A week afterwards he wrote to Mr. Madison, "The federalists appear determined to prevent an election, and to pass a bill giving the government to Mr. Jay, reappointed chief justice, or to Marshall as secretary of state. The French treaty will be violently opposed by the federalists; the giving up the vessels [captured from the French] is the article they cannot swallow. They have got their judiciary bill forwarded to commitment. I dread this above all the measures meditated, because appointments in the nature of freehold render it difficult to undo what is done." Yet the next Congress did not hesitate to remove the difficulty by repealing the law.

While the public was anxiously looking at the course which Congress would pursue, every scheme was put in requisition which could in any way influence the decision; and among others an attempt to excite jealousy between the two republican candidates. It seems, by what Mr. Jefferson wrote to Colonel Burr on the 1st of February, that a letter had been exhibited in New York, or was said to have been exhibited, from Mr. Jefferson to Judge Breckenridge of Pennsylvania, in which the writer was said to have spoken injuriously of Colonel Burr. He declares it to be utterly false, and that he never wrote but one letter to that gentleman, which is the one before referred to, and of which he sends a copy, that he may see that it is free from such impu

tation.

Governor McKean of Pennsylvania had written to him in December to consult him about the best remedy for the interference of the officers of the federal government in the elections, and in his reply on the 2nd of February, Mr. Jefferson expresses a principle, which he afterwards acted on, that "interferences with elections, whether of the state or general government, by officers of the latter, should be deemed causes of removal; because the constitutional re

medy by the elective principle becomes nothing, if it may be smothered by the enormous patronage of the general go

vernment."

On the 2nd of February, though he considered that a strong party in the House of Representatives would prevent an election if they could, he thought they would not be able to effect it, as there were eight votes certain in his favour, and if any one of six individuals of known moderation, joining the republican party, would give him another vote, he would of course have a majority.

Some days afterwards one of the six alluded to declared that he would change the vote he had intended to give, and make the ninth state for Mr. Jefferson, but on the 7th he altered his mind, and when the ballot came on, on the 11th, there were eight votes for Mr. Jefferson and six for Colonel Burr; and so they continued, without a single change in the number or description of the votes, during the thirty-six ballots which were given, and which occupied six days.

The House of Representatives now presented a singular scene-the sole business of the House being confined to the process of balloting, and the result always showing an adherence by every member to his first purpose-some of the members conducting themselves in one way and some in another, according to their various characters and tempers; a portion of the republican party, gloomy, suspicious, and resentful, auguring the worst consequences, and preparing their minds for the most desperate results: others, more sanguine, looking forward to a happy termination of the contest, which they laboured to bring about by the arts of blandishment and conciliation. A few, quietly and steadily doing their duty, determined neither to frustrate the wishes of the people, by changing their votes, nor to submit to any unconstitutional expedient which a majority of both Houses might

venture to resort to. The federal party, conscious of not having the approbation of the people, and probably of not deserving it, exhibited less variety of emotion: they justified themselves with the exercise of a constitutional right, and thought it prudent and decent to conceal their secret satisfaction of vexing and embarrassing their adversaries: a part indulging the vain hope that some of these would finally give way, in favour of the second man of their choice, and all knowing that the power was in their hands of deciding the election in favour of Mr. Jefferson whenever they chose to exercise it.*

While the election was thus kept in suspense, the republican party throughout the Union were filled with sentiments of mingled anxiety and indignation at this open attempt of the federal party to defeat their purpose. Mr. Jefferson had long been the acknowledged head and the declared favourite of the republicans, and Colonel Burr was known throughout the nation only as an active and zealous partisan in New York, and supporter of Mr. Jefferson; on the sole merit of which character he had been selected as vice president. Perhaps there was not an individual in the nation who voted for him with the intention or desire of his being the president. The people therefore from the first were not very tolerant of the utter disregard for their known wishes; but as soon as it was whispered that the federal majority in Congress meditated to take advantage of the non-election, and of their own failure to correct the mischief, by making a selection of some other individual, it was determined that such a contempt of the voice of the people and flagrant usurpation of power should not prevail, but should be put down by force, if force was necessary. It is believed that the governors both of Pennsylvania and Virginia, who were

See Appendix (A.)

VOL. II.

zealous and firm adherents to the republican party, were determined to march a sufficient force to Washington to depose the usurpers, until the people could exercise their sovereign power by sending delegates to a convention, for the purpose of making amendments to the constitution, suited to the crisis. It was thought by some that the dread of a convention, always pregnant with the danger of mischievous innovation, and threatening some features of the constitution which were most dear to the federalists, more influenced that party to abandon the scheme than the fears of open violence. General Lee, of Virginia, it is said, was earnest in advising this desperate measure; but fortunately better councils prevailed.

On the sixth day of the balloting, the 17th of February, and on the 36th ballot, Mr. Jefferson received ten of the sixteen votes, and thus became president of the United States. The votes which he received were those of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, which had always been in his favour, together with those of Vermont and Maryland, which had previously been divided. The four states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, voted for Colonel Burr, and the members from South Carolina and Delaware put in blank ballots.

During this trying scene, Mr. Jefferson's course was marked by firmness, equanimity, and propriety. He says that overtures were frequently made to him by those who wished him to give some assurance of the course of policy he meant to pursue, or as he supposed by some who put themselves in the way of office, but he invariably declared that he would go into office untrammelled or not at all.*

On the 15th of February he wrote to Mr. Monroe: in

*See Appendix (C.))

speaking of the fruitless balloting, "If they could have been permitted to pass a law for putting the government into the hands of an officer, they certainly would have prevented an election. But we thought it best to declare openly and firmly, one and all, that the day such an act passed, the middle states would arm, and that no such usurpation, even for a single day, should be submitted to. This first shook them, and they were completely alarmed at the resource for which we declared, to wit, a convention, to reorganize the government, and to amend it. The very word convention gives them the horrors; as in the present democratical spirit of America, they fear they should lose some of the favourite morsels of the constitution. Many attempts have been made to obtain terms from me. I have declared to them unequivocally, that I would not receive the government on capitulation, that I would not go into it with my hands tied."

On the day after the election he wrote to Mr. Madison, and after informing him of the particulars of the ballot, he says that he considered the course pursued by those federalists who put in blanks as "a declaration of war on the part of this band, but that conduct appeared to have brought over 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."

We behold Mr. Jefferson now appointed to the highest dignity the laws of his country could bestow, and thus appointed by the free suffrages of the people to direct the destinies of those states which, twenty-five years before, he had contributed to make independent. Without doubt at the time he drafted the Declaration which severed the ties between his country and Great Britain, there were many in that illustrious assembly, the first Congress, and out of it,