DeWitt Clinton (1769–1828) was an American politician and naturalist who served as a U.S. senator, mayor of New York City, and sixth governor of New York. He was a candidate for the American presidency in 1812.
Born in Little Britain, New York, Clinton was a Republican (Jeffersonian) attorney admitted to the New York Bar in 1788. Among his political positions, he was a member of the New York legislature 1798–1802, 1806–11 and a U.S. senator 1802–03.
As mayor of New York City 1803–07, 1808–10, 1811–15, Clinton advocated free and widespread public education, promoted legislation that removed voting restrictions against Roman Catholics and established various public welfare institutions.
As governor of New York 1817–23, 1825–28, Clinton was a champion of the Erie Canal, connecting the Hudson River to the Great Lakes.
Clinton was also profoundly interested in the arts and the natural sciences, and he published an excellent summary of the state of U.S. scientific knowledge in An Introductory Discourse (1814.)
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Pleasure is a shadow, wealth is vanity, and power a pageant; but knowledge is ecstatic in enjoyment, perennial in fame, unlimited in space, and infinite in duration. In the performance of its sacred offices, it fears no danger, spares no expense, looks in the volcano, dives into the ocean, perforates the earth, wings its flight into the skies, explores sea and land, contemplates the distant, examines the minute, comprehends the great, ascends to the sublime—no place too remote for its grasp, no height too exalted for its reach.
—DeWitt Clinton
Topics: Pleasure, Joy, Enjoyment, Knowledge
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