nal
intercourse."

The last important trial in which Hamilton was engaged, the case of the
People against Harry Croswell, in the Supreme Court, a few months before
his untimely death, is memorable also for his maintenance of the right
of juries to determine the law as well as the fact in cases of libel.

The party politics of the time had been broken up in the simplicity of
their outline by the administration of John Adams. Aaron Burr was the
most prominent intriguer in the field. He had attained the
vice-presidency, and the choice hung for a while suspended between him
and Jefferson for the presidency. Between the two, Hamilton, who had
formed an unfavorable opinion of the character of Burr, preferred his
old antagonist, Jefferson, and cast his influence accordingly. When Burr
afterward sought the office of Governor of New York, in a contest with a
member of his own Republican party, in which he relied upon the support
of the Federalists, he was defeated by Hamilton, who made no secret of
his opposition. Smarting under the failure of his intrigue, Burr
determined to challenge the honest man who stood in his way to power. He
had no ground of personal offence bringing Hamilton within any
justifiable pretensions even of the lax code of the duellist. The
expressions which he called upon him to avow or disavow, were vague, and
were based upon the report of a person who specified neither time,
place, nor the words. It was a loose matter of hearsay which was
alleged--evidently a wanton provocation to a murderous duel. Burr
demanded so broad a retraction from Hamilton of all he might have said,
that compliance was impossible. It was an attempt to procure an
indorsement of his character at the cost of the moral character of the
indorser. Hamilton despised the manoeuvre, but perceiving that a meeting
was forced upon him, and unhappily determining, contrary to his better
judgment, that his usefulness would be destroyed in the public affairs
of the times if he avoided the contest, fell into the fatal snare.

He executed his will, in which he made provision for his family and
creditors, thinking tenderly of his wife, enjoining his children to bear
in mind she had been to them the most devoted and best of mothers. On
the night preceding the appointment he wrote a paper declaring his
intention to throw away his fire, and acquitting himself before the
world of the malice of the duellist, while he rested his conduct upon
his usefuln