The American politician DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828) was mayor of New York City, governor of New York State, and a tenacious sponsor of the state's Erie Canal.

DeWitt Clinton was born in Orange County, N.Y., the son of Gen. James Clinton and Mary DeWitt Clinton. Educated at Kingston Academy and Columbia College, from which he graduated in 1786, he studied law for 3 years. At the age of 18 the precocious youth became an Antifederalist propagandist for his uncle, New York governor George Clinton, writing newspaper articles in 1787 and 1788 opposing the ratification of the Federal Constitution. Entering politics in 1789, at the age of 20, he was appointed private secretary to Governor Clinton. He served as a transitional leader between the factional politics of the postrevolutionary period and the party politics of the new professionals which coalesced around New York's U.S. senator Martin Van Buren, who controlled the state political machine.

When...