The son of Joseph and Maria Yates, Robert Yates
was born in Schenectady, NY, on January 27, 1738. He received a
classical education in New York City and later studied law with
William Livingston. Yates was admitted to the New York bar in 1760
and thereafter resided in Albany.
Between 1771 and 1775 Yates sat on the Albany board of aldermen.
During the pre-Revolution years Yates counted himself among the
Radical Whigs, whose vigilance against corruption and emphasis on
the protection of liberty in England appealed to many in the
colonies. Once the Revolution broke out, Yates served on the Albany
committee of safety and represented his county in four provincial
congresses and in the convention of 1775-77. At the convention he
sat on various committees, including the one that drafted the first
constitution for New York State.
On May 8, 1777, Yates was appointed to New York's supreme court and
presided as its chief justice from 1790 through 1798. While on the
bench he attracted criticism for his fair treatment of Loyalists.
Other duties included serving on commissions that were called to
settle boundary disputes with Massachusetts and Vermont.
In the 1780s Robert Yates stood as a recognized leader of the
Antifederalists. He opposed any concessions to the federal congress,
such as the right to collect impost duties, that might diminish the
sovereignty of the states. When he travelled to Philadelphia in May
1787 for the federal convention, he expected that the delegates
would simply discuss revising the existing Articles. Yates was on
the committee that debated the question of representation in the
legislature, and it soon became apparent that the convention
intended much more than modification of the current plan of union.
On July 5, the day the committee presented its report, Yates and
John Lansing (to whom Yates was related by marriage) left the
proceedings. In a joint letter to Gov. George Clinton of New York,
they spelled out the reasons for their early departure. They warned
against the dangers of centralizing power and urged opposition to
adopting the Constitution. Yates continued to attack the
Constitution in a series of letters signed "Brutus" and "Sydney" and
voted against ratification at the Poughkeepsie convention.
In 1789 Yates ran for governor of New York but lost the election.
Three years after his retirement from the state supreme court, on
September 9, 1801, he died, leaving his wife, Jannetje Van Ness
Yates, and four of his six children. Though he had enjoyed a
comfortable income at the start of his career, his capital had
dwindled away until very little was left. In 1821 his notes from the
Constitutional Convention were published under the title Secret
Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled . . . for the
Purpose of Forming the Constitution of the United States. |
