MARTIN VAN BUREN 7 The people, moreover, in just resentment at the in dignity done to Clinton by his removal from the New York mayoralty, were now spontaneously minded to make him governor that he might preside over the execution of the Erie canal which he had projected. Van Buren acquiesced in a drift of opinion that he was powerless to check, and, on the election of Clinton, supported the canal policy; but he soon came to an open rupture with the governor on questions of public patronage, and, arraying himself in active opposition to Clinton s re-election, he was in turn subjected to the proscrip tion of the Albany council acting in Clinton s interest. He was removed from the office of attor ney-general in 1819. He opposed the election of Clinton in 1820. Clinton was re-elected by a small majority, but both houses of the legislature and the council of appointment fell into the hands of the anti-Clinton Republicans. The office of attorney- general was now tendered anew to Van Buren, but he declined it. The politics of New York, a mesh of factions from the beginning of the century, were in a constant state of swirl and eddy from 1819 till 1821. The old party- formations were dissolved in the "era of good feeling." What with "Simon- pure" Republicans, Clintonian Republicans, Clin- tonian Federalists, "high-minded" Federalists cleaving to Monroe, and Federalists pure and simple, the points of crystallization were too many
