Book Reviews and Notices Adams and William Gray—and still retained power. Goodman chose to write about the Republicans alone, but it is a tribute to his book that it stimulates such a broad range of questions. Politics in New York State, 1800-1830. By Alvin Kass. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1965. xii -j- 221 pages, preface, notes, glossary, note on sources, index. $4.95.) Reviewed by John A. Casais, Department of Social Studies, Bronx Community College In this book, Alvin Kass attempts to revise the major thesis of Dixon Ryan Fox' The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York. The author believes that Fox' classic polarization, which placed the Republicans on the side of democratic reform and the Federalists on that of aristocratic privilege, simply does not hold. In the politics of New York State between 1800 and 1830, Kass finds that no party or faction could pose as the exclusive exponent of reform for the simple reason that no party based its program on ideology. Parties, he claims, were impermanent and personal aggregates, revolving about the leadership of strong individuals, such as Martin Van Buren and DeWitt Clinton, and were engaged in a never-ending search for office. To this end, each group developed techniques which would allow it to maintain some semblance of discipline, through the use of the patronage-dispensing Council of Appointment, the party press, and the Council of Revision. Kass feels that the parties did serve a useful function, by binding together the various population groups in the state, by stimulating the electorate to political action, by providing a continuity of administration, and even by providing a means of escape from the boredom of rural life. It was this struggle for electoral victory, the author claims, which led to the triumph of democracy during the pre-Jacksonian years. Kass also denies Fox' contention that the Clintonians were the successors of the Federalists. The author insists that the Federalists, upon their demise as a coherent political party, tended to move into both the Clintonian and Bucktail factions, a movement facilitated by the lack of any ideological commitment on the part of these groups. Drawing on the election of 1824, Kass argues persuasively that Van Buren, for reasons of expediency, opposed the idea of allowing the people to choose presidential electors directly. Similarly, he shows that it was the Clintonian-Federalist group in the Constitutional Convention of 1821 which sought the popular election of justices of the peace, a move adamantly opposed by Van Buren, who wanted these important officials to be appointed at Albany. ,, Kass finds that there were no substantial differences separating the parties on the issues of banking, manufacturing, internal improvements, and the tariff. For instance, he finds that both Federalists and Republicans favored the chartering of banks and that both Bucktails and Clintonians found it politically necessary to straddle the tariff issue. 396