George Clinton (July 26, 1739 – April 20, 1812)[a] was an American soldier, statesman, and a prominent Democratic-Republican in the formative years of the United States of America.

Clinton supported the cause of independence during the American Revolutionary War and served in the Continental Army despite his gubernatorial position.

Clinton was again tapped as the Democratic-Republican vice presidential nominee in the 1804 election, as President Thomas Jefferson dumped Aaron Burr from the ticket.

His parents were Anglo-Irish Colonel Charles Clinton (1690–1773) and Elizabeth Denniston Clinton (1701–1779), who had left County Longford, Ireland, in 1729 to escape the Penal Laws, a series of laws passed by the Irish Parliament designed to force nonconformists and Catholics to accept the Anglican Church of Ireland.

[1] His political interests were inspired by his father, who was a farmer, surveyor, and land speculator, and served as a member of the New York colonial assembly.

During the French and Indian War, he first served on the privateer Defiance operating in the Caribbean,[3] before enlisting in the provincial militia, where his father held the rank of Colonel.

During the French and Indian War George rose to the rank of Lieutenant, accompanying his father in 1758 on Bradstreet's 1758 seizure of Fort Frontenac, cutting one of the major communication and supply lines between the eastern centers of Montreal and Quebec City and France's western territories.

After the elder Clinton declined the honor, the governor later designated George as successor to the Clerk of the Ulster County Court of Common Pleas, a position he would assume in 1759 and hold for the next 52 years.

In March 1775, he twice introduced a motion to declare that the British Parliament had no right to levy taxes on American colonies.

[8] However, on December 19, 1775, the Provincial Congress commissioned him a brigadier general in New York's state militia, tasked with defending the Highlands of the Hudson River from British attack.

In 1783, at Dobbs Ferry, Clinton and Washington negotiated with General Sir Guy Carleton for the evacuation of the British troops from their remaining posts in the United States.

In the early 1780s, Clinton supported Alexander Hamilton's call for a stronger federal government than had been provided in the Articles of Confederation.

However, Clinton eventually came to oppose Hamilton's proposal to allow Congress to impose tariffs, fearing that this power would cut into his home state's main source of income.

He became one of the most prominent opponents to the ratification of the proposed United States Constitution, which would grant several new powers to the federal government.

[2] Twentieth-century historian Herbert Storing identifies Clinton as "Cato", the pseudonymous author of the Anti-Federalist essays which appeared in New York newspapers during the ratification debates.

He entered the 1801 gubernatorial race at Burr's urging, and defeated the Federalist Party nominee, Stephen Van Rensselaer.

In 1777, having no further hope of rulings from the king or courts of England to protect their property, the politicians of the disputed territory declared it an independent state to be called Vermont.

Vermont's repeated petitions for admission to the Union over the next several years were denied by the Continental Congress, in large part because of opposition from the state of New York and its governor George Clinton.

In 1778 Clinton wrote to some Vermonters loyal to New York, encouraging them "to Oppose the ridiculous and destructive Scheme of erecting those Lands into an Independent State.

Clinton was selected as President Jefferson's running mate in the 1804 presidential election, replacing Aaron Burr.

Clinton was selected to replace Burr in 1804 due to his long public service and his popularity in the electorally important state of New York.

Clinton's supporters nonetheless put him forward as a presidential candidate, attacking the foreign policy of the Jefferson administration.

The Federalist Party considered endorsing Clinton's candidacy, but ultimately chose to re-nominate their 1804 ticket of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Rufus King.

Although Clinton had effectively run against Madison, he received the vice presidential votes of most Democratic-Republican electors, who did not want to set a precedent of defying the choice of the congressional nominating caucus.

In 1873, the state of New York donated a bronze statue of Clinton to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection.