IX
From that moment the Federalists were a house divided against itself, and the cloud burst and the rain descended and beat upon it, and the days were dark. Dreary, indeed, that winter of 1799. ‘Porcupine’ was driven from Philadelphia, and young Fenno, disgusted, gave up his paper with a farewell address so contemptuous of democracy and American institutions that the wiser leaders trembled at his temerity. M’Kean, the Democrat, had been swept into the gubernatorial office. Washington had died, and could no longer be used to advance the party interest. Even the dashing Harper, clever in political fight or social frolic, had despaired of the future in politics, resigned his seat, and made arrangements to move to Baltimore as the son-in-law of Carroll of Carrollton.[1695] Duane was firing relentlessly at the scandals and finding flesh, and there was no ‘Porcupine’ to return the fire. The brilliant and audacious Charles Pinckney had appeared in the Senate to give a militant leadership to the Jeffersonians that the Federalists could not match. Into the House had come a giant, in John Marshall, to give to a later-day Federalism a sanity that came too late, but he was with Adams, not Hamilton.
The shadows even fell on the brilliant Federalist society. Hamilton was there that winter, to be sure, ‘to keep the watch,’ as Duane put it, and through an unhappy coincidence ‘The Aurora’ was able to add that ‘Mrs. Reynolds, the sentimental heroine,’ was back in town. But something like tragedy had fallen on the Holland House of Federalism, and weeping was heard in the rooms once given to gayety and laughter. One night Marie Bingham, not sixteen, slipped out of the home of her father, with Count de Tilly, age forty-five, a dissolute scion of the French aristocracy with an eye to the Bingham fortune, and was married at two o’clock in the morning. The couple were found in the home of a French milliner in the early morning, and physicians worked over the brilliant Mrs. Bingham, who was in hysterics. Money soon dissolved the union, but the lights were never quite so bright thereafter in the princely mansion of the cleverest hostess in Philadelphia. The rain fell even upon the House of Bingham.[1696]
CHAPTER XIX
‘THE GRAPES OF WRATH’
I
WHEN Congress convened in the winter of 1799, the Federalists thoroughly appreciated the desperation of their situation. The tide of public opinion was rising against them rapidly because of their measures, and they were divided against themselves. As the sun of the once brilliant party went down, there was one colossal figure of brilliant promise silhouetted against the darkening sky, but John Marshall, now a member of the House, was not in good odor with the Hamiltonians because of his opposition to the Alien and Sedition Laws. The irrepressible clash of contending policies and ambitions had been foreshadowed in the difficulties Marshall had encountered in framing a Reply to Adams’s Address that could command the united support of the party, and he had succeeded measurably by giving the Reply a meaningless phrasing. For a moment it seemed that Marshall might regain the confidence of his fellow partisans when, in a speech of brilliancy and force, he had demolished the flimsy case of the Democrats against the President in the matter of Jonathan Robbins. With his characteristic readiness to concede the full strength of an enemy, Jefferson had written Madison that in the debate on Robbins ‘J. Marshall [distinguished himself] greatly.’[1697] But the Federalist cheers for their new leader were speedily turned to groans and hisses—and thereon hangs a tale of political infamy scarcely approached in audacity in American history.
Almost two years before, when the French war hysteria was at its height and the Federalists were cocks of the walk, the inner circle of the party in the Senate met one night about the table in the Bingham dining-room with the more moderate senatorial members. To assure party solidarity on all important party measures, it was proposed to bind all by the votes of the majority in a party caucus. The extremists had a slight majority over the moderate element. Thus, for a season, the Government was, to all practical purposes, in the hands of a Senate oligarchy composed of a minority of the Senators. From the summer of 1799, the extremists entertained no illusions as to their popularity with the country. The election of Jefferson seemed imminent—provided a way could not be found to cheat him of his victory. From that moment on until the hour of his final triumph by the vote of the House in 1801, there was not a moment when the Federalist leaders were not ready to adopt any method, however disreputable and desperate, to accomplish their purpose. In this spirit they conceived the wicked scheme to rob Jefferson of his victory through an amazing measure prescribing the mode of deciding disputed elections for President and Vice-President. Senator Ross of Pennsylvania agreed to sponsor the bill.
Briefly and baldly, this provided that on the opening and reading of the certificates of the electoral votes in the presence of Congress, the papers should be turned over to a grand committee consisting of six members of each branch of Congress, with the Chief Justice as presiding officer. The members of the House and Senate committees should be elected by ballot. These, with the Chief Justice, were to go into secret session behind locked doors. They were to have the power to send for persons and papers, to pass on the qualifications of electors, and the manner in which they had cast their votes; to investigate charges that bribery, intimidation, persuasion, or force had been employed; and finally, to decide which votes should be counted and which cast out. This decision was to be final. In other words, it was a criminal scheme and an unconstitutional plot to steal the election. It had the support of the great majority of the best minds in the Federalist Party.
In keeping with the sinister nature of this monstrous measure, it was proposed to withhold it carefully from the public until the consummation of the crime. Happily there were members of Congress who did not consider themselves bound in honor to protect dishonor from the light, and almost immediately three copies of the bill found their way to the office of Duane. Two of these were personally delivered with permission to print and disclose the donors; one was mailed under cover.[1698] The bill was immediately printed in full in ‘The Aurora’ with appropriate comments, and the conspirators were dragged into the light. ‘The new electoral council or college may be very fitly compared with the secret Council of Ten at Venice of old,’ wrote the editor.[1699] Out of this exposure grew the proceedings culminating in the prosecution for sedition against Duane.
With the Federalists in control of both branches of Congress, it did not appear at first to matter much. The leaders of the party had never greatly concerned themselves with public opinion. They mustered their men in the Senate for a vote, leaving a discussion of the measure to the opposition. Behind the sorry smoke screen of the Duane prosecution they marched unblushingly to their purpose. The final protest was made by Charles Pinckney, the brilliant new leader of the Democrats in the Senate, in a powerful constitutional argument that no one cared to meet.[1700] ‘Equal in eloquence and strength of reasoning to anything ever heard within the walls of Congress,’ said ‘The Aurora.’[1701] He sat down. No one rose to reply. The question was taken on the passage of the bill and it passed by a strict party vote of 16 to 12.
Meanwhile, the publicity given the rather brazen plan to steal the election was having its reactions on the people, and Federalist members of the House began to protest. There was no one in a more rebellious mood than Marshall, who thought the situation too serious to permit him to leave for home on the birth of his fifth child.[1702] With a more far-reaching vision and a greater respect for public opinion than the veteran leaders of his party, he made his objections audible. On the floor of the House, on the street, at the boarding-house, he talked boldly and incessantly against the measure. The Federalists were amazed, disgusted. Some of the leaders who appreciated his ability observed his insubordination with sorrow. They had doubted his ‘political judgment,’ but had counted on swaying him to their views because of his companionable temperament. They took note of his ‘very affectionate disposition,’ his attachment to pleasures, his conviviality, his seeming ‘indolence,’ and they cultivated him on the side of his weaknesses. But they found him a difficult psychological problem. He had a timidity due to his tendency to ‘feel the public pulse,’ was disposed to ‘erotic refinement,’ and, worse still, to ‘express great respect for the sovereign people.’ With all this he possessed a persuasive power that worked with fatal effect on ‘more feeble minds,’ and he was exerting this power among the members with disastrous results.
Theodore Sedgwick, ponderous and pompous, and in politics insinuating, was apparently delegated to coax Marshall into the conspiracy. A number of heart-to-heart talks with the rebel followed. The Virginian doubted the constitutional ‘power of the legislature to delegate such authority to a Committee.’ After a long talk he ‘confessed himself ... to be convinced,’ but shifted, according to Sedgwick, to the ground that the people had authorized the members to decide, each for himself, in the case of election disputes. In its nature this power was ‘too delicate to be delegated.’ To Sedgwick this was ‘so attenuated and unsubstantial’ as to be beyond his comprehension, and Marshall was persuaded to abandon this ground too. But ‘in the meantime he had dwelt so much in conversation on these subjects that he had dissipated our majority,’ Sedgwick wrote King.[1703]
When the discussions opened in the House, Marshall questioned the propriety of the Senate naming the chairman of the committee and of making the decision final, and offered an amendment.[1704] This was followed by other amendments and ultimately by the revamping of the whole measure. The Senate refused to accept the amendments, and thus the measure died between the two houses. Duane was jubilant. Here was evidence of the value of a free press. The ‘odious bill was introduced for party purposes,’ and a party in the Senate ‘sought to overwhelm by terror and oppression the men who dared to publish the bill, which even after numerous amendments was found too abominable to be countenanced by the House of Representatives.’[1705] The Federalists were downcast and indignant. Senator Tracy, who had no political scruples, declared that ‘Marshall has spoiled all the fair hopes founded on Mr. Ross’s bill.’[1706] Thus Marshall saved the country from revolution and Jefferson from defeat regardless of the vote—as Hamilton was to save him later.
II
The campaign was now on, but from this time we shall hear little of the activities of Jefferson. His work was done. Back to his beloved hilltop he hurried on the adjournment of Congress, and there he remained, apparently less concerned with politics than with potatoes. But he had already created the machinery, trained the mechanicians, supplied the munitions of victory, found means for financing the enterprise—and he left the work with his lieutenants.
In the leadership of his party Jefferson had no rival, and he was the idol of his followers, ‘the people’s friend.’ The persecution he had met had but endeared him more to his supporters. He was their Messiah. On New Year’s Eve in 1799, a company of Democrats spent the evening in conversation and songs until the new year came. Then, headed by a regimental band, they marched through the dark streets of Philadelphia, past the homes of the rich and fashionable blazing with light, to pay their respects to Jefferson at his lodgings. On the way, they encountered another large group, who, unknown to the first, had conceived the same plan for declaring their allegiance. The two crowds fraternized and marched on together. With cheers and shouts they summoned their leader to the door. When the tall, familiar figure appeared, the welkin rang, the band played, and a song, written for the occasion, was sung.[1707] The incident is significant of the common recognition of Jefferson’s leadership.
During the two preceding years the consummate political genius of Jefferson had been planning the programme for the struggle of 1800. The congressional strategy of his party had been his work, and night after night he had gathered his lieutenants about him at the dinner table of the Indian Queen and given his orders for the morrow. If the party platform had not then been conceived, he had his programme, which met the purpose. Writing Madison in January, 1799, he proposed that all possible emphasis be put upon the Alien and Sedition Laws, the direct tax, the army and navy, ‘the usurious loan to set these follies on foot,’ and on the picture of ‘recruiting officers lounging at every court-house and decoying the laborer from his plough.’[1708] About the same time he was expanding this programme in a letter to Gerry: The constitutional rights of the States should be asserted. The right of Congress to ‘its constitutional share in the division of power’ should be maintained. The Government should be ‘rigorously frugal’ and all possible savings should be applied to the discharge of the public debt. The multiplication of offices should be stopped. A standing army in time of peace should be attacked. Free commerce should be maintained with all nations, and there should be ‘political connections with none.’ The liberty of speech and the freedom of the press should be preserved.[1709]
That same month he was writing Edmund Pendleton in the same vein—the ‘direct tax,’ the ‘army and navy in time of peace,’ the ‘usurious interest,’ the ‘recruiting officers at every court-house to decoy the laborer from his plough.’[1710] In these letters we have the first Jeffersonian platform—and on these points, from that time on, the Democrats harped constantly in Congress, in pamphlets and through the press. Not least, nor least effective, among the methods of propaganda were the congressional letters with which the Jeffersonian members flooded their constituents, setting forth in vigorous fashion all the counts in the indictment. As these letters fell upon the country like a snowstorm, the Federalists were infuriated. They summoned their Federal Judges to denounce them in charges to grand juries, and Iredell foolishly responded. In Congress they hinted darkly that these records of public affairs sent by public servants to the public they served were seditious. Many years afterward Adams recalled them with rage—these letters that ‘swelled, raged, foamed in all the fury of a tempest at sea against me,’ a flood so enormous that ‘a collection of those letters would make many volumes.’ Adams never forgave his party for finding no means for their suppression.[1711]
These letters were part of the Jeffersonian plan to reach the people and set the tongues to wagging. Everywhere Jefferson was encouraging his followers to establish newspapers. Soon Noah Webster’s paper was complaining that the irrepressible Matthew Lyon ‘in the course of one year has established no less than four ... presses.’[1712] Was money needed for the publication of pamphlets or the distribution of newspapers? Jefferson made out a subscription list, put his friends down for a contribution, and informed them of his action without apology. Thus, to Monroe: An important measure is under contemplation which ‘will require a considerable sum of money.’ He had therefore put Monroe down for from fifty to a hundred dollars.[1713] Thus, to Madison: ‘Every man must lay his pen and his purse under contribution.’[1714] Were articles required? He sent instructions to his friends to write. Thus, to Pendleton, asking him to prepare a pamphlet on the Gerry correspondence,[1715] and to Madison asking him to ‘set aside a portion of every post day to write what may be proper for the public.’[1716] Were pamphlets printed and ready for distribution? Then a letter from Jefferson to men of the standing of Monroe ordering them to place them in the hands of ‘the most influential characters among our countrymen who are only misled.’[1717]
In every State he had men of political sagacity through whom he could work while maintaining the semblance of aloofness. In Massachusetts, Gerry; in New Hampshire, Langdon; in Connecticut, Bishop and Granger; in New York, Livingston and Burr; in Pennsylvania, Gallatin, M’Kean, and the Muhlenbergs; in Maryland, Mercer and General Sam Smith; in Virginia, Madison, Monroe, Giles, and Pendleton; in Kentucky, John Breckenridge and George Nicholson; in North Carolina, Macon, Jones, and Joseph Gales, the clever and daring editor of the Raleigh ‘Register’ who put the Federalists to the torture with the best paper in the State, which was sent free to prospective converts;[1718] and in Tennessee, Senator William Cocke, an old Amelia County Virginian, and William C. C. Claiborne. In South Carolina, where the Hamiltonians were strong in the support of the Pinckney brothers, and through the commercial interests of Charleston, he was fortunate in having Charles Pinckney, more brilliant, daring, picturesque, and magnetic than his cousins, and Peter Freneau, brother of the poet, and editor of the ‘Charleston City News.’ Nowhere did the Jeffersonians make better progress against stubborn resistance than in the Palmetto State. Thence Hamilton had long drawn for talent, but his party was being gradually undermined. William Smith, who recited speeches Hamilton had written, had retired to escape defeat to a berth in Lisbon; and Harper, noting the premonitions of a storm, had announced his retirement from Congress to seek consolation in the glamour of the Carroll wealth and in the charms of a Carroll daughter in Maryland.
This revolution was largely wrought through the management of a few Jeffersonians who met night after night in Freneau’s office on George Street to plan the fight. Either of two participants in these conferences was a host within himself. There was Freneau—huge in frame, and, aside from height, bearing a striking resemblance to Charles James Fox in voice, conversation, and manners, with a literary style which a contemporary found to combine ‘the beauty and smoothness of Addison and the strength and simplicity of Cobbett.’ And there was Charles Pinckney, handsome, imposing, a favorite of fortune, dominating in leadership, eloquent and forceful in debate, conspicuous in the Constitutional Convention in his twenties and Governor of his State at thirty-one. There about the table, and over their cups we may be sure, they set their traps, and planned their propaganda. Freneau would take up his pen and literally dash off a powerful article with a facility and felicity that called for no revision or correction; and Pinckney would write an article to be signed ‘A Republican,’ or appear unexpectedly at a public meeting to sweep the audience with him by the fire and force of his eloquence.[1719] These men sallied forth to battle with a gallant gayety suggested by their own facetious description of their conferences as ‘The Rye House Plot.’
Thus everywhere Jefferson had men on whom he could depend, and his orders given, his work done, he could spend the summer and autumn of 1800 with his potatoes. There we must leave him and look elsewhere for the drama of the fighting. Only twice during the campaign did he wander farther from Monticello than Charlottesville. Mounted on his horse, he rode daily over his plantation. Every evening he made his customary notations in his farm account book. When Marie’s pianoforte arrived, he might have been seen tuning it himself while the battle raged on many fronts. He wrote his daughter the details of a neighborhood murder, and of the prospects of the harvest, but nothing of politics. His work was done. He had ploughed and sowed and tended—but the work in the harvest-field was for others. In the early summer a strange tale traveled throughout the country, recorded in all the papers, that he had died suddenly. The papers printed it cautiously, however, and there was no political motive in its circulation. At length it was explained. One of his slaves named ‘Thomas Jefferson’ had died at Monticello. Jefferson was never more alive than that summer on his hilltop.
III
That a tidal wave toward Democracy had set in was shown in the early spring in the elections in New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. By common consent New York was put down as the pivotal State and both parties planned to put forth their utmost efforts there. Jefferson, still in Philadelphia, was keeping in intimate touch with the situation through his correspondents in the State, and placing reliance on the sagacity of Aaron Burr. As early as January, he was writing Monroe with the utmost confidence of the result ‘on the strength of [his] advices.’[1720] In March he was assuring Madison, on the representations of Burr and Livingston, that the State was safe if the city of New York could be carried.[1721] The Federalists, he found seriously alarmed. ‘Their speeches in private, as well as their public and private demeanor toward me, indicate it strongly.’[1722] Hamilton himself had seemed so depressed that Henry Lee had written rallying him on his pessimism and urging him to ‘be more like yourself and resist to victory all your foes.’[1723] He had replied with a touch of petulance that he was not despondent and stood ‘on ground which, sooner or later, will assure me a triumph over all my enemies.’[1724] But he was then facing the most desperate fighting of his career, with Burr leading the opposition with a smiling gayety that was disconcerting.
The prevailing fashion of picturing Hamilton as a saintly soul sent to his death by a deep-dyed villain of the type once popular in the melodrama, cannot conceal the amazing resemblance of these two men. There were probably no other two men in the America of their day who were so much alike. Physically both were small, compactly built, of militant carriage, with penetrating eyes of different colors, and of persuasive voices. Both were dandies in their dress, the glass of fashion and the mould of form, courtly, Chesterfieldian, and dashing. Both had demonstrated their courage and military sagacity on the field of battle—Hamilton in the assault at Yorktown, Burr in carrying his beloved Montgomery from the battle-field on his back, wading knee-deep in snow, and amidst a rain of bullets. Burr, no less than Hamilton, had served in the military household of Washington, and both alike had resented their leader’s rather imperious manner. At the New York Bar both had risen to eminence, and some hesitated to give the superiority to either. Here their methods were different—Hamilton relying on erudition where Burr depended on finesse, the former exhaustive in argument, the latter concise. Both were effective orators in different ways. Hamilton was declamatory, Burr conversational. Socially they had many points of similarity, and in a social sense they were not averse to one another’s company at dinner. In conversation one was scarcely more scintillating than the other, and both were fond of badinage, and adept in compliments to the ladies. Both were gallants, attractive to, and attracted by, women of wit and beauty. Neither was above the intrigues of love, with ideas of morality that would have been appreciated in the London of the Restoration. If Burr kept his diary, which seems so shocking to some, Hamilton had his pamphlet on his affair with Mrs. Reynolds—but Burr did not publish his diary. Neither should be judged too harshly, for it was a day of rather loose morals, and the press made free with the gossip concerning Harper and Sedgwick. Both were inordinately ambitious for command, impatient under restraint, and wont to dream of leading triumphant armies. The ambition of neither was circumscribed by the boundaries of the country. If Burr wished to lead an army of conquest into Mexico, Hamilton longed to lead the same sort of an army into South America.
Hamilton and Burr were natural enemies because too much alike in temperament and ambition. Their hopes clashed. Both were deeply in love with their wives, notwithstanding their transgressions. There is something touching in Burr’s letters to his sick wife, his anxiety, his consultations with physicians, his instructions to Theodosia. He was idolized by wife and daughter because they, in turn, were idolized by him. Unlike Hamilton, he was even tender with his servants. It is quite impossible to conceive of Hamilton writing friendly letters to his men and women domestics and slaves. To understand Burr’s fascination for many, one thing must be borne in mind—he was loved because he was lovable in his personal contacts.
These two men faced each other for a finish fight in the spring of 1800.[1725]
IV
In the early spring the surface indications were not favorable for a Jeffersonian victory in the election that was to determine the political complexion of the Legislature that would select the presidential electors. The Federalists were seemingly entrenched. Behind them, victories. Hamilton was openly active, Burr watchful like a cat. One of the latter’s closest lieutenants wrote Gallatin of the situation developing in March. ‘The Federalists have had a meeting and determined on their Senators; they have also appointed a committee to nominate suitable characters for the Assembly.... Mr. Hamilton is very busy, more so than usual, and no exertions will be wanting on his part. Fortunately Mr. Hamilton will have at this election a most powerful opponent in Colonel Burr. This gentleman is exceedingly active; it is his opinion that the Republicans had better not publish a ticket or call a meeting until the Federalists have completed theirs. Mr. Burr is arranging matters in such a way as to bring into operation all the Republican interests.’[1726]
The purpose of Hamilton was twofold—to elect the Federalist electors, and to elect only such electors as he could control against Adams. With this in view he called a secret caucus composed of his most pliant followers. Preferring tools to men of independence and capacity, the caucus selected men of no popularity and little weight. Burr, who had an incomparable system of espionage in this campaign, was instantly put in possession of the ticket. The brilliant black eyes of the little politician hastily and gravely scanned the list. Then, folding it and placing it in his pocket, he murmured, ‘Now I have him hollow!’[1727] Meanwhile, Burr had been busily engaged in the creation of a powerful, compact organization. Like most brilliant men of ingratiating manners, he had drawn about him a formidable array of the young men of the city prepared to execute any orders he might give. This was his purely personal following. He found the backbone of his organization in Tammany.
The potentialities of that organization, composed, for the most part, of men in the ordinary walks of life, the poor, the unimportant, he had instantly sensed. They were democrats by instinct. Their Wigwam, a one-story frame building, was so unprepossessing that the Federalists dubbed it ‘The Pig Pen’—but that did not bother Burr. These men had votes, and influence among others of their kind who had votes. They met night after night to smoke their pipes and drink their ale, to tell stories and talk politics. It is not of record that Burr ever entered the Wigwam, but he was the Tammany boss notwithstanding, operating through his friends who were the ostensible leaders. It was he, seated in his law office, who moulded the policies. His suggestions whipped it into shape as a fighting political organization.[1728] For weeks his home had been crowded night after night with the most daring, adventurous, and ardent members of his party. Most of them were young, fit, and eager for any enterprise. Because there had been factions in the party, he laid down the law on these occasions that personalities should not be discussed or mentioned. These were to be submerged for the campaign. Local considerations were to be ignored. Discipline was to be maintained. Compromises necessary to solidarity were to be effected. The all-important thing was to amalgamate every section of the party and appeal to the people through a ticket notably superior to that of the Federalists.
With the audacity of genius he determined that General Horatio Gates should be a candidate for the Assembly. More daring still, that the venerable George Clinton, many times Governor, should stand, and that Brockholst Livingston, eminent as patriot and lawyer, should run. Samuel Osgood, a former member of Congress, and Washington’s Postmaster-General, was slated. It was easy to put them down—the problem was to persuade them to accept. Here Burr’s genius for leadership counted heavily. Time and again he labored without avail on Clinton, Gates, and Livingston. At length Livingston agreed to stand provided both Clinton and Gates would run. Straightway, Burr rushed to Gates. It was a hard struggle. Burr pleaded, cajoled, flattered, appealed to party pride. Finally Gates agreed to run if Clinton would make the race. And there Burr almost met his Waterloo. The rugged old war-horse was prejudiced against Jefferson. He had ambitions for the Presidency himself, and they had been passed over. Burr left the matter open, smiled, flattered, bowed, departed. Then, out from his office committees began to make their way to Clinton with importunities to stand. The personal friends of the stubborn old man were sent to persuade him. He was adamant. A scene at Burr’s home at Richmond Hill: Present, the nominating committee and Clinton. A mass movement on Clinton—he would not budge. Then Burr’s master-stroke. A community had a right to draft a man in a crisis—the crisis was at hand. Without his consent they would nominate him. The rebellious veteran, flattered, agreed not to repudiate the nomination. The victory was Burr’s—and Jefferson’s.
A little later, the press announced that a meeting of the Democrats had been held at the home of J. Adams, Jr., at 68 William Street, where the Assembly ticket had been put up. Spirited resolutions were adopted. The enthusiasm of the Jeffersonians reached fever heat. Hamilton and the Federalists were paralyzed with amazement. The impossible had happened. Against Hamilton’s mediocre tools—this ticket, composed of commanding figures of national repute![1729] Immediately the frantic fears of the Federalists were manifest in the efforts of ‘Portius’ in the ‘Commercial Advertiser’ to frighten the party into action. Jefferson had become a possibility—the author of the Mazzei letter! Clinton and Gates candidates for the Assembly! Old men laden with honors who had retired, in harness again! Clearly no office lured them—it must be the magnitude of the issue. And who were Clinton, Gates, and Osgood? Enemies of the Constitution! To your tents, O Federalists![1730] A few days later the merchants met at the Tontine Coffee-House to endorse the Hamiltonian ticket because ‘the election is peculiarly important to the mercantile interests.’[1731] In the ‘Pig Pen’ the Tammanyites read of the action of the merchants, clicked their glasses, and rejoiced. Hamilton, now thoroughly alarmed, redoubled his efforts. The Federalist press began to teem with hysterical attacks on Jefferson, Madison, and Clinton—men who were planning the destruction of the Government.[1732]
Meanwhile, Burr, calm, confident, suave, silent, was giving New York City its first example of practical politics. Money was needed—he formed a finance committee to collect funds. Solicitors went forth to wealthy members of the party to demand certain amounts—determined upon by Burr. It was a master psychologist who scanned the subscription lists. One parsimonious rich man was down for one hundred dollars.
‘Strike his name off,’ said Burr. ‘You will not get the money and ... his exertions will cease and you will not see him at the polls.’
Another name—that of a lazy man liberal with donations. ‘Double the amount and tell him no labor will be expected of him.’
With infinite care Burr card-indexed every voter in the city, his political history, his present disposition, his temperament, his habits, his state of health, the exertions probably necessary to get him to the polls. The people had to be aroused—Burr organized precinct and ward meetings, sent speakers, addressed them himself. And while Burr was working, the lowliest too were working on the lowliest. One evening ‘a large corpulent person with something of the appearance of Sir John Falstaff’ was seen in the lobby of a theater ‘haranguing an old black man who sells peanuts and apples to come forward and vote the Republican ticket.’
‘You pay heavy taxes this year.’
‘Yes, Massa, me pay ten dollars.’
‘Well, if you vote the Republican ticket you will have little or no taxes to pay next year; for if we Republicans succeed, the standing army will be disbanded, which cost us almost a million of money last year.’
The peanut vendor promised to appear at the polls ‘with six more free-born sons of the African race.’[1733] Whereupon the campaigner had a tale to tell to the boys at the Wigwam that night.
The polls opened on April 29th and closed at sunset on May 2d. Days of intense ceaseless activity. Hamilton and Burr took the field. From one polling-place to another they rushed to harangue the voters. When they met, they treated each other with courtly courtesy. Handbills were put out, flooding the city during the voting. In the midst of the fight Matthew L. Davis found time at midnight to send a hasty report to Gallatin in Philadelphia. ‘This day he [Burr] has remained at the polls of the Seventh ward ten hours without intermission. Pardon this hasty scrawl. I have not ate for fifteen hours.’[1734] The result was a sweeping triumph for the Democrats. When the news reached the Senate at Philadelphia, the Federalists were so depressed and the Democrats so jubilant that the transaction of business was impossible, and it adjourned.[1735]
Hamilton was stunned, and ready for trickery to retrieve the lost battle. The next night he was presiding over a secret meeting of Federalists where it was agreed to ask Governor Jay to call an extra session of the Legislature to deprive that body of the power to choose electors. Hamilton approached Jay in a letter. ‘In times like these,’ he wrote, ‘it will not do to be over-scrupulous.’ There should be no objections to ‘taking of legal and constitutional steps to prevent an atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics from getting possession of the helm of state.’[1736] Jay read the letter with astonishment, made a notation that it was a plan to serve a party purpose, and buried it in the archives. It was the blackest blot on Hamilton’s record.
That victory elected Jefferson.
It destroyed Hamilton—and it made Burr Vice-President.
Scarcely had the polls closed when Burr’s friends, giving him the whole credit, as he deserved, began to urge on the leaders in Philadelphia his selection for the Vice-Presidency. Davis wrote Gallatin that the Democrats of New York were bent on Burr.[1737] Admiral James Nicholas, the father-in-law of Gallatin, wrote that the triumph was a miraculous ‘intervention of Supreme Power and our friend Burr, the agent.’ It was his ‘generalship, perseverance, industry, and execution’ that did it, and he deserved ‘anything and everything of his country.’ He had won ‘at the risk of his life.’[1738] On May 12th Gallatin wrote his wife: ‘We had last night a very large meeting of Republicans, in which it was unanimously agreed to support Burr for Vice-President.’
That was a bitter month for the Federalists. In the gubernatorial contests in New Hampshire and Massachusetts the Democrats had polled an astonishing vote. Painfully labored were the efforts of the Federalist press to explain these remarkable accessions. The ‘Centinel’ in Boston had previously sounded a note of warning under the caption, ‘Americans, Why Sleep Ye?’ The Democrats, it said, were ‘organized, officered, accoutered, provided, and regularly paid.’ They were ‘systematized in all points.’ In Pennsylvania a Jeffersonian Governor had thrown Federalist office-holders ‘headlong from their posts.’ In New Hampshire the Democrats were fighting ‘under cover of an ambuscade.’ In all States new Jeffersonian presses were established, ‘from Portsmouth in New Hampshire to Savannah in Georgia,’ through which ‘the orders of Generals of the faction are transmitted with professional punctuality; which presses serve as a sounding board to the notes that issue through that great speaking trumpet of the Devil, the Philadelphia Aurora.’ Did not Duane get the enormous salary of eight hundred dollars a year? ‘Why Sleep Ye?’
Dismayed, disgruntled with Adams, but afraid to reject him openly, the Federalist caucus convened in Philadelphia and selected Charles Cotesworth Pinckney as his running mate with the idea of electing him to the Presidency through treachery to Adams.
V
When Adams learned of the Federalist defeat in New York, he momentarily went to pieces. His suspicious mind instantly saw in his humiliation the hand of Hamilton and his supporters. He had long been cognizant of the treachery about him, in his official household. On the morning of May 5th, McHenry received a note from the house on Market Street: ‘The President requests Mr. McHenry’s company for one minute.’ As the poet-politician walked up Market Street in response that spring morning, he could not have conceived of any other issue than a brief discussion of some departmental matter. Only a few weeks before he had, with Adams’s knowledge, arranged for a house at Georgetown, and for the removal of his family thither.[1739] As he had surmised, the subject which had summoned him to the conference was a minor matter relating to the appointment of a purveyor. This was satisfactorily disposed of. Was there something smug or offensive in the manner of Hamilton’s messenger that suddenly enraged the old man, smarting under the sting of the defeat in New York? Suddenly he began to talk of McHenry’s derelictions, his anger rising, his color mounting, his voice ringing with unrepressed rage. McHenry thought him ‘mad.’ Washington, said Adams, had saddled him with three Secretaries, Pickering, Wolcott, and McHenry. The latter had refused to give a commission to the only elector in North Carolina who had voted for Adams. He had influenced Washington to insist on giving Hamilton the preference over Knox—which was true. In a report to Congress, McHenry had eulogized Washington and sought to praise Hamilton—the President’s enemy. He had urged the suspension of the mission to France. The old man was spluttering with fury, and his disloyal Secretary was dumb with amazement. It was time for him to resign. McHenry beat a hasty retreat, returned to his office, prepared his resignation, which in decency should have been voluntarily submitted long before, and sent it in the next morning.[1740]
Having set himself to the task of ridding his household of his enemies, Adams bethought himself of Pickering. Five days after the stormy scene with McHenry, the austere Secretary of State received a note from the President inviting a resignation. This was on Saturday. On Monday morning, Pickering went to his office as usual, having been long accustomed to ignoring or thwarting the wishes of his chief, and sent a letter dealing, strangely enough, with his pecuniary embarrassments, and refusing to resign.[1741] The letter had not been sent an hour before an answer was in his hands. It was curt and comprehensive. ‘Divers causes and considerations essential to the administration of the government, in my judgment requiring a change in the department of state, you are hereby discharged from any further service as Secretary of State.’[1742]
Hamilton, enraged at the dismissal of his servitors, hastened an astonishing letter of instructions to Pickering. He should ‘take copies and extracts of all such documents as will enable you to explain both Jefferson and Adams.’ No doubt Pickering was ‘aware of a very curious journal of the latter when he was in Europe—a tissue of weakness and vanity.’ The time was coming when ‘men of real integrity and energy must write against all empirics.’[1743] To McHenry he wrote that ‘a new and more dangerous era has commenced’; that ‘Revolution and a new order of things are avowed in this quarter’; and, with something of Adams’s hysteria, that ‘property, liberty, and even life are at stake.’[1744]
The news that Adams had rid himself of his betrayers, and found in John Marshall and Samuel Dexter as successors men incapable of treachery, made a profound impression. To Duane of ‘The Aurora’ it was a vindication. Two months before he had divided the Cabinet into Hamiltonians and Adamsites, with Pickering and McHenry bearing the brand of Hamilton.[1745] Announcing the dismissals under the caption, ‘The Hydra Dying,’ he described Pickering as ‘an uncommon instance of the mischiefs that may be done in a country by small and contemptible talents and a narrow mind when set on fire by malignity.’[1746] The Federalist papers were hard put to sugar-coat the pill. The ‘Centinel’ cautiously said that ‘the best men here have variant opinions on the measure’ of Pickering’s dismissal.[1747] Three days later, it rushed to the defense of the humiliated representative of the Essex Junto with the comment that the best eulogy on his official conduct was ‘the chuckling of the Jacobins over his removal’ and the assurance that he carried into retirement ‘the regrets of all good men.’[1748] The Essex Junto made no attempt to conceal their disgust. Cabot, Ames, Gore, and Pickering were soon sending their versions to Rufus King in London. ‘You are so well acquainted with the sort of sensibility for which our chief is remarkable, that you will be less surprised than most men,’ wrote Cabot.[1749] Gore wrote that the dismissal ‘produces general discontent.’[1750] The delicate moral sensibilities of all these politicians were much hurt because Adams had fallen into the habit of swearing and using ‘billingsgate.’[1751] He was even speaking with bitterness of the Essex Junto and the British faction, quite in the manner of Jefferson. It was even ‘understood’ among the Hamiltonians that the dismissals were the price of the alliance which had been formed between Jefferson and Adams.[1752]
But Adams knew what he was about. He knew that a plan had been made to trick him out of his reëlection. The scheme was bald, bold, stupid. All the Federalist electors in the North would be urged to vote for Adams and Pinckney; in the South enough would be asked to vote for Pinckney, and not Adams, to bring the Hamiltonian Carolinian in ahead. Hamilton was writing frankly to his friends in this vein, ready to ‘pursue Pinckney as my single object’;[1753] while Gore was writing King that ‘the intention of the Federalists is to run General Pinckney and Mr. Adams as President and Vice-President.’[1754] When, in July, Adams appeared in Boston at a dinner and toasted Sam Adams and John Hancock, the much-abused Jeffersonians, as ‘the proscribed patriots,’ the Hamiltonians groaned their disgust and the Democrats shouted with glee. ‘This was well understood by the Jacobins whom it will not gain,’ wrote Ames.[1755] ‘The Aurora’ observed that ‘he did not give the great orb [Franklin] around which he moved as a satellite.’[1756] The rupture was now complete. When Adams was permitted to leave Philadelphia without a demonstration the latter part of May, ‘The Aurora’ was unseemly in its mirth. ‘Did the Blues parade? No? What—not parade to salute him “whom the people delight to honor”—“the rock on which the storm beats”—the “chief who now commands”? Did not the officers of the standing army or the marines parade? The new army officers are not fond of the President; he has dismissed Timothy.’[1757]
Meanwhile, the most consummate of the betrayers, Wolcott, unsuspected still, remained within the fort to signal to Hamilton.
VI
It was common knowledge early in the spring that Hamilton would exert his ingenuity to defeat Adams by hook or crook. ‘The Aurora’ declared, March 12th, that ‘the party with Alexander Hamilton at their head have determined to defeat Adams in the approaching elections.’ The watchful eye of the suspicious Adams, who felt the treachery, unquestionably read the article and heard the gossip. When, after the death of Washington, the Cincinnati met in New York to select Hamilton as the head of the order, Adams was informed that his enemy had electioneered against him among the members. He heard particularly of the action of ‘the learned and pious Doctors Dwight and Babcock, who ... were attending as two reverend knights of the order, with their blue ribbons and bright eagles at their sable button-holes,’ in saying repeatedly in the room where the society met, ‘We must sacrifice Adams,’ ‘We must sacrifice Adams.’
Thus, when in June, Hamilton, under the pretext of disbanding the army in person, fared forth in his carriage on a tour of the New England States, no one doubted the political character of his mission. His purpose was to prevail upon the leaders to give unanimous support to Pinckney and to drop a few Adams votes, or, that impossible, to give Pinckney the same support as Adams. The records of this dramatic journey are meager enough. It is known that in New Hampshire he talked with Governor Gilman, who was the popular leader, and ‘took pains’ to impress upon him ‘the errors and the defects of Mr. Adams and of the danger that candidate cannot prevail by mere Federal strength.’ He urged support of Pinckney on the ground that in the South he would get some anti-Federal votes.[1758] In Rhode Island he evidently encountered a spirited protest from Governor Fenner. The Governor expressed the hope that all the electors would be Federalists, but clearly gave no encouragement to the Pinckney candidacy, according to Hamilton’s own version of the conference.[1759] There were other versions, however, indicative of a stormy interview. The ‘Albany Register’ advised Hamilton, in giving the story of his tour to the ‘Anglo-Federal party which wishes to make Charles C. Pinckney President,’ to ‘forget his interview with the Governor of Rhode Island.’[1760] ‘The Aurora’ followed in a few days with a more circumstantial story. Hamilton had ‘warmly pressed Governor Fenner to support Pinckney’ and ‘the old Governor’s eyes were opened and he literally drove the gallant Alexander out of the door.’[1761] 3
But in Massachusetts, albeit the home of Adams, Hamilton could count upon a cordial reception for his views, since it was also the home of the Essex Junto. This was composed of the Big-Wigs of the party in that State, all ardently devoted to Hamilton, sharing in his hate of democracy and doubt of the Republic. For years these men had met at one another’s homes and directed the politics of Massachusetts. They were men of intellect and social prestige, intimately allied with commerce and the law. There was George Cabot, the greatest and wisest of them all, and one of the few men who dared tell Hamilton his faults. He was a man of fine appearance, tall, well-moulded, elegant in his manners, aristocratic in his bearing, earnest but never vehement in conversation; a man of wealth, and a merchant.[1762] There was Fisher Ames, brilliant, vivacious, smiling, cynical, eloquent, exclusive in his social tastes, and wealthy. There was Theophilus Parsons, learned in the law, contemptuous of public opinion and democracy, reactionary beyond most of his conservative contemporaries, more concerned with property than with human rights. Tall, slender, cold in his manner, colder in his reasoning, he stood out among the other members of the Junto because of his slovenliness in dress. Among his friends, at the dinner table, he was a brilliant conversationalist, for he liked nothing better than to eat and drink, talk and laugh, unless it was to smoke, chew tobacco, and use snuff.[1763] He was the personification of the political intolerance of his class. There, too, was Stephen Higginson, one of the wealthiest and most cultured merchants of his day, a handsome figure of a man who took infinite pains with his toilet and always carried a gold-headed cane. Given to writing for the press, he made ferocious attacks on John Hancock under the nom-de-plume of ‘Laco,’ and the truckmen on State Street whom he passed on his way to business taught a parrot to cry, ‘Hurrah for Hancock; damn Laco.’ So intolerant and bigoted was his household that a child, hearing a visitor suggest that a Democrat might be honest, was shocked.[1764] There also was John Lowell, able lawyer, cultured, ultra-conservative, disdainful of democracy; and there was Christopher Gore, who amassed a fortune in speculation, and held a brilliant position at the Bar. A striking figure he was, when he appeared at the unconventional meetings of the group, tall, stout, with black eyes and florid complexion, his hair tied behind and dressed with powder, courtly in his manners, eloquent in speech, utterly intolerant in his Federalism, and completely devoted to Hamilton’s policies.[1765] These and their satellites were Hamilton’s Boston friends; more, they were the backbone of his personal organization, his shock troops. Thus, when he crossed into Massachusetts on his tour, he was going to his own with the knowledge that they would receive him gladly—and they did.
Reaching Boston on Saturday evening, he conferred with his friends, and on Sunday ‘attended divine services at the Rev. Mr. Kirkland’s.’ On Monday a dinner was given in his honor, where, the party paper insisted, ‘the company was the most respectable ever assembled in the town on a similar occasion.’ General Lincoln presided. Higginson and Major Russell of the ‘Centinel’ were vice-presidents. Governor Strong, the Lieutenant-Governor, the Speaker of the House, Chief Justice Dana, Ames, Cabot, several members of Congress, and members of ‘the Reverend Clergy’ sat about the boards. ‘The tables were loaded with every dainty the season affords and every luxury which could be procured.’[1766] It appears that some Adamsites or Jeffersonians declined to do homage, for we find the ‘Centinel’ commenting that ‘had a certain citizen known that General Hamilton resembled his demi-god, Bonaparte, instead of refusing a ticket to the dinner he would have solicited the honor of kissing—his hand.’[1767] The Hamiltonians were clearly delighted with the occasion; Hamilton himself expanded and talked with freedom in the friendly atmosphere. He talked for Pinckney and against Adams; and in an especially expansive moment, dwelling on the sinister presumption of democracy, said that within four years ‘he would either lose his head or be the leader of a triumphant army.’ The dinner over, the conference concluded, he made an inspection of Fort Independence on Castle Island, and was on his way, accompanied ‘as far as Lynn by a cavalcade of citizens.’[1768] Everything had been carried off with becoming éclat, for had he not stayed at ‘the elegant boarding house of Mrs. Carter?’[1769] Unhappily the carriage in which he rode with the ‘cavalcade’ broke down in the middle of the street,[1770] to the delight of the Jacobins, but his composure gave his followers much satisfaction.
Had not the Adamsites implied that he had received the cold shoulder elsewhere in Massachusetts we might never have known his activities beyond Lynn. He was ‘everywhere welcomed with unequivocable marks of respect, cordiality, and friendship.’ He dined in Salem with Mr. Pickman, ‘drank tea at Ipswich,’ arrived at Davenport’s late in the evening, departed early in the morning for Portsmouth, and reached Newburyport on Sunday. That is the reason there was no demonstration there. But there in the evening he stayed with Parsons ‘in company with some of the most respectable gentlemen of the town.’[1771]
But Hamilton and the Junto were not soon to hear the last of that tour. The Democrats harped incessantly on the promise to lose his head or be the leader of a triumphant army. ‘We have often heard of a French gasconade,’ said ‘The Aurora,’ ‘but we have now to place alongside of it a Creole gasconade in America. Alexander Hamilton leading an army to effect a Revolution! Why, the very idea is as pregnant with laughter as if we were to be told of Sir John Falstaff’s military achievements.’[1772] ‘Manlius’ rushed to the attack, ostensibly in behalf of Adams, in the ‘Chronicle.’ Why this trip to ‘disband the army’? Had Hamilton ever been in the camp before? Had he appeared ‘to plant the seed of distrust in the bosom of the troops? against Adams?’ And what a painful effect upon the great men of Boston! ‘Your personal appearance threw poor Cabot into the shade. Even what had been deemed eloquence in the smiling Ames was soon reduced to commentary; and so petrifying was your power that our District Judge has scarcely since dared to report an assertion from his Magnus Apollo of Brookline, either on politics or banking.’ And lose his head or lead a triumphant army if Pinckney were not elected? ‘Your vanity was more gross than even your ignorance of the characters of the people of the eastern States.’[1773] Two months later, the echoes were still heard. The Reverend Mr. Kirkland, flattered by Hamilton’s cultivation and ingratiation, and young, not content with indiscreetly repeating Hamilton’s observations made in company, rushed into the papers with an attack on Adams and a glorification of Hamilton. What a disgrace to the clergy, wrote ‘No Politician,’ for this flattered youth ‘to vindicate the character of a confessed adulterer, and artfully to sap the well-earned reputation of President Adams.’[1774] Even King heard from a Bostonian that Hamilton ‘in his mode of handling [political themes] did not appear to be the great General which his great talents designate him.’[1775] But Hamilton made his observations and reached his conclusions—that the leaders of the first order were in a mood to repudiate Adams, but that those of the second order, more numerous, were almost solidly for him. He merely changed his tactics.