Excerpt from A Political History of the State of New York, Vol. 1 The preparation of tins work was suggested to the author by the difficulty he experienced in obtaining an accurate knowledge of the movements of political parties and their leaders in the Umpire State. "After living a dozen years in New York" wrote Oliver Wolcott, who had been one of Washington's Cabinet, and was afterwards governor of Connecticut, "I don't pretend to comprehend their politics. It is a labyrinth of wheels within wheels, and it is understood only by the managers." Wolcott referred to the early decades of the last century, when Clintonian and Bucktail, gradually absorbing the Federalists, severed the old Republican party into warring factions. In Inter years, Daniel S. Dickinson spoke of "the tangled web of New York politics"; and Horace Greeley complained of "the zigzag, wavering lines and uncouth political designations which puzzled and wearied readers" from 1840 to 1800, when Democrats divided into Conservatives and Radicals, Hunkers and Barnburners, and Hards and Softs; and when Whigs were known as Conscience and Cotton, and Woollies and Silver Grays. More recently James Barton, in his Life of Andrew Jackson. speaks of "that most unfathomable of subjects, the politics of the State of New York." There is no attempt in this history to catalogue the prominent public men of New York State. Such a list would itself fill a volume. It has only been possible, in the limited space given to over a century, to linger here and there in the company of the famous figures who rose conspicuously above their fellow men and asserted themselves masterfully in influencing public thought and action. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.