the nominal rate, when it was worth no more than forty to one; and that all this could be proved.' Every tittle of this grave denunciation was founded in falsehood. Mr Jefferson was an executor but in two instances, which happened about the beginning of the revolution; and he never meddled in either executorship. In one of the cases only were there a widow and children. She was his sister, and retained and managed the estate exclusively in her own hands. In the other case he was coparcener, and only received on division the equal portion allotted him. Again, his property was all patrimonial, except about seven or eight hundred pounds' worth, purchased by himself and paid for, not to widows and orphans, but to the gentleman from whom he purchased. The charges against Mr Jefferson were indeed so audacious, and persevered in with such assurance, as to excite the solicitude of his friends in different sections of the union; and they addressed him frequent letters of inquiry on the subject. These he invariably answered with frankness and liberality; but he annexed to every answer a restraint against its publication. In a letter of this kind to Samuel Smith of Maryland, he concludes:

These observations will show you how far the imputations in the paragraph sent me approach the truth. Yet they are not intended for a newspaper. At a very early period of my life, I determined never to put a sentence into any newspaper. I have religiously adhered to the resolution through my life, and have great reason to be contented with it. Were I to undertake to answer the calumnies of the newspapers, it would be more than all my own time and that of twenty aids could effect. For while I should be answering one, twenty new ones would be invented. I have thought it better to trust to the justice of my countrymen, that they would judge me by what they see of my conduct on the stage where they have placed me, and what they knew of me before the epoch, since which a particular party has supposed it might answer some view of theirs to vilify me in the

public eye. Some, I know, will not reflect how apocryphal is the testimony of enemies so palpably betraying But this is an injury the views with which they give it.

to which duty requires every one to submit whom the public think proper to call into its councils. I thank you, my dear Sir, for the interest you have for me on this occasion. Though I have made up my mind not to suffer calumny to disturb my tranquillity, yet I retain all my sensibilities for the approbation of the good and just. That is, indeed, the chief consolation for the hatred of so many, who, without the least personal knowledge, and on the evidence of mercenary calumniators alone, cover me with their implacable hatred. The only return I will ever make them, will be to do them all the good I can, in spite of their teeth.'

Mr Jefferson was successful over his competitor by a vote of seventy-three to sixty-five, in the electoral colleges. The States of New York, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, were unanimous for him. The New England States, with Delaware and New Jersey, were unanimous for Mr Adams. Pennsylvania and North Carolina, acting by districts, gave a majority of votes to Mr Jefferson; and Maryland was equally divided between the two candidates.

But owing to a defect in the constitution, or an inattention to its provisions, an unexpected contingency arose, which threatened to reverse the will of the nation, and to place in the executive chair a man who, it was notorious, had not received a solitary vote for that station. Mr Jefferson was elected president, and Aaron Burr vice president, by an equal number of votes; and as the constitution required no specification of the office for which each respectively was designed, but simply confined the choice to the person having the highest number of votes, the consequence was that neither had the majority required by law. In this dilemma, the election devolved on the house of representatives, and

produced storms of an unprecedented character. The federalists seized on the occasion, to favor their own peculiar political principles. They held a caucus, and resolved on the alternative, either to elect Burr in the room of Jefferson, or, by preventing a choice altogether, to create an interregnum. In the latter event, they agreed to pass an act of Congress, devolving the government on a president, pro tem, of the senate, who would perhaps have been a person of their choice.

On the 11th of February, the house proceeded in the manner prescribed by the constitution to elect a president of the United States. The representatives were required to vote by States, instead of by persons. On opening the ballots it appeared that there were eight States for Mr Jefferson, six for colonel Burr, and two divided; consequently there was no choice. The process was repeated, and the same result was indicated, through FIVE successive days and nights, and THIRTYFIVE ballotings.

During this long suspense, the decision depended on a single vote! Either one of the federalists from the divided States, Vermont and Maryland, coming over to the republican side, would have made a ninth State, and decided the election in favor of Mr Jefferson. But the opposition appeared invincible in the resolution to have a president of their own choice.

6

Mr N. a representative from Maryland, had been for some weeks confined to his bed, and was so ill that his life was considered in danger. Ill as he was, he insisted on being carried to the hall of representatives, in order to give his vote. The physicians forbade such a proceeding; he insisted, and they appealed to his wife, telling her that such a removal, and the consequent excitement, might prove fatal to his life. "Be it so, then," said she, "if my husband must die, let it be at the post of duty; no weakness of mine shall oppose his noble resolution." How little did these physicians expect,

when they appealed to the influence of one of the fondest and most devoted of wives, this courage. Of course they withdrew their opposition; the patient was carried, in a litter, to the capitol, where a bed was prepared for him in an ante-room adjoining the senate chamber, followed by his wife, where, during the four or five days and nights of balloting, she remained by his side; supporting the strength of the feeble invalid, who with difficulty traced the name of Jefferson each time the ballot box was handed to him. Such was the spirit of that day—the spirit of that party!'

Finally, on the thirty-sixth ballot the opposition gave way, apparently from exhaustion. Mr Morris of Vermont withdrew, which enabled his only colleague, Lyon, to give the vote of that State to Mr Jefferson. The four federalists from Maryland, who had hitherto supported Burr, voted blanks, which made the positive ticket of their colleagues the vote of that State. South Carolina and Delaware, both represented by federalists voted blanks. So there were on the last ballot, ten States for Mr Jefferson, four for colonel Burr, and two blanks. The result, on being proclaimed, was greeted with applause from the galleries, which were immediately ordered by the speaker to be cleared. Mr Jefferson did not receive a federal, nor colonel Burr a democratic vote. The latter became, of course, vice president; but his apostacy separated him irretrievably from the confidence of the republicans, while it demonstrated his fitness for those treasonable purposes of ambition which he subsequently manifested.

* On the last ballot, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, voted for Mr Jefferson. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, for colonel Burr. Delaware and South Carolina, voted blanks.

CHAPTER XIII.

On the fourth of March, 1801, Mr Jefferson was inducted into office. The crowd of strangers who had thronged the city during the previous period of agitation, had disappeared, on the understanding that it was the pleasure of the president to be made the subject of no homage or ceremony. The city of Washington had been occupied, as the seat of government, but a few months only; the number of its inhabitants, at this time, did not exceed that of a small village; the individuals composing the late administration had taken their departure with the ex-president, early on the fourth of March; and now, divested of half its migratory population, the infant metropolis presented a solitary appearance. The simplicity of the scene, and of the ceremony of inauguration, is described by a Washington reminiscent :- 'The sun shone bright on that morning. The senate was convened. Those members of the republican party that remained at the seat of government, the judges of the supreme court, some citizens, and persons from the neighboring country, and about a dozen ladies, made up the assembly in the senate chamber, who were collected to witness the ceremony of the president's inauguration. Mr Jefferson had not yet arrived. He was seen walking from his lodgings, which were not far distant, attended by five or six gentlemen, who were his fellow lodgers. Soon afterwards he entered, accompanied by a committee of the senate, and bowing to the senate, who arose to receive him, he approached a table on which the bible