f the later-day chiefs of Tammany. To avoid
the already growing rivalry between the Clinton and Livingston
factions, George Clinton and Brockholst Livingston headed the ticket,
followed by Horatio Gates of Revolutionary fame, John Broome, soon to
be lieutenant-governor, Samuel Osgood, for two years Washington's
postmaster-general, John Swartout, already known for his vigorous
record in the Assembly, and others equally acceptable. Burr himself
stood for the county of Orange. For the first time in the history of
political campaigning, too, local managers prepared lists of voters,
canvassed wards by streets, held meetings throughout the city, and
introduced other methods of organisation common enough nowadays, but
decidedly novel then.

Hamilton was alive to the importance of the April election, but
scarcely responsible for the critical character of the situation. He
had not approved the alien and sedition measures, nor did he commit
himself to the persecuting policy sanctioned by most Federal leaders,
and although he favoured suppressing newspaper libels against the
government, he was himself alien-born, and of a mind too broad not to
understand the danger of arousing foreign-born citizens against his
party on lines of national sentiment. "If we make no false step," he
wrote Oliver Wolcott, "we shall be essentially united, but if we push
things to extremes, we shall then give to faction body and
solidity."[90] It was hasty United States attorneys and indiscreet
local politicians rather than the greatest of the Federal leaders,
who gave "to faction body and solidity."

[Footnote 90: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 491.]

Hamilton threw himself with energy into the desperate fight. For four
days, from April 29 to May 2, while the polls were open, he visited
every voting precinct, appealing to the public in his wonderfully
persuasive and captivating manner. On several occasions Burr and
Hamilton met, and it was afterward recalled that courtesy
characterised the conduct of each toward the other, one champion
waiting while the other took his turn. Rarely if ever in the history
of the country have two men of such ability and astuteness
participated in a local canvass. The rivalry was all the more exciting
because it was a rivalry of styles as well as of capacities. Burr was
smooth, polished, concise, never diffuse or declamatory, always
serious and impressive. If we may accept contemporary judgment, he was
a good spe