee consisting of Mr. Schoonmaker,

It is surprising that Pratt's Annals, which purport to give accurate transcripts of the minutes of the legislative journals touching this legislation, and which the writer, on a careful reading of the journals, has failed to find defective in any other material point, should have omitted altogether this entry concerning Hamilton's bill.

3 Assembly Jour., Jan. 31, 1785, p. 7.

Mr. L'Hommedieu, and Mr. Palmer, to which four other members were added, James Gordon of Albany County, Thomas Treadwell of Suffolk County, Egbert Benson of Dutchess County, and Robert Harpur of New York County. This committee had also in charge a petition from John Cuyler and 542 inhabitants of Albany and Tryon counties, and from Thomas Clark and 131 others of Charlotte County, for a college at Schenectady. A bill was prepared and also a charter for this college at Schenectady, which was to be called Clinton College. This charter is preserved among the Clinton papers (No. 3467). These petitions were presented in August, 1779, but nothing further came of them at that time. They show the local need of schools in different parts of the State and the membership of the committee is important in this inquiry. Ezra L'Hommedieu is seen to have been thus early interested in the educational affairs of the State. Egbert Benson and Robert Harpur were regents, and Thomas Treadwell was a member with L'Hommedieu of the senate committee appointed February 8, 1787, upon the petition in behalf of an academy at East Hampton. While the committee of the regents were preparing the bill which was, in all probability, the bill presented by Hamilton to the assembly on February 16, Ezra L'Hommedieu and his colleagues, Treadwell, Stoutenburgh, and Vanderbilt, were laboring upon a bill for the same end. Hamilton's bill was swamped in committee of the whole on February 17. On February 27 the senate journal contains the following entry:

Mr. L'Hommedieu, from the committee to whom was referred the petition of Samuel Buell, Nathaniel Gardiner, and David Mulford for the incorporation of an academy at East Hampton and for other purposes, reported that in the opinion of the committee it will be proper that a bill should be ordered to be brought in, for erecting an university and for granting privileges to colleges and academies within this State, and for repealing the acts therein mentioned, which report he read in his place and delivered the same in at the table, where it was again read, and agreed to by the senate. Whereupon,

Ordered, That Mr. L'Hommedieu prepare and bring in a bill for that purpose. Mr. L'Hommedieu, according to order, brought in the said bill, which was read the first time and ordered a second reading.

Samuel Buell was a regent, and knew that the university was intended to found and govern academies. Why should these petitioners come to the legislature for a separate charter when they might have the benefits of becoming a part of the university? It seems plain that they were afraid of the board of regents. They preferred incorporation in which they could control their own funds to placing their property in the hands of this board of omnibus trustees, controlled heretofore by a set of men working chiefly in the interests of one institution. The report of the committee of the regents quoted above shows the prick of a guilty conscience on the part of the Columbia 'Hist. Record, p. 357.

2 Ibid., pp. 144-357.

ring of control. And from the recommendations of that committee and the independent movement now started for the separate incorporation of academies it becomes evident that regents and nonregents alike recognized the need of reform and agreed upon the direction that reform should take. L'Hommedieu seized the opportunity offered by this petition to prepare a measure reorganizing the university upon a broader basis. He became the champion of the interests of the State as a whole, of the popular and antimonopoly spirit, of a widely spead education that should serve local interests while unified in a State system of the academies against Columbia College.

It is proper here to say a word about this man. He was a descendant of Benjamin L'Hommedieu, a Huguenot, who came to New York from Rochelle after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and settled at Southhold, Long Island. Ezra L'Hommedieu was born at this place in 1734. He was a graduate of Yale in the class of 1754, after which he traveled in France and continued his studies there. He practiced law in New York City after his return, and during the Revolution became prominent. From 1775-1778 he was a member of the New York provincial congress and took part in the formation of the State constitution. He was then a member of the New York assembly until 1784, when he became State senator, which office he held, with the exception of the year 1793, from 1781 till 1809. For seven years, between 1779 and 1788, he was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was also a member of the council of revision in New York State for several years, and for one year of the council of appointment. A Federalist at first, he finally went over to the Republicans in 1797. When, on the presentation of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions in the senate, Mr. King moved a resolution to the effect that the constitutionality of acts of Congress was a question for the judiciary and not for the legislature, L'Hommedieu opposed the resolution.1 He was a regent from the founding of the university until he died, in 1811. The Clinton papers for 1783 contain many interesting letters which passed between Governor Clinton and L'Hommedieu, at that time a delegate to the Continental Congress. The following letter from Clinton to L'Hommedieu gives a good glimpse of several of the persons connected with this inquiry. On July 6, 1783, L'Hommedieu writes from Middletown, N. Y., to Governor Clinton, at Poughkeepsie, asking him as to the attendance of Gen. John Morin Scott and James Duane at the Congress in Philadelphia, and stating the great disadvantages in his being away from home at that time.

Governor Clinton replies from Poughkeepsie, July 10, 1783:

DEAR SIR: I am favored with yours of the 6th instant. Mr. Duane left this place for Congress yesterday morning. General Scott is indisposed, and there is no hope of his attending. He informs me he has written you so. Hamilton is all impatience to be released. His lady hourly expects him home. She is young and

1 Hammond, J. B. History of Political Parties in the State of New York, v. i.,

p. 125.