Yates was born on January 27, 1738 in Schenectady, New York, the son of Joseph and Maria (Dunbar) Yates of that place. His great-grandfather, Joseph Yates, had migrated as a young man from England and settled in Albany, where he died May 20, 1730. Robert's grandfather, also named Robert, moved to Schenectady in 1711.
Education
After receiving a good classical education in New York City and reading law with William Livingston, later governor of New Jersey, Yates was admitted to the bar May 9, 1760, at Albany, which remained his residence for the rest of his life.
Career
Yates served for four years, 1771-1775, on the board of aldermen. A radical Whig during the period of controversy before the Revolution, he was a member of the Albany committee of safety and represented the county of Albany in the four provincial congresses and the convention during the years 1775-1777. The provincial congress in 1776 appointed him to the committee of safety and the convention of 1776-1777 assigned him to membership on the secret committee to obstruct the channel of the Hudson, the committee on arrangements for the Continental regiments, the committee to cooperate with General Schuyler (of which he was chairman), and the important committee of thirteen which drafted the first constitution of the state.
Before the new state government was established Yates was appointed, May 8, 1777, a justice of the supreme court, in which capacity he served with integrity and impartiality. On the bench, as well as during his service on the committee of safety, he incurred some criticism from Whigs for his fairness toward Loyalists. As justice and later as chief justice (1790-1798), he was ex officio a member of the council of revision, but he seems to have written very few of the veto messages of the council.
He was appointed, April 28, 1786, to fill a vacancy on the commission which disposed of the controversy with Massachusetts over New York's western boundary and in March 1780 he was named one of the commissioners to settle the perennial dispute with Vermont. Five years later he sat on the commission which apportioned to New York claimants the $30, 000 which Vermont paid to satisfy New York land titles. During the middle 1780's Robert Yates became a recognized leader of the Antifederalists. He was a supporter of Governor George Clinton and with Clinton opposed such concessions to the federal Congress as the right to collect impost duties.
In 1787 Yates was appointed with the Antifederalist John Lansing and the Federalist Alexander Hamilton to represent New York in the Convention at Philadelphia. A member of the compromise committee, Yates, with his colleague Lansing, left the Convention on the day the committee reported, July 5, on the ground that the Convention, which had been called to revise the Articles of Confederation, was exceeding its powers in attempting to write a new instrument of government and that the consolidation of the states into a national state would impair the sovereignty of New York. After the publication of the Federal Constitution Yates attacked it during the winter in a series of letters signed Brutus, and in June 1788, in letters signed Sydney, which appeared in the New York Journal. Some of the Antifederalist papers signed "Rough Hewer" have been attributed to him. In the Poughkeepsie convention which ratified the Constitution on behalf of New York he was one of the three or four outstanding Antifederalist leaders and voted against ratification. Yates seems, however, to have accepted the result so completely that he was willing in 1789 to run for governor with Federalist support against his old friend Clinton. In spite of Hamilton's active support Yates received only 5, 962 votes to 6, 391 for Clinton. A logical candidate for governor in 1792, he declined to run.
In 1795 when Clinton was no longer a candidate Yates was the Antifederalist candidate for governor but ran second in the election to the Federalist John Jay. Having reached the constitutional age of sixty Yates resigned as chief justice in 1798. In 1800 he was one of the commissioners for settling the title to the lands in Onondaga County. A man of modest means, he is said to have died comparatively poor. Twenty years after Yates's death, his notes on the debates and proceedings of the Federal Convention were published by his widow under the title, Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled for the Purpose of Forming the Constitution of the United States (1821).
Achievements
Connections
By his wife, Jannetje Van Ness, whom he married March 5, 1765, he had six children, four of whom, including John Van Ness Yates, survived him.