Tompkins, had represented the county in the legislative body, which adopted the first State Constitution in 1777, and also in the convention which framed the second in 1801. He was a member of the Assembly during the Revolution, and several years after the close of the war. He was also for along period a Judge of the county, and at the time of his son Daniel's election as Governor he had been for twenty-one years a Regent of the University of the State. The opponent of Daniel D. Tompkins was Governor Lewis, the Federalists in this, as in the previous election, not setting up any candidate from their own ranks. It is a gratification to record the promotion at this same time to the State Senate of Jonathan Ward, of East Chester, a son of General Stephen Ward, of earlier fame and usefulness.

In the year 1807 questions arose which, in their bearings on political parties, involved more than personal considerations. The British government, with its usual total indifference to the rights of other nations when its own interests are involved, adopted an order by which trade between its enemies and neutral powers was forbidden. France, in its turn, issued decrees which had the same result. The United States having expostulated with these governments to no effect. Congress, at the instigation of Mr. Jefferson, passed an Embargo Act upon all vessels within the limits of the United States. No clearances were to be furnished, and vessels sailing from one port of the United States to another therein were required to give bonds that the goods with which they were laden should be landed in some port in the United States. The object of this bill, in the language of Mr. Madison, was to make it " the interest of all nations to change the system which has driven our commerce from the sea." " Great Britain will feel it (this embargo) in her manufactures, in the loss of naval stores, and ... in the supplies essential to her colonies." " France will feel it in the loss of all which she has hitherto received through our neutral commerce, and her colonies will be cut off from the sale of their productions and the source of their supplies." "They have forced us into the measure by the direct effect on us of measures founded in an alleged regard for their own eventual safety and essential interests." "TJie ocean presents a field only where no harvest is to be reaped but that of danger, of spoliation, and of disgrace." * It will be readily understood that this measure, bearing so hardly upon the interests of all classes