Robert Yates (politician)

Robert Yates ( born January 27, 1738 in Schenectady, New York, † September 9, 1801 in Albany, New York ) was an American lawyer and politician. At the Philadelphia Convention, he joined in 1787 as an anti- federalist forth. From 1777 to 1798 he was a judge at the New York State Supreme Court, the last eight years of which Chief Justice.

Life

Yates came from a middle-class family in Albany. From 1754, he studied law with William Livingston and was admitted to the bar in 1760. In the following years he practiced in Albany, where he was also municipal offices. With the radicalization of American independence movement, he became one of its most prominent players in the state of New York. Under the pseudonym The Rough Hewer, he published during the war some patriotic essays, have gained great respect. 1775-77 he was a member of the revolutionary Congress of New York and in 1777 one of the 13 members of the Constitutional Convention of the state. In 1777 he was also appointed as a judge on the state Supreme Court, which he should belong to 21 years old.

As of the end of the war, the debate on the revision of the Articles of Confederation sparked and eventually led to the formation of a two-party system, Yates appeared as a supporter of the sovereignty of the individual states out against the proposed by the Federalists strong central government. As one of three deputies alongside John Lansing and Alexander Hamilton, he represented New York in the summer of 1787 at the Philadelphia Convention, in which the new Federal Constitution was drafted. Together with the also antiföderalistisch minded Lansing he overruled the Erzföderalisten Hamilton at each vote, and also wrote a letter to Governor George Clinton, in which they declared their opposition to the draft constitution. Even before the end of the Convention, he left Philadelphia to make against the ratification of the Constitution in New York mood. It is considered likely that Yates is the author of a series of articles that were published under the pseudonym Brutus 1787-88 in the daily New York Journal. They are often printed to date in anthologies of anti- federalist literature that illustrate the object point to Madison's and Hamilton's Federalist Papers. However, on the ratifying Assembly of the State in Poughkeepsie, he joined for unknown reasons hardly out as a speaker.

After New York had ratified the Constitution against all odds, Yates was active with shifting alliances in party politics. In 1789 he joined the Federalist, which he had recently fought so hard on in the New York gubernatorial election. For the Federalists, he seemed a promising candidate just because he had family ties with any of the large landowning families like the Clintons, who dominated the New York policy in both political camps and thus could appeal to voters who were dissatisfied with this oligarchy. He was supported not only by Alexander Hamilton, the political leader of the Federalists in New York as the country, but also of Antifederalists like Aaron Burr. He lost the election narrowly against the longtime incumbent Clinton. In 1795 he applied again to the governorship, but this time for the anti- Federalist Democratic- Republican Party. This time he lost significantly against John Jay.