CHAP. XI.] CONTEMPORANEOUS EXPLANATIONS. 601 sibility of electing Burr, the certainty that a legislative usurpation would be resisted by arms, and a recourse to a convention to reorganize and amend the Government, held a consultation on this dilemma, whether it would be better for them to come over in a body, and go with the tide of the times, or by a negative conduct suffer the election to be made by a bare majority, keeping their body entire and unbroken, to act in phalanx on such ground of opposition as circumstances shall offer; and I know their determination on this question only by their vote of yesterday. Morris of Vermont withdrew, which made Lyon's vote that of his State. The Maryland Federalists put in four blanks, which made the positive tickets of their colleagues the vote of the State. South Carolina and Delaware put in six blanks. So there were ten States for one candidate, four for another, and two blanks. We consider this, therefore, as a declaration of war on the part of this band. But their conduct appears to have brought over to us the whole body of Federalists, who, being alarmed with the danger of a dissolution of the Government, had been made most anxiously to wish the very Administration they had opposed, and to view it, when obtained, as a child of their own. To N. R WASHINGTON, February 19, 1801. After exactly a week's balloting, there at length appeared ten States for me, four for Burr, and two voted blanks. This was done without a single vote coming over. Morris of Vermont withdrew, so that Lyon's vote became that of the State. The four Maryland Federalists put in blanks, so then the vote of the four Republicans became that of their State. Mr. Huger of South Carolina (who had constantly voted for me) withdrew by agreement, his colleagues agreeing in that case to put in blanks. Bayard, the sole member of Delaware, voted blank. They had before deliberated whether they would come over in a body, when they saw they could not force Burr on the Republicans, or keep their body entire and unbroken to act in phalanx on such ground of opposition as they shall hereafter be able to conjure up. Their vote showed what they had decided on, and is considered as a declaration of perpetual war; but their conduct has completely left them without support. Our information from all quarters is that the whole body of Federalists concurred with the Republicans in the last elections, and with equal anxiety. They had been made to interest themselves so warmly for the very choice, which, while before the people, they opposed, that when obtained it came as a thing of their own wishes, and they find themselves embodied with the Republicans, and their quondam leaders separated from them, and I verily believe they will remain embodied with us, so that this conduct of the minority has done in one week what very probably could hardly have been effected by years of mild and impartial administration. A letter from Mr. Eppes informs me that Maria is in a situation which induces them not to risk a journey to Monticello, so we shall not have the pleasure of meeting them here. I begin to hope I may be able to leave this place by the middle of March. My tenderest love to my ever dear Martha, and kisses to the little one. Accept yourself sincere and affectionate salutation. Adieu.' 1 The last sentences seem to show, without a doubt, what we have before suggested, that this correspondent (whose initials cannot be identified as belonging to any of Mr. Jefferson's friends) was really his son-in-law, Colonel Thomas Mann Randolph. The It has been assumed that Mr. Jefferson was under deep obligations of gratitude to those Federalists who finally threw away their votes and permitted his election. He appears to have been indebted to them in the same manner and degree that he who is not blown up by a mine on which he stands, is indebted to the forbearance of his foe who could not fire it without rendering himself the first and certain victim. Two weeks more would have ended the constitutional Government. In the event of interregnum and anarchy, what hopes would there have been for the authors of the evil? In Maryland, where the Presidential vote had been balanced, the Republicans had carried the legislature elected since the acting members of Congress. New Jersey, nearly balanced in the present House, had been triumphantly swept by the Republicans in the last Congressional elections. The popular majority in Pennsylvania was large. New York had been carried by the same party. The southern and western States were overwhelmingly Republican. Nor were election statistics any real test of relative strength. During that week of dread suspense, as mail after mail spread the intelligence of the scene going on at the capital, the light snow never wasted under the sun of June as wasted away the Federal party. The people west and south of the Hudson, with almost united voice, declared the conduct of the Federal members of Congress a most gross, dangerous and wanton violation of the spirit of our Constitution and system of Government. Astonishment, alarm, and rage swept like succeeding waves over the land. If the effect was less apparent on the compact Federal masses of New England, there, too, it had weakened that party most seriously and created a formidable minority. And the Republicans were fortunately situated for the crisis in some incidental particulars. The two great central States which held the capital wedged between them-containing more population than all New England, and considerably upwards of one-fourth of the entire population of the Union'-were not only strongly Republican, but they had Executives as well adapted to such an emergency as if it had been foreseen and formed the fictitious direction must, we think, have been given for the reasons alluded to in the first sentence of the preceding letter to Madison. 1 See United States Census of 1800. CHAP. XI.] THE ALTERNATIVES THEY HAD. 603 especial ground of their selection. For intellectual and executive ability, combined with iron will and that high energy which always takes the initiative where contest is unavoidable, Governor McKean probably had not his superior in the United States. Governor Monroe was of milder frame, but was as resolute a man as there was on earth when his judgment bade him act. He had military experience, he had the profound love and confidence of his people. When either of these Executives unfurled the banner of his State against a usurpation, there would be left no minority in that State. It would be vain to deny that both parties had the arbitration of arms distinctly in contemplation, as the sequel to a usurpation, or to settle, if necessary, the anarchy of an interregnum. We find Porcupine's Gazette abounding in extracts from Federal newspapers exhorting their partisans to stand firm and defy the threats of the Republicans, declaring that any member of their party "would consecrate his name to infamy" who should "meanly and inconsistently lend his aid to promote" Jefferson's election. One Federal statistician, after enumerating the Massachusetts militia, declaring that Connecticut and New Hampshire are united almost to a man, and that at least half the citizens of eleven other States are "ranged under the Federal banner in support of the Constitution," wishes to know "what could Pennsylvania, aided by Virginia," do under such circumstances? Cobbet thus discoursed on this topic in his paper on the 14th or 15th of February: "The alarmists have been systematic in the work. At a meeting of them in Philadelphia some weeks since, it was threatened, nor has the menace been recalled, that they would march to Washington and settle the election with the bayonet. The same menaces were thrown out in a toast and sung at a Republican festival at Petersburg [Virginia], when the Governor [Monroe] himself made one of the party, and they have been repeated at a number of other meetings held pretendedly to celebrate the election of Mr. Jefferson, before he was ever chosen! but in reality to stir up mad spirits of the nation to action. "The Washington Federalist [the Federal organ at the capital] has noticed those repeated menaces in its last number, and in exhibiting the superior strength of the Federalists, in an extremity which their opponents are so ready in inviting (but in which they will take care to leave their dupes only to act). The Federalists are charged with threatening war; and those observations of an individual editor arc termed a manifesto of the party for war. Bella, horrida Bella! "But let them denominate the piece either a manifesto or a declaration of war, they may thank themselves for it; and let the consequences be what they may, the guilt will lie at their own doors as being the aggressors, and bringing forward the lex talionis of the Federalists." We have seen in Jefferson's letter to Monroe, February 15th, that the Republicans in Congress had "declared openly and firmly one and all" to their opponents that the day" an act was passed for putting the government into the hands of an officer, "the middle States would arm, and that no such usurpation, even for a single day, should be submitted to." He said but for this, "they would have prevented an election." We soon shall bring some very authoritative testimony from the other side to confirm the last statement. Jefferson wrote Governor McKean, March 9th, that he would have cheerfully taken the place of Vice-President, had Burr been elected; "because, however, it might have been variant from the intentions of the voters, yet it would have been agreeable to the Constitution." "But," he added, "in the event of a usurpation, he was decidedly of those who were determined not to permit it; because that precedent once set, would be artificially reproduced and end soon in a dictator. Virginia was bristling up he believed. He should know the particulars from Governor Monroe." If we had the letter of McKean to which this is an answer, we suspect we should find in it some particulars of the "bristling up" of Pennsylvania. Burr's conduct during the long struggle in the House was characteristic. His tools wrote wheedling letters, and he remained at Albany shrouded in mystery.' When he found the Federalists were preparing to disregard his letter to General Smith (and we suspect he well knew why they disregarded it), it was his duty equally to his party, to himself, and to his country, to repair at once to the seat of Government, or take other equally effectual means to assure friend and foe that he deprecated the meditated attempt to make him President, and would under no circumstances avail himself of an election thus secured." This would have nipped the scheme in the bud. He has only the merit of not having promised to embrace Federal doctrines in the event of his election, and of not having 'Hammond's Political History of New York, vol. i. p. 142. His immediate resignation or refusal to qualify, in case of an election, would have devolved the Presidency on the Vice-President, who would, necessarily, have been Jefferson. CHAP. XI.] BURR'S CONDUCT. 605 directly interfered, so far as is known, to induce Republicans to abandon the support of Jefferson and vote for him. The first merit could not be a great one, so long as the Federalists supported him, to the pitch of desperation, without any such promises. There was but one State (Maryland) in which the change of a single vote would secure him another State, and where anybody pretended he could obtain such vote. He lacked three States of a majority.' There is no real reason for believing that his most desperate personal attempts, his most profuse promises, could have secured him the election. Others, at least, were free enough to promise for him. It would have been a very serious thing for any Republican to have changed his vote in that terrible struggle. Great would have been the reward sufficient to tempt even a corrupt man, unless he had nerves of steel, to make himself a by-word of infamy and be hissed and hooted at wherever he exhibited his dishonored head. There is no proof (even the extent of their own allegations) that Burr did not secretly try every joint of the moral armor of such Republicans as he dared to approach. We, at least, know that his most confidential agent commenced to tamper with some of them. Had the prospect of success looked inviting, all the analogies of his corrupt career lead to the inference, he would have followed it up. It would be a fanciful hypothesis that a man ever found so ready to perpetrate baseness on slight temptation, would have shrunk from it with so high a prize in view as the Presidency. If he left others to act for him, we may presume he considered that degree of precaution necessary for his safety. We allude not to physical safety. But without any efficient minority to sustain him-with a Senate to reject the nominations, and a House to treat with scorn the recommendations of the detected briber-with the open contumely of a Congress and nation poured upon him personally and officially, the Presidency would have been too dear a bargain for even Aaron Burr. No one familiar with the history of men or parties at the time, will believe that Burr could have procured the single vote cast for Jefferson in either Vermont, Georgia or Tennessee. Two members changing their votes in New York, two in New Jersey, and one in Maryland, would have given him those States, and it has been assumed that he could have procured them by corrupt appliances in some cases and deceit in others; but as already said, there is no proof whatever of that fact, and all the real probabilities are the other way. |