Hugh Hastings, Historian of the State of New York: He was fully alive at all times to the dangers which menaced this State during the war [of 1812], and his energy and enterprise were n<> less surprising than the knowledge which lie displayed, though he had never acquired any experience as a military man, regarding the care, transportation, equipment, and welfare of the troops he sent to the field. ... As soon as the legislature met in extra session, November, 1812, he expressed himself in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war, and, in furtherance of this policy, suggested that the State should make a loan to the national government. . . . He raised within sixty days the sum of $1,000,000 at his own risk, for the public welfare, when the credit of the nation was utterly destroyed. Within forty days he had mustered into service an army of 50,000 men, fully organized, armed, and equipped. All in all, he disbursed over three millions of dollars for the State of New York and the United States during the progress of the war. In many of his recommendations to the legislature, Governor Tompkins was far ahead of his time. For instance, at the beginning of the session of 1810, he recommended encouragement, bylegal enactment, to domestic manufactures, which had begun to spring up all over the country. He created our common school system, and suggested carrying into effect the law of 1805, which created the common school fund, whose interest was to be distributed among the schools of the State. . . . One of his last acts as governor of the State, the special message which he sent to the legislature February 24, 1817 -- the day he resigned as governor,-- carried the recommendation for the abolition of domestic slavery in the State, to take