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'George Clinton' (July 26, 1739 – April 20, 1812) was an American soldier and politician. He was the first (and longest-serving) Governor of New York, and then Vice President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Contents

Life

Marriage and children

Legacy

See also

Bibliography

External links

Life

His political interests were inspired by his father, Charles Clinton, who was an Irish immigrant to Little Britain, New York and a member of the New York colonial assembly. George Clinton was the brother of General James Clinton and the uncle of New York's future governor, DeWitt Clinton.
At 18, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the French and Indian War. He subsequently studied law, became clerk of the court of common pleas and served in the state assembly. He was elected to the Continental Congress and voted for the Declaration of Independence, but was called to serve George Washington as a brigadier general of militia and had to leave before the signing. He did not support the adoption of the Constitution until the Bill of Rights was added.
He was known for his hatred of Tories^[1] and used seizure and sale of Tory estates to help keep taxes down. A supporter and friend of George Washington, he supplied food to the troops at Valley Forge, rode with Washington to the first Inauguration and gave an impressive dinner to celebrate it.
In 1759 he was appointed County Clerk for Ulster County, New York, a position he held for the next fifty-two years^[2]. He served as the first Governor of New York from 1777 to 1795, as a member of the New York Assembly in 1800 and 1801, and as Governor again from 1801 to 1804. With 21 years of service, he was the longest-serving governor of a U.S. state.^[3] Herbert Storing attributes to George Clinton the authorship of the Anti-Federalist essays, which appeared in New York newspapers under the pseudonym 'Cato' during the Constitutional ratification debates of 1787. However, the authorship of the essays is disputed.
He went on to serve as the fourth Vice President of the United States, first from 1805 to 1809 under Thomas Jefferson, and then from 1809 until his death under James Madison, becoming the first Vice President to die in office. He died of a heart attack.
Clinton is one of only two United States vice presidents to serve the position under two presidents (John C. Calhoun being the other). He is of no known relation to the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton.
He had been an unwilling candidate for President of the United States in the 1808 election, garnering six electoral votes from a wing of the Democratic-Republican Party that disapproved of James Madison. He came in third after Madison and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of the Federalist Party.
His original burial was in Washington. He was reinterred in Kingston, New York in 1908.

Marriage and children

On February 7, 1770, Clinton married Sarah Cornelia Tappen. They had five daughters and one son:

★ Catharine Clinton (November 5, 1770 - January 10, 1811). Married first John Taylor and secondly Pierre van Cortlandt-son of New York Lt. Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt.

★ Cornelia Tappen Clinton (June 29, 1774 - March 28, 1810). Married Edmond-Charles Genet.

★ George Washington Clinton (October 18, 1778 - March 27, 1813). Married Anna Floyd, daughter of William Floyd. {A brother-in-law was Congressman Benjamin Tallmadge}

★ Elizabeth Clinton (July 10, 1780 - April 8, 1825). Married Matthias B. Tallmadge.

★ Martha Washington Clinton (October 12, 1783 - February 20, 1795).

★ Maria Clinton (October 6, 1785 - April 17, 1829). Married Dr. Stephen D. Beekman—a grandson of Pierre Van Cortlandt and Joanna Livingston.
Cornelia Tappan Clinton (1744-1800) was the daughter of Peter Tappan and Tjaatje (Charity) Wynkoop, and was the wife of George Clinton, a governor of New York who later served, after her death as United States Vice President.
She was related to the Livingstons of New York, and her marriage to Clinton in 1770 cemented his connection in the New York colonial legislative assembly to the "Livingston faction," an aristocratic but pro-Whig group.
The Clintons had one son and five daughters, one of whom married Citizen Genet in 1794.

Legacy

Clinton County, New York, Clinton County, Missouri[1], Clinton County, Ohio, and Clinton County, Illinois are named after him, and Washington, D.C. has erected a gilded equestrian sculpture of him on Connecticut Avenue. In 1873, the state of New York donated a bronze statue of Clinton to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection.

See also

★ Pierre Van Cortlandt, Clinton's Lieutenant Governor and brother-in-law

Bibliography

★ Kaminski, John P. ''George Clinton: Yeoman Politician of the New Republic.'' Madison House, 1993.
1. AOC.gov
2. A Revolutionary Day
3. According to the National Governors Association

External links

★

★ Architect of the Capitol: George Clinton

★ An examination of the Clinton Lineage

★ Find-A-Grave profile for George Clinton