Chapter 10

MISTAKES OF HAMILTON AND BURR

1800

The ten months following the Republican triumph in New York on May 2, 1800, were fateful ones for Hamilton and Burr. It is not easy to suggest the greater sufferer, Burr with his victory, or Hamilton with his defeat. Hamilton's bold expedients began at once; Burr's desperate schemes waited until after the election in November; but when the conflict was over, the political influence of each had ebbed like water in a bay after a tidal wave. Although Jay's refusal to reconvene the old Legislature in extra session surprised Hamilton as much as the Republican victory itself, the great Federalist did not despair. He still thought it possible to throw the election of President into the House of Representatives, and to that end he wrote his friends to give equal support to John Adams and Charles C. Pinckney, the candidates of the Federal party. "This is the only thing," he said, "that can possibly save us from the fangs of Jefferson."[92]

[Footnote 92: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 549. Letter to Theo. Sedgwick.]

But the relations between Adams and Hamilton were now to break. For twelve years Hamilton had kept Adams angry. He began in 1789 with the inconsiderate and needless scheme of scattering the electoral votes of Federalists for second place, lest Washington fail of the highest number, and thus reduced Adams' vote to thirty-four, while Washington received sixty-nine. In 1796 he advised similar tactics, in order that Thomas Pinckney might get first place. For the past three years the President had endured the mortification of having Hamilton control his cabinet advisers. After the loss of New York, however, Adams turned elsewhere for strength, appointing John Marshall secretary of state in place of Timothy Pickering, and Samuel Dexter secretary of war in place of James McHenry. The mutual dislike of Hamilton and Adams had become so intensified that the slightest provocation on the part of either would make any form of political reconciliation impossible, and Adams' reconstruction of his Cabinet furnished this provocation. Pickering and McHenry were Hamilton's best supporters. They had done more to help him and to embarrass Adams, and their dismissal, because of the loss of New York, made Hamilton thirsty for revenge. Pickering suggested "a bold and frank exposure of Adams," offering to furnish the facts if Hamilton would put them together, and agreeing to arrange with George Cabot and other ultra Federalists of New England, known as the "Essex Junto," to throw Adams behind Charles C. Pinckney in the electoral vote. Their plan was to start Pinckney as the second Federalist candidate, with the hope that parties would be so divided as to secure his election for President. It was nothing more than the old "double chance" manoeuvres of 1796, when Thomas Pinckney was Hamilton's choice for President; but the iniquity of the scheme was the deception practised upon the voters who desired Adams.

Of course, Adams soon learned of the revival of this old conspiracy, and passionately and hastily opened a raking fire upon the "Essex Junto," calling them a "British faction," with Hamilton as its chief, a designation to which the Republican press had made them peculiarly sensitive. This aroused Hamilton, who, preliminary to a quarrel, addressed the President, asking if he had mentioned the writer as one who belonged to a British faction. Receiving no reply, he again wrote the President, angrily repelling all aspersions of the kind. This the President likewise ignored.

Then Hamilton listened to Timothy Pickering. Fiery as his temper had often proved, and grotesquely obstinate as he had sometimes shown himself, Hamilton's most erratic impulse appears like the coolness of Jay when contrasted with the conduct upon which he now entered. The letter he proposed to write, ostensibly in justification of himself, was apparently intended for private circulation at some future day among Federal leaders, to whom it would furnish reasons why electors should unite in preferring Pinckney. It is known, too, that Hamilton's coolest and ablest advisers opposed such a letter, recalling the congressional caucus agreement, which he had himself advised, to vote fairly for both Adams and Pinckney. Besides, to impair confidence in Adams just at that moment, it was argued, would impair confidence in the Federal party, while at best such a letter could only produce confusion without compensatory results. But between Adams and Jefferson, Hamilton now preferred the latter. "I will never be responsible for him by my direct vote," he wrote in May, 1800, "even though the consequence be the election of Jefferson."[93] Moreover, Hamilton was accustomed to give, not to receive orders. Had Washington lived, Hamilton would doubtless never have written the letter, but now he wrote it, printed it, and in a few days was forced to publish it, since garbled extracts began appearing in the press. Many theories have been advanced as to how it fell into the hands of a public printer, some fanciful, others ridiculous, and none, perhaps, absolutely truthful. The story that Burr unwittingly coaxed a printer's errand boy to give him a copy, is not corroborated by Matthew L. Davis; but, however the publication happened, it was not intended to happen in that way and at that time.

[Footnote 93: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 552.]

It was an ugly letter, not up to Hamilton's best work. The vindication of himself and the Pinckneys lost itself in the severity of the attack upon Adams, whose career was reviewed from the distant day of an unsound judgment ventured in military affairs during the Revolution, to the latest display of a consuming egotism, vanity, and jealousy as President. In a word, all the quarrels, resentments, and antagonisms which had torn and rent the Federal party for four years, but which, thanks to Washington, had not become generally known, were now, in a moment, officially exposed to the whole country, to the great astonishment of most Federalists, and to the great delight of all Republicans. "If the single purpose had been to defeat the President," said John Adams, "no more propitious moment could have been chosen." Fisher Ames declared that "the question is not how we shall fight, but how we shall fall." In vain did Hamilton journey through New England, struggling to gain votes for Pinckney; in vain did the "Essex Junto" deplore the appearance of a document certain to do their Jacobin opponents great service. The party, already practically defeated by its alien and sedition legislation, and now inflamed with angry feelings, hastened on to the inevitable catastrophe like a boat sucked into the rushing waters of Niagara, while the party of Jefferson, united in principle, and encouraged by the divisions of their adversaries, marched on to easy victory. When the result was known, Jefferson and Burr had each seventy-three electoral votes, Adams sixty-five, Pinckney sixty-four, and Jay one.

It is difficult to realise the arguments which persuaded Hamilton to follow the suggestion of the fallen minister. Hot-tempered and impatient of restraint as he was, he knew Adams' attack had only paid him in kind. Nor is mitigation of Hamilton's conduct found in the statement, probably true, that the party could not in any case have carried the election. The great mass of Federalists believed, as Hamilton wrote Jay when asking an extra session of the Legislature, that the defeat of Jefferson was "the only means to save the nation from more disasters," and they naturally looked to him to accomplish that defeat. Of all men that ever led a political party, therefore, it was Hamilton's duty to sink personal antipathy, but in this attack upon Adams he seems deliberately to have sinned against the light. This was the judgment of men of his own day, and at the end of a century it is the judgment of men who cherish his teachings and revere his memory.

While Hamilton wrote and worried and wrestled, Aaron Burr rested on the well-earned laurels of victory. It had been a great fight. George Clinton did not take kindly to Thomas Jefferson, and stubbornly resisted allowing the use of his name to aid the Virginian's promotion; Horatio Gates and other prominent citizens who had left the political arena years before, if they could be said ever to have entered it, were also indisposed to head a movement that seemed to them certain to end in rout and confusion; but Burr held on until scruples disappeared, and their names headed a winning ticket. It was the first ray of light to break the Republican gloom, and when, six months later, the Empire State declared for Jefferson and Burr it added to the halo already surrounding the grandson of Jonathan Edwards.

It was known that Jefferson and Burr had run very evenly, and by the middle of December, 1800, it became rumoured that their vote was a tie. "If such should be the result," Burr wrote Samuel Smith, a Republican congressman from Maryland, "every man who knows me ought to know that I would utterly disclaim all competition. Be assured that the Federalist party can entertain no wish for such an exchange. As to my friends, they would dishonour my views and insult my feelings by a suspicion that I would submit to be instrumental in counteracting the wishes and the expectations of the people of the United States. And I now constitute you my proxy to declare these sentiments if the occasion should require."[94] At the time this letter was much applauded at public dinners and other Republican gatherings as proof of Burr's respect for the will of the people.

[Footnote 94: James Parton, _Life of Aaron Burr_, 267.]

But the Federalists had plans of their own. "To elect Burr would be to cover the opposition with chagrin, and to sow among them the seeds of a morbid division," wrote Harrison Gray Otis of Massachusetts.[95] Gradually this sentiment took possession of New England and the Middle States, until it seemed to be the prevailing opinion of the Federal party. "Some, indeed most of our eastern friends are warm in support of Burr," said Gouverneur Morris, which James A. Bayard of Delaware corroborated in a note to Hamilton. "There appears to be a strong inclination in a majority of the Federal party to support Burr," he said.[96] "The current has already acquired considerable force, and is manifestly increasing." John Rutledge, governor of South Carolina, thought "his promotion will be prodigiously afflicting to the Virginia faction, and must disjoint the party. If Mr. B.'s Presidency be productive of evils, it will be very easy for us to get rid of him. Opposed by the Virginia party, it will be his interest to conciliate the Federalists."[97] Theodore Sedgwick, speaker of the House of Representatives, likewise declared that "most of the Federalists are for Burr. It is very evident that the Jacobins dread this appointment more even than that of General Pinckney. If he be elected by the Federalists against the hearty opposition of the Jacobins, the wounds mutually given and received will probably be incurable. Each will have committed the unpardonable sin. Burr must depend on good men for his support, and that support he cannot receive, but by a conformity to their views. At first, I confess, I was strongly disposed to give Jefferson the preference, but the more I have reflected, the more I have inclined to the other."[98]

[Footnote 95: _Ibid._, 267.]

[Footnote 96: James Parton, _Life of Aaron Burr_, 270.]

[Footnote 97: _Ibid._, 275.]

[Footnote 98: _Ibid._, 275.]

To such a course Hamilton was bitterly opposed, not only because he distrusted Burr more than he did Jefferson, but because the Federalists should leave the responsibility of a selection to the Republicans and thus in nowise be answerable for the consequences. "If the anti-Federalists who prevailed in the election," he wrote Bayard of Delaware, "are left to take their own man, they remain responsible, and the Federalists remain free, united, and without stain, in a situation to resist with effect pernicious measures. If the Federalists substitute Burr, they adopt him, and become answerable for him. Whatever may be the theory of the case, abroad and at home, Mr. Burr must become, in fact, the man of our party; and if he acts ill, we must share in the blame and disgrace. By adopting him, we do all we can to reconcile the minds of Federalists to him, and we prepare them for the effectual operation of his acts. He will, doubtless, gain many of them; and the Federalists will become a disorganised and contemptible party. Can there be any serious question between the policy of leaving the anti-Federalists to be answerable for the elevation of an objectionable man, and that of adopting him ourselves, and becoming answerable for a man who, on all hands, is acknowledged to be a complete Catiline? 'Tis enough to state the question to indicate the answer, if reason, not passion, presides in the decision."[99]

[Footnote 99: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 581.]

Gouverneur Morris, now a United States senator, had already taken a similar position. Bayard of Delaware, who carried the vote of the little State in his pocket, and several other leading Federalists, listened with profound respect; but the great portion of the party, maddened by reverses, eager for revenge, and not yet mindless of Hamilton's campaign indiscretion, was in no temper to follow such prudent advice. As already indicated, the disposition was "to cover the opposition with chagrin," and "to sow among them the seeds of morbid division." Nor did they agree with Hamilton's estimate of Burr, which seemed to them attributable to professional and personal feuds, but maintained that he was a matter-of-fact man, artful and dexterous to accomplish his ends, and without pernicious theories, whose very selfishness was a guard against mischievous foreign predilection, and whose local situation was helpful to his appreciation of the utility of the country's commercial and federal systems, while his elevation to the Presidency would be a mortal stab to the Jacobins, breeding invincible hatred and compelling him to lean on the Federalists, who had nothing to fear from his ambition, since it would be checked by his good sense, or from any scheme of usurpation that he might attempt.

In vain did Hamilton combat these points, insisting that Burr was a man of extreme and irregular ambition, selfish to a degree which even excluded social affection, and decidedly profligate. He admitted that he was far more artful than wise, far more dexterous than able, but held that artfulness and dexterity were objections rather than recommendations, while he thought a systematic statesman should have a theory. "No general principles," he said, "will work much better than erroneous ones."[100] As to foreign predilection, he thought Burr as warm a partisan of France as Jefferson, and instead of leaning on good men, whom he knew would never support his bad projects, he would endeavour to disorganise both parties, and from the wreck form a third out of conspirators and other men fitted by character to carry out his schemes of usurpation. As the campaign advanced he became more emphatic, insisting that Burr's election would disgrace the country abroad, and that no agreement with him could be relied upon. "As well think to bind a giant by a cobweb as his ambition by promises."[101]

[Footnote 100: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 584.]

[Footnote 101: _Ibid._, 581.]

In the meantime the electoral count, as already anticipated, had thrown the election into the House of Representatives, where it would be decided on the 11th of February, 1801. In the House the Republicans controlled eight States to the Federalists' six, with Maryland and Vermont without a majority of either party. To elect Jefferson, therefore, an additional State must be secured, and to prevent it, if possible, the Federalists, by a party caucus held in January, resolved to support Burr, Bayard and three others, any one of whom could decide the choice for Jefferson, reserving the right to limit the contest to March 4, and thus avoid the risk of general anarchy by a failure to elect.

Very naturally the Republicans became alarmed and ugly. Jefferson wrote Madison of the deplorable tie, suggesting that it had produced great dismay and gloom among Republicans and exultation among Federalists, "who openly declare they will prevent an election."[102] James Gunn, a United States senator from Georgia and a Federalist, advised Hamilton that "the Jacobins are determined to resist the election of Burr at every hazard, and I am persuaded they have taken their ground with a fixed resolution to destroy the government rather than yield their point."[103] Madison thought if the then House of Representatives did not choose Jefferson, the next House would do so, supported as he was by the great body of the people, who would no longer submit "to the degradation of America by attempts to make Burr the President."[104]

[Footnote 102: James Parton, _Life of Aaron Burr_, 274.]

[Footnote 103: _Ibid._, 274.]

[Footnote 104: _Ibid._, 274.]

Not a word came from Burr. Jefferson tried repeatedly to bring him to an explicit understanding without avail. His only published utterance on the subject, save the letter to Samuel Smith, was in a family note of January 15 to his son-in-law, Joseph Allston of South Carolina, in which he spoke of the tie as exciting great speculation and much anxiety, adding, "I believe that all will be well, and that Jefferson will be our President."[105] Five days before this, Speaker Sedgwick informed Hamilton that "Burr has expressed his displeasure at the publication of his letter by Samuel Smith,"[106] which, wrote Bayard on January 7, "is here understood to have proceeded either from a false calculation as to the result of the electoral vote, or was intended as a cover to blind his own party."[107] But there was no danger of Joseph Allston publishing his note, at least not until the fight was over.

[Footnote 105: _Ibid._, 279.]

[Footnote 106: _Ibid._, 272.]

[Footnote 107: _Ibid._, 272.]

Burr's letter to his son-in-law bore date at Albany. Being a member of the Legislature he had gone there early in January, where he not only kept silent but mysteriously aloof, although his lobbyists thronged Washington in such numbers that Senator Morris, on February 14, asked his colleague, John Armstrong, "how it happened that Burr, who is four hundred miles off, has agents here at work with great activity, while Mr. Jefferson, who is on the spot, does nothing?"[108] That these agents understood their mission and were quite as active as Morris represented, was evident by the reports sent from time to time to Hamilton, who remained in New York. "Some who pretend to know his views," wrote Morris, "think he will bargain with the Federalists."[109] Bayard was also approached. "Persons friendly to Mr. Burr state distinctly that he is willing to consider the Federalists as his friends, and to accept the office of President as their gift."[110] As early as January 10 Governor Rutledge wrote that "we are assured by a gentleman who lately had some conversation with Mr. Burr on this subject that he is disposed to maintain and expand our systems."[111]

[Footnote 108: _Jefferson's Diary_, Feb. 14, 1801.]

[Footnote 109: James Parton, _Life of Aaron Burr_, p. 272.]

[Footnote 110: _Ibid._, 272.]

[Footnote 111: _Ibid._, 275.]

As the campaign proceeded it became evident to Burr that Republicans were needed as well as Federalists, and a bright young man, William P. Van Ness, who had accompanied Burr to Albany as a favourite companion, wrote Edward Livingston, the brilliant New York congressman, that "it is the sense of the Republicans in this State that, after some trials in the House, Mr. Jefferson should be given up for Mr. Burr."[112] This was wholly conjectural, and Burr and his young friend knew it; but it was a part of the game, since Burr, so Hamilton wrote Morris, "perfectly understands himself with Edward Livingston, who will be his agent at the seat of government," adding that Burr had volunteered the further information "that the Federalists might proceed in the certainty that, upon a second ballot New York and Tennessee would join him."[113] There is no doubt Burr believed then, and for some time afterward, that Edward Livingston was his friend, but he did not know that Jefferson had offered the secretaryship of the navy to Edward's brother, the powerful Chancellor,[114] or that the Chancellor's young brother was filling Jefferson's diary with the doings and sayings of those who were interested in Burr's election. Edward got a United States attorneyship for his treachery, and soon after became a defaulter for thirty thousand dollars under circumstances of culpable carelessness, as the Treasury thought.[115]

[Footnote 112: William P. Van Ness, _Examination of Charges against Aaron Burr_, p. 61.]

[Footnote 113: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 586.]

[Footnote 114: Jefferson to Livingston, Feb. 24, 1801; _Jefferson's Works_, Vol. 4, p. 360.]

[Footnote 115: Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 2, p. 173. _Ibid._, Vol. 1, p. 113.]

The voting began on February 11. On the first ballot eight States voted for Jefferson and six for Burr, Vermont and Maryland being neutralised by an even party division. In this manner the voting continued for six days, through thirty-five ballots, the House taking recesses to give members rest, caucuses opportunity to meet, and the sick time to be brought in on their beds. Finally, on the thirty-sixth ballot, the Vermont Federalist withdrew, and the four Maryland Federalists, with Bayard of Delaware, put in blanks, giving Jefferson ten States and Burr five.

Burr had played his game with the skill of a master. The tactics that elected him to the United States Senate in 1791 and made him a gubernatorial possibility in 1792 were repeated on a larger scale and shrouded in deeper mystery. He had appeared to disavow any intention of supplanting Jefferson, and yet had played for Federalist and Republican support so cleverly that Jefferson pronounced his conduct "honourable and decisive, and greatly embarrassing" to those who tried to "debauch him from his good faith." In the evening of the inauguration, President and Vice President received together the congratulations of their countrymen at the presidential mansion. At Albany banqueting Republicans drank the health of "Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States; his uniform and patriotic exertions in favour of Republicanism eclipsed only by his late disinterested conduct."

But when soberer thoughts came the Republican mind was disturbed with the question why Burr, after the Federalists had openly resolved to support him, did not proclaim on the housetop what he had written to Samuel Smith before the tie was known. Gradually the truth began to dawn as men talked and compared notes, and before three months had elapsed Jefferson's estimate of Burr's character corresponded with Hamilton's. It is of record that from 1790 to 1800 Jefferson considered him "for sale," and when the Virginians, after twice refusing to vote for him, finally sustained him for Vice President, they did so repenting their act.[116]

[Footnote 116: Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, p. 229. Jefferson's _Anas_; _Works_, Vol. 9, p. 207.]

It is not easy to indicate the source of Burr's inherent badness. His father, a clergyman of rare scholarship and culture, became, at the age of thirty-two, the second president of Princeton College, while Jonathan Edwards, his maternal grandfather, whose "Freedom of the Will" made him an intellectual world-force, became its third president; but if one may accept contemporary judgment, Aaron Burr had scarcely one good or great quality of heart. Like Lord Chesterfield, his favourite author, he had intellect without truth or virtue; like Chesterfield, too, he was small in stature and slender.[117] Here, however, the comparison must end if Lord Hervey's description of Chesterfield be accepted, for instead of broad, rough features, and an ugly face, Burr's personal appearance, suggested by the delicately chiselled features in the marble, was the gift of a mother noted for beauty as well as for the inheritance of her father's great intellectuality. Writers never forget the large black eyes, keen and penetrating, so irresistible to gifted and beautiful women. They came from the Edwards side; but from whence came the absence of honour that distinguished this son and grandson of the Princeton presidents, tradition does not inform us.

[Footnote 117: "When the Senate met at ten o'clock on the morning of March 4, 1801, Aaron Burr stood at the desk, and having duly sworn to support the Constitution took his seat in the chair as Vice President. This quiet, gentlemanly and rather dignified figure, hardly taller than Madison, and dressed in much the same manner, impressed with favour all who first met him. An aristocrat imbued in the morality of Lord Chesterfield and Napoleon Bonaparte, Colonel Burr was the chosen head of Northern democracy, idol of the wards of New York City, and aspirant to the highest offices he could reach by means legal or beyond the law; for, as he pleased himself with saying after the manner of the First Consul of the French Republic, 'great souls care little for small morals.'"--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, p. 195.]