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.
The Legislature met at the Old City Hall in
Albany on January 29, 1811; and adjourned on April 9.
Nathan Sanford (Dem.-Rep.) was elected
Speaker with 64 votes against 33 for
Samuel A. Barker (Fed.).
Samuel North (Dem.-Rep.) was elected Clerk of the Assembly with 64 votes against 37 for the incumbent
James Van Ingen (Fed.). Sanford soon became ill, and could not attend the session anymore, and on February 12,[2]William Ross (Dem.-Rep.) was elected Speaker for the remainder of the session with 65 votes against 24 for Barker (Fed.).
Lt. Gov. Broome died on August 8, 1810, leaving the presidency of the State Senate vacant. The senators elected
John Tayler (Dem.-Rep.) as president pro tempore (vote: Tayler 21,
Lewis 2, blank 2).
On January 30, the Dem.-Rep. Assembly majority elected a new
Council of Appointment which removed almost all Federalist office-holders, most of whom had been appointed during the previous year.
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.
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.
^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.
^This date is given by the Civil List, other sources state February 10 (Lampi) or 14 (Hammond)
^Williams had been elected as a Democratic-Republican in 1807, but combined with the Federalists at the previous session: He was elected to the Council of Appointment in 1810 by the Federalist majority, and then joined the other two Federalist councillors to outvote Carll and Gov. Tompkins. Since there were no Federalists from the Southern and the Middle districts, the Federalist Assembly majority had to choose 2 Democratic-Republicans who with Gov. Tompkins would have retained a majority in the Council. With Williams's help the Federalists proceeded to remove most of the Dem.-Rep. office-holders, and Williams's son-in-law
Thomas J. Oakley was appointed Surrogate Dutchess Co. to succeed
James Tallmadge, Jr. Afterwards Williams was considered a traitor, was ostracized by both parties and disappeared from politics.
^The
13th New York State Legislature had resolved on January 27, 1790, that it was "incompatible with the U.S. Constitution for any person holding an office under the United States government at the same time to have a seat in the Legislature of this State..." At this time, nobody complained, and Sanford held both a federal office and an Assembly seat at the same time.
The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858) [see pg. 108f for Senate districts; pg. 121 for senators; pg. 148f for Assembly districts; pg. 184f for assemblymen]