NEW YORK INTRODUCTION

day, the Senate voted on a straight party vote of 11 to 7 to reduce the
number of delegates to three. The Clintonians supported the reduc-
tion. Then the Senate rejected 12 to 6 a motion to elect the delegates
by joint ballot. After which, Senator Abraham Yates, Jr., proposed that
the Convention limit its proposals to alterations and amendments "not
repugnant to or inconsistent with the constitution of this State." The
Senate narrowly defeated Yates's proposal when two Clintonians,
Thomas Treadwell and John Williams, abandoned it and Lieutenant
Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt, the president of the Senate, cast his
vote against it, breaking the 9 to 9 tie. The Senate finally approved the
resolution that provided for the election of three delegates by each
house voting separately, the same manner specified in the state consti-
tution for the election of delegates to Congress. The Assembly con-
curred later on 28 February.
On 6 March, the Assembly voted in open balloting for convention
delegates. All fifty-two assemblymen voted for state Supreme Court
Judge Robert Yates, while Alexander Hamilton received all but three
votes (one being his own). The real contest centered on the third del-
egate-and with it, who would control the delegation. John Lansing,
Jr., narrowly defeated New York City Mayor James Duane for the Assem-
bly's nomination by a vote of 26 to 23. After the Senate also nominated
Yates, Hamilton, and Lansing, the two houses compared their nomi-
nees, adjourned to their separate chambers, and passed resolutions of-
ficially appointing the three men.
On 16 April, the Assembly agreed to Hamilton's motion authorizing
the appointment of two additional convention delegates, totalling
five-the number of delegates usually elected to Congress. Two days
later, however, the Senate rejected the increase. (See Appendix II, be-
low.) By appointing a three-man delegation and weighting it in their
favor, Clintonians felt that the Clintonian delegates could control their
state's actions in the convention. In letters to fellow Convention dele-
gates George Washington and Edmund Randolph, Virginia Congress-
man James Madison, writing from New York City, described Yates and
Lansing as "pretty much linked to the antifederal party here, and are
likely of course to be a clog on their Colleague." Madison believed that
the two Clintonians "lean too much towards State considerations to be
good members of an Assembly which will only be useful in proportion
to its superiority to partial views & interests."76 George Washington la-
mented that "It is somewhat singular that a State (New York) which
used to be foremost in all foederal measures, should now turn her face
against them in almost every instance."77

XIVii