4. L'Hommedieu's first draft gives the regents a veto upon the "ordinances and by-laws" made by the governors of Columbia “for the government of Columbia College and for the management of (its) estate.' In L'Hommedieu's second draft the same power is given the regents. This is then erased, and the following is interlined (after the powers of the trustees of the various colleges to make ordinances and by-laws is stated): "Provided also, that the trustees of the colleges above mentioned respectively lay before the regents of the said university from time to time the plan or system proposed to be adopted for the education of the pupils and students in each of the said colleges, respectively, in order that the same may be revised and examined by the said regents, and by them be altered and confirmed as they shall judge proper."

These powers in the regents do not seem like suggestions from Columbia. The milder veto power in the second draft may well have been a politic concession by L'Hommedieu to the Columbia influence. 5. L'Hommedieu's bill provides that the succession of trustees for Columbia shall be kept up by legislative appointment. This it is impossible to think of as emanating from the Columbia men. In his first draft he proposed for Columbia trustees the same plan as that provided in the law of May 1, 1784, for the succession of regents, namely, appointment by the governor and council of appointment. This was then erased and a blank left for the manner of appointment. In the second draft he proposed at first the filling of vacancies by election "by a majority of the said trustees." This was erased and appointment by the legislature substituted. This provision for the government appointment of trustees is applied in L'Hommedieu's bill to other colleges in the State. All colleges were thus to be State institutions. This is the more remarkable since he proposes to put the academies upon a different footing, succession of academic trustees to be by cooptation. He was the champion of the academies, and wanted them self-governing, subject only to such supervision as would be for their benefit and encouragement. The power of colleges he proposed to restrain through more rigid control by the regents and through legislation renewal of trustees.

A comparison of L'Hommedieu's drafts with the bill actually passed shows that his provisions for academies were substantially incorporated in the law, while in the part of his plan which touched Columbia and the colleges generally he was not nearly so successful.

The conclusion based upon the foregoing considerations, as to the separate character of these two bills, is strengthened and confirmed by the history of this legislation subsequent to the appointment of the committee of regents March 8, 1787, with a view to consolidate the opposing forces and push through a compromise measure. If the L'Hommedieu bill were the same bill as that proposed by the regents' committee, the resolution by the regents on March 8 would not have

spoken of "procuring an act of the legislature for amending the charter of the university, either in conformity to the bill directed to be presented by the resolution of the board of the 15th of February last, or with such alterations as may be found necessary." They would have said "in conformity to the bill now before the senate," or used some equivalent phrase. The difference and the controversy are everywhere apparent. The compromise effected between the two parties remains to be considered.

Consolidation and compromise.-The regents made a strong and politic move in the appointment of their committee on March 8. They made the speaker of the assembly chairman of the committee. They secured the attendance of John Jay at that meeting, a rare advantage. He had attended only three meetings before this since his appointment on February 28, 1786. He accepted a place upon the committee. It would seem from his being appointed regent under the new law, when nearly all of his coappointees of 1784 were made. trustees of Columbia, as if he finally had come to act rather against than in favor of Columbia. L'Hommedieu, the leader of the opposition to Columbia in the senate, accepted a place upon the committee and attended the subsequent meetings. This committee was one of great ability. It contained Duane, Hamilton, and Jay. L'Hommedieu was a man of ability and prominence, as is shown by his constant activity on important committees in the senate, as well as by the various offices held by him. Of Varick and Williams not so much is known. The meeting of March 12 has already been noticed. On March 15 the regents met again. The committee were all there except Jay. The other members present were mainly Columbia men. "Colonel Hamilton," from this committee, "reported a bill to be laid before the legislature." It was debated paragraph by paragraph. L'Hommedieu noved to strike out the name of George Clinton from the list of Columbia trustees. The motion was lost, Hamilton and L'Hommedieu, however, both voting in the affirmative. It was also proposed to leave out of the regency the governor and lieutenant-governor, but this was lost. In the final law Clinton is not the trustee of Columbia. The draft of the engrossed bill shows that, as introduced, it contained Clinton's name, which was afterwards erased. It was probably struck out in the legislature. The bill and amendments were then adopted by the regents. The effect of this consolidation of opposing ideas upon the course of legislation appears instantly. Since March 8, L'Hommedieu's bill had lain in committee of the whole. Four days after this agreement between the Columbia party and the academy party, on March 19, in the senate, "Mr. Stoutenburgh, from the committee of the whole," reported that they had gone through the bill, made amendments thereto, altered the title in the words following, viz, "An act to institute a university within this State and for other purposes therein mentioned, and agreed to the same." The senate

agreed to the bill and amendments and ordered the amended bill to be engrossed. The next day, March 20, the bill was passed by the It is the draft of this engrossed bill which is preserved in the New York legislative papers as No. 388. The agreement between L'Hommedieu and the Columbia party seems to have quieted all opposition in the senate. The compromise bill was now not the measure of a party, but the regents' bill. The assembly made some amendments in committee of the whole which were immediately concurred in by the assembly and the amendments ordered to be engrossed.1 The bill encountered opposition now from Hamilton's political opponent, Mr. Lansing, a partisan of Clinton. On March 24 the Journal shows that Lansing moved to recommit the bill to committee of the whole. Hamilton opposed this motion.

Colonel Hamilton hoped that the House would not recommit the bill. There was no doubt, he said, but the legislature possessed the right to give this power. There were frequent examples of the kind in Great Britain where this power had been granted. No disadvantage, he said, could arise from it; on the contrary, many would be the benefits. He therefore wished the bill might be finished, as no doubt existed with him of the power and the propriety of the legislature granting those privileges which were mentioned in the bill."

It is not known what were the powers and the privileges thus defended by Hamilton. They may have been the power of incorporating colleges, which encountered opposition later. Lansing's motion was carried and the bill recommitted. A week later two clauses of the bill were reported for consideration by the house. In 1786 a law had been passed appropriating one lot in every township of land "to be applied by the legislature for promoting literature in this State." A clause in the university bill proposed that letters patent for such lots should be granted to the regents. On Lansing's motion this clause was rejected. The other clause was the one empowering the regents, on application, to incorporate colleges upon certain conditions. Lansing moved to reject this clause. His motion was carried, Hamilton

voting in the negative.3

On April 6 it was reported to the House that in the committee the speaker of the assembly had moved to reconsider this last rejected clause and the committee of the whole had voted for the clause on reconsideration, Hamilton supporting. The regents' committee thus stood firm in the assembly. Hamilton gave the bill his steady support. The bill as amended in committee was agreed to by the assembly on April 6 and the amendments engrossed. On April 10 the assembly journal has an entry which shows a neat stroke of diplomacy on the part of Columbia and the regents. It was moved that the house "adjourn until the afternoon, that the members may have an oppor

1 Assembly jour., March 20, 21, 22, and 23.

'Hamilton, Alexander. Works; ed. by H. C. Lodge, v. 6, p. 575.
3 Assembly jour., March 31, 1787.

tunity to attend the commencement of the students in Columbia College, agreeable to a request of the regents of the university to the legislature." The motion called forth debate, but adjournment was voted-34 to 17. This may have been mere courtesy. The regents met in the assembly chamber. But coming just at this time when the success of the bill was not assured, the courtesy may have had another motive. The next day the assembly passed the bill and amendments. The senate concurred in the amendments April 12, and on April 13 the council of revision sent down its approval by message of Chief Justice Richard Morris, and the bill became law. The timely concessions of Columbia had assured the safety of the measure. The consolidation of both parties, making the regents a unit, had enabled them to secure a law far more satisfactory upon the whole than the old one and one which in its essential features has remained unchanged. Until 1889 there was no thoroughgoing reconstruction of the system, and this law of 1889 was more a codification of the old law than a change in the constitution of the university. From the meager facts reported it seems that the popular house had some jealousy of the university and feared to put such large powers into the hands of a corporation. But the animus of Lansing's opposition may have been only the Clintonian hostility to Hamilton, for the burning question in the New York legislature then was not reform of the constitution of the State university, but the larger question of a reform in the Constitution of the United States. Governor Clinton was mighty in the assembly and stood strongly for his State against any greater control by the Federal Government. Hamilton, on the other hand, believed heartily in the centralization of power in the hands of a strong and capable few. And as he strove for the subordination of the States to the rule of the central Federal Government, so in the State system of education he seems to have striven for the strong mastery of the cultured and able coterie of Columbia men over the undeveloped and self-asserting institutions throughout the State. And as the disintegrating power of State rights showed such irrepressible life that he was compelled to compromise his ideal in the national Constitution, and consent to far greater local power in the States than he believed in; so in the university, to preserve the union he was obliged to compromise, to yield up the paramount influence of the capable institution at New York, then the political as well as the intellectual center of the State, and to allow the local academies a measure of self-government which was opposed to his political ideas. But once committed to the compromise he was the staunch champion of the new university as of the new Federal Constitution. It was not the least mark of Hamilton's greatness that, imperious and ambitious as he was, he was yet capable of forgetting egoism in the presence of the supreme need of society. The founding of the University of the State of New York becomes thus a little part of that vaster movement which consolidated the Union of the States in the Federal Constitution.

Act of April 13, 1787.-This act is far superior to L'Hommedieu's drafts in point of form. There is a definiteness, a precision of compact utterance, and a simplicity which are wanting in his drafts. The topical order is substantially the same. That the changes were the result of the conferences of parties in the regents there can be no doubt. In the act as well as in the draft of the engrossed bill (No. 388) the preamble alone makes this clear. In L'Hommedieu's drafts there was no preamble, and nowhere any reference to any desire for change on the part of the regents. He began abruptly after the title, "Be it enacted," etc., "That there shall be, and hereby is, instituted a university within this State." The act as well as the draft (No. 388) begins with a recital of the two laws of 1784 instituting the university, and proceeds: "And whereas from the representations of the regents of the said university it appears that there are defects in the constitution of said university," etc. Elsewhere similar reference is made to the initiative of the regents. They must appear as united in desiring reform. And that the reform was not alone the earlier measure of Hamilton appears from the title as well as the preamble. Hamilton's bill was entitled "An act to render more effectual an act," etc., giving the title of the law of 1784. The preamble of this act reads, that whereas several amendatory acts of a law lead to confusion, "Wherefore, to the end that the constitution of one the said university may be properly amended and appear entire in law, it will be expedient to delineate and establish the same in this and repeal all former acts relative thereto, Be it enacted," etc. This was precisely the programme of L'Hommedieu. The language is largely that of L'Hommedieu and the provisions respecting academies are in the main the same as L'Hommedieu's. The greatest difference between this act and L'Hommedieu's drafts is in regard to Columbia and the colleges. A short analysis of this act will be useful.

1. Instead of the prolix title of Hamilton's bill and the clumsy title of L'Hommedieu's bill, the act has the concise title: "An act to institute a university within this State, and for other purposes therein mentioned."

2. The preamble, as indicated, shows its compromise character. 3. The University.

a Its corporate name is "The Regents of the University of the State of New York."

b There are 21 regents, of whom 2 only, the governor and lieutenant-governor, are regents ex officio.

The regents appointed are John Rodgers, Egbert Benson, Philip Schuyler, Ezra L'Hommedieu, Nathan Carr, Peter Sylvester, John Jay, Dirck Romeyn, James Livingston, Ebenezer Russell, Lewis Morris, Matthew Clarkson, Benjamin Moore, Eliardus Westerlo, Andrew King, William Lynn, Johnathan G. Tomkins, John M'Donald, and Frederick William De Steuben.