George Clinton

• Vice President to 2 consecutive Presidents:
  
  
  Thomas Jefferson - Democratic-Republican, from Virginia.
  James Madison     - Democratic-Republican, from Virginia.
  
  • James Madison served 1809 - 1813. He died in 1836, at the age of 85.
    
    
• Dates Served: Clinton served as Vice President from 1805 - 1813.
  
• Political Party: Clinton was a Democratic-Republican, from New York.
  
• Born: 1739.
  
• Died: 1812, while in office, at the age of 72.
  
• The presidential opponent during both the 1804 and 1808 campaigns was:
  
  
  • Charles Cotesworth Pinckney - Federalist - Former official under the Adams Administration, from South Carolina
    
    
• Campaign issues:
  
  
  • During the 1804 campaign:
    
    
    • The issue this year was mainly watching the Federalist Party draw it's dying breath. The election was Jefferson's from the start, helped by the Federalists being discredited by a radical faction in Massachusetts called the Essex Junto who wanted to secede from the Union and form a New England Confederacy. Their plan died and so did the Federalist Party as a viable force in Federal politics, never winning the White House again. Jefferson won by a huge Electoral margin.
      
      
  • During the 1808 campaign:
    
    
    • The main issue this year was the crippling embargo on all European trade that Jefferson had implemented, and his Secretary of State James Madison had strongly defended, which had seriously damaged the US economy and hadn't prevented the British and French from picking on American cargo ships. The Federalists made it their main rallying cry, but it wasn't enough to derail the campaign of Jefferson's heir-apparent, Madison. He won by a large Electoral margin.
      
      
  
  
• Notable Facts about George Clinton:
  
  
  • Religious affiliation: George Clinton was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church.
    
    
  • George studied law and passed the Bar exam at the ripe old age of 16.
    
    
  • He served in the Continental Congress from 1775 - 1776, where he unsuccessfully opposed the ratification of the Constitution. He felt it should give more rights to the States, but he ratified it anyway.
    
    
  • He missed the signing of the Declaration of Independence, due to being out leading a militia fighting the British.
    
    
  • He served as New York's first Governor from 1777 - 1795, then again from 1801 - 1804.
    
    
  • In the 1800 Presidential campaign, he supported Aaron Burr, not Jefferson.
    
    
  • After Jefferson dumped Aaron Burr from his campaign for a second term, Clinton joined the ticket. Four years later, during James Madison's campaign for President, Clinton ran with him as Vice President but campaigned amongst his constituents back home in New York to vote for him as President. He only won 6 Electoral Votes, to Pinkney's 47 and Madison's 122. He settled for the little chair.
    
    
  • His time in office was basically uneventful. His only real contribution to anything was a tie-breaking vote he cast in the Senate in 1811 which renewed the charter of the Bank of the United States.
    
    
  • George Clinton and George Washington were the best of pals, to the extent that George Clinton named his son and daughter George and Martha, after his favorite president and First Lady.
    
    
  • Clinton died in office, during President Madison's first term.
    

Notable events during his Vice Presidency under Jefferson (1805 - 1809):

• The Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807. Effective January 1st, 1808 all trafficking in slaves was illegal, but the status of slaves already in America was unaffected. However, slaves continued to be smuggled in for the next 50 years, up until the Civil War.
  
  
• Abolition of slavery in England, 1807. This was partly the impetus for the above action taken in the US. England didn't outlaw Slavery outright, just in England. It continued in their colonies for another 27 years.
  
  
• Embargo, from 1807 - 1809. In Europe, Britain and France were at it again and both sides very rudely ignored American claims of neutrality at sea. If a US ship was spotted it was often boarded, looted, and often the British "impressed" American sailors into the Royal Navy, the justification being that "once an Englishman always an Englishman". This was not appreciated back in America, but both Britain and France turned up their collective noses at the unwashed Americans.
  
  In June of 1807 a British ship very brazenly sailed up to just off the shore of America and fired on an American ship, boarded her, and impressed several of its crew into the Royal Navy. It was a perfect pretext for war but Jefferson was a true peacenik and instead decided to hit them back with an embargo. A full embargo, halting all trade between America and all of Europe. His hope was that both Britain and France would realize how much they relied on American trade and would bow to US demands and ask for the embargo to be lifted. Fat chance - it hardly fazed them at all, which isn't surprising, given America's pipsqueak status in world affairs at the time. Instead, the embargo seriously dislocated the US economy, since American farmers relied heavily on overseas trade. Not one of Jefferson's high points.
  
  
• Due to its disastrous domestic effects, Jefferson repealed the embargo three days before leaving office.
  
  

Notable events during his Vice Presidency under Madison (1809 - 1812):

• The Non-Intercourse Act, 1809 - 1810. With the failure of Jefferson's Embargo, Madison passed this act which allowed US trade with all nations except for Britain and France. In it, Madison offered to remove either nation from the act if that nation would just respect the neutrality of US ships at sea and stop picking on them. But it didn't work.
  
  
• In 1810 the US Census recorded the US population at 7,239,881. This is less than the population of the state of Georgia in 2001.
  
  
• Macon's Bill, in 1810. With the failure of the Embargo, and the Non-Intercourse Act, the US tried to attack the problem from a different angle. With Macon's Bill, the US said that if one side in the conflict would respect American neutrality at sea then the US would suspend trade with the other nation. Napoleon agreed to this and the US promptly re-activated the Non-Intercourse Act against just Britain.
  
  
• War of 1812, from 1812 - 1814. The British had continued to harass American ships at sea, embargo or no embargo, intercourse or no intercourse, and were seizing cargo whenever they felt like it, and were still impressing US sailors into the Royal Navy. Just to make life uncomfortable for their former Colonists, they were also busy contributing to Indian "unrest" in the West, causing a lot of trouble for settlers in the area. There was a growing movement in Congress by "war hawks", led be people like John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay, who wanted to declare war on Britain. They were upset about the treatment towards US ships, but they also saw an opportunity to expand US territory, by marching north into Canada and driving out the British and perhaps even down to Florida and kicking the British and Spanish out of there as well.
  
  War was declared on Britain on June 18, 1812, with President Madison supporting the war hawks' goal of seizing Canada. This agenda failed, however, due to the cowardly performance of US General William Hull who marched into Canada but then chickened out and turned tail and ran south again, surrendering to the British at Detroit without firing a single shot. (After the war he was court-martialed and sentenced to death, but was then pardoned because of his service in the Revolutionary War). In August of 1814 the British Navy sent a fleet of ships from their base in Bermuda to the Chesapeake Bay and up to Washington DC, where they very rudely burned down the White House, the Capitol building, and most of the surrounding area, causing President Madison to flee to Virginia. (And the British today wonder why Hollywood always casts British actors as the bad guys). The following month the British attacked Fort McHenry in Baltimore but failed. The battle was a spectacular one and impressed a witness named Francis Scott Key, who decided to write a song about the battle, calling it The Star-Spangled Banner. America's national anthem was born.
  
  
• Louisiana was admitted into the Union, in 1812.