ved in Hamilton's proposed violation of moral
ethics, but it places the suggestion in the environment to which it
properly belongs, making it appear no worse if no better than the
political practices of that day.

CHAPTER IX

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