Under the provisions of the New York Constitution of 1777, amended by the Constitutional Convention of 1801, 32 Senators were elected on general tickets in the four senatorial districts for four-year terms. They were divided into four classes, and every year eight Senate seats came up for election. Assemblymen were elected countywide on general tickets to a one-year term, the whole assembly being renewed annually.
In 1797, Albany was declared the State capital, and all subsequent Legislatures have been meeting there ever since. In 1799, the Legislature enacted that future Legislatures meet on the last Tuesday of January of each year unless called earlier by the governor.
State Senator Ebenezer Purdy resigned on March 16, 1806, to avoid being expelled for bribery, leaving a vacancy in the Southern District.
In 1806, three new counties were created: Allegany County was split from Genesee County, but remained with Genesee and Ontario County in one Assembly district. Broome County was split from Tioga County, but remained with Tioga in one Assembly district. Madison County was split from Chenango County, and was apportioned two seats in the Assembly, taken from Chenango.
In 1805, the 28th Legislature had chartered the Merchant's Bank of New York which had been founded by Federalists in competition to the Democratic-Republican Bank of the Manhattan Company. The Democratic-Republican majority of the 27th Legislature had not only refused to grant a charter, but actually ordered the Merchant's Bank to shut down by May 1805. During the next session, the bank bribed enough legislators to have the charter approved, although the Democratic-Republican leaders advocated strongly against it. Gov. Morgan Lewis spoke out in favor of granting the charter[3] what was resented by the party leaders DeWitt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer, and soon led to the split of the party into "Lewisites" and "Clintonians".[4]
Elections
The State election was held from April 29 to May 1, 1806. Senators James Burt (Middle D.) and Jacob Snell (Eastern D.) were re-elected. Jonathan Ward (Southern D.), Elisha Barlow (Middle D.), John Ballard, Salmon Buell, Jacob Gebhard and Nathan Smith (all four Western D.) were also elected to the Senate. Assemblyman Benjamin Coe (Southern D.) was elected to fill the vacancy. Burt, Barlow and Snell were Lewisites, the other six were Clintonians.
Sessions
The Legislature met at the Old City Hall in Albany on January 27, 1807; and adjourned on April 7.
Lewisite Andrew McCord was elected Speaker with the help of the Federalists, with 53 votes against 40 for Clintonian Alexander Sheldon, the Speaker of the previous session.[5] Lewisite Gerrit Y. Lansing was elected Clerk of the Assembly, defeating the Clintonian incumbent Solomon Southwick by a majority of 6 votes.[6] On February 2, Southwick was elected Clerk of the Senate.
Note: There are now 62 counties in the State of New York. The counties which are not mentioned in this list had not yet been established, or sufficiently organized, the area being included in one or more of the abovementioned counties.
Members
The asterisk (*) denotes members of the previous Legislature who continued in office as members of this Legislature. Benjamin Coe changed from the Assembly to the Senate.
Note: There are now 62 counties in the State of New York. The counties which are not mentioned in this list had not yet been established, or sufficiently organized, the area being included in one or more of the abovementioned counties.
Assemblymen
The asterisk (*) denotes members of the previous Legislature who continued as members of this Legislature.
^This is the average of the five votes taken for Speaker and Council of Appointment, see note below. There were 18 Federalists who combined with the Lewisites to form a majority. Many Lewisites had already been elected with Federalist endorsement in the districts, the Clintonians being the majority faction of the Democratic-Republican Party.
^The Anti-Federalists called themselves "Republicans." However, at the same time, the Federalists called them "Democrats" which was meant to be pejorative. After some time both terms got more and more confused, and sometimes used together as "Democratic Republicans" which later historians have adopted (with a hyphen) to describe the party from the beginning, to avoid confusion with both the later established and still existing Democratic and Republican parties.
^Lewis put thus his personal opinion above party discipline. He had been Chief Justice and was wealthy beyond corruptibility—nobody ever accused him of taking a bribe—and formed his opinion on legal and technical grounds. On the other side, he had been elected governor with the help of a minority of Federalists against his party-splitting opponent Aaron Burr.
^Hammond says McCord was elected with a majority of 11, see pg. 237. Two votes were lost because McCord's name was misspelled, so that on the opening day the majority was actually 55 to 40. Later, at the election for the Council of Appointment, the majorities varied from 54-41 to 51-44.
The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858) [see pg. 108f for Senate districts; pg. 119f for senators; pg. 148f for Assembly districts; pg. 180 for assemblymen]