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1791 United States Senate election in New York

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Field	Value
election_name	1791 United States Senate election in New York
election_date	January 19, 1791
vote_type	presidential
country	New York (state)
ongoing	no
previous_year	1789
previous_election	1789 United States Senate elections in New York
next_year	1797
next_election	1797 United States Senate election in New York
image_size	x200px
votes_for_election	Majority approval in both houses needed to win
1blank	Senate Vote
2blank	% Approval
3blank	House Vote
4blank	% Approval
image1	Burr (cropped 3x4).jpg
candidate1	Aaron Burr
party1	Independent (politician)
1data1	14–4
2data1	77.78%
3data1	32–27
4data1	54.24%
before_election	Philip Schuyler
before_party	Federalist Party
after_election	Aaron Burr
after_party	Independent Jeffersonian
title	U.S. senator
posttitle	Elected U.S. senator

The 1791 United States Senate election in New York was held on January 19, 1791, by the New York State Legislature to elect a U.S. Senator (Class 1) to represent the State of New York in the United States Senate. The election was conducted by a system of approval voting.

Incumbent Senator Philip Schuyler was not re-elected. Aaron Burr, Attorney General of New York, won majority support in both the State Senate and State Assembly to succeed him.

Background

In July 1789, Philip Schuyler and Rufus King had been elected to the U.S. Senate. Schuyler had drawn the short term which would expire on March 3, 1791.

At the State election in April 1790, nominal Federalist majorities were elected to both houses of the 14th New York State Legislature, but many Federalists were friendly to the Democratic-Republican Governor George Clinton, party lines not being drawn very strictly.

Candidates

Egbert Benson, U.S. Representative
Aaron Burr, Attorney General of New York
Philip Schuyler, incumbent Senator

Schuyler, the incumbent, and Benson were both Federalists. Burr was not affiliated with the Federalist Party but was considered a moderate member of the emergent Jeffersonian faction that would coalesce as the Democratic-Republican Party the next year.

Result

Burr was declared elected after receiving a majority of "Yeas" in each chamber of the legislature. Schuyler and Benson were both rejected by the Assembly and no vote was taken on either in the Senate.

The incumbent Schuyler was defeated, despite the nominal majority of his party. Many of the Federalists took the opportunity to show their disapproval of both Schuyler's haughtiness and the financial policies of Alexander Hamilton, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and Schuyler's son-in-law. Besides, the Livingston faction of the Federalist Party felt betrayed after the election of Rufus King over their candidate James Duane in 1789, and now allied themselves with Clinton and later became Democratic-Republicans.

House	Aaron Burr	Philip Schuyler	Egbert Benson
State Senate (23 members)	Yea	14
Nay	4
State Assembly (65 members)	Yea	32	27
Nay	27	32	35

Aftermath

After a one-day special session of the U.S. Senate on March 4, 1791, the 2nd United States Congress convened for the regular session on October 24, 1791, at Congress Hall in Philadelphia. On November 8, 1791, the State's Council of Appointments declared the office of attorney general vacant, and appointed Morgan Lewis to succeed Burr.

In popular culture

The song "Schuyler Defeated" from the 2015 musical Hamilton focuses on Hamilton confronting Burr following the election.

References

Sources

The New York Civil List compiled in 1858 (see: pg. 114 for State Senators 1790–91; page 165f for Members of Assembly 1790–91)
History of Political Parties in the State of New-York by Jabez Delano Hammond (pages 50ff)
The Life and Times of Aaron Burr by James Parton (1866, pages 177ff)

References

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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