Persuasion Politics: How George Clinton Used Britain's Evacuation from New York to Build a State and Unify a People

Persuasion PoliticsHow George Clinton Used Britain's Evacuation from New York to Build a State and Unify a People Colin J. Williams (bio) Only two men served as governor of New York during the state's first twenty-seven years. John Jay thought the office weak.1 Despite being the person most responsible for writing it into existence, he could never wield power the way George Clinton did.2 Clinton, who served the six terms before Jay and the one after, developed relationships and built coalitions. While a reliance on intimate communication would eventually distance Clinton from his revolutionary counterpart, it helped unify a people divided by war. At no time did Clinton prove more effective at persuading others than the months before and after November 25, 1783, the day British commander-in-chief Sir Guy Carleton evacuated troops and Tories from the American continent. Clinton and Jay followed different paths to Evacuation Day. Clinton began the war representing Ulster County on the Provincial Council but soon transitioned to active militia command. He coordinated extensively with committees of safety and the armed forces they fielded. Jay alternated between Continental and provincial service early in the war, missing the signing of the Declaration of Independence to attend emergency meetings in New York. Rather than interact with New Yorkers politically, he advanced their interest on a secret committee to obstruct the Hudson River, as a judge on committees for detecting and defeating conspiracies, and by editing the state's 1777 constitution. [End Page 363] Interacting with a broad array of people, Clinton had wider influence. His key advantage was not a connection with the people, however. While popular support strengthened his position, his greatest asset was an ability to persuade others through personal interaction and personalized correspondence. Communicating with supporters, former enemies, and future adversaries, the governor exerted enough control over evacuation to ensure New York's civil war ended with the end of military conflict. While Clinton is praised for his wartime service, his role ensuring Britain's peaceful departure has not been examined.3 This oversight results from scholars portraying the event either biographically or thematically. Biographical treatments view evacuation narrowly through the lives of their subjects.4 Thematic works cover it briefly as part of New York's transition from war to peace.5 The only reason for authors of these histories to mention Clinton's management of the exit is if that management was consequential beyond the event itself. This article argues it was. Britain's evacuation in November 1783 was inextricably linked to New York's emergence as a state. War had reduced colonial divisions to two: rebel north and occupied south. British departure could have sundered one from the other. It did not because a skilled politician aligned his radical friends behind a vision of postwar unity that encompassed both rural upstate and commercial downstate. Downstate posed a problem for Clinton. New York City spent more than seven years under British occupation. Seized September 15, 1776, and ravaged by fire a week later, it became many things to its occupiers: a base of operations, a link to England, one terminus of a never-realized communication with Canada, and a port of entry for reinforcements and foodstuffs. It also became home to many of the country's Loyalists. [End Page 364] Winning back New York City was important to both Clinton and George Washington. Clinton led a government whose strength, reach, and effectiveness depended on the city. Washington had been driven out of New York in 1776. After campaigning in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, he moved north of the city in 1778 and stayed there for five years, leaving only for Yorktown in 1781.6 Yorktown did little to change the situation in New York. Washington returned victorious but not strengthened: neither the French army under the Comte de Rochambeau nor the French navy under the Comte de Grasse accompanied him.7 While defeat kept British commander-in-chief Sir Henry Clinton in New York City, his inactivity while Washington was in Virginia suggests he had already lost the desire for active campaigning. Save the occasional raid along the Connecticut coast, most fighting occurred where it...

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