s nominated for
governor by a group of his friends in the legislature, in opposition to
the Clinton faction. It was well known that many Federalists would
support his candidacy. At this crucial moment, Pickering and Griswold
sought out Burr as an ally. As Governor of New York, they intimated, he
would be in a strategic position and could take the lead in the
secession of the Northern States. His leadership in the movement, in
short, was to be the price of Federalist support at the polls. But the
shifty Burr would not commit himself further than to promise an
administration satisfactory to the Federalists. The conspirators had to
rest content with this vague assurance and to count on Burr's ambition,
and his desire to be revenged upon his enemies, to bind him to their
cause.

Meantime, Alexander Hamilton was straining every nerve to prevent the
Federalists from indorsing the man who stood in the way of his own
ambition and whom he believed to be a dangerous and unprincipled
character. Some vestige of prudence kept the party from committing
itself openly to Burr, but its vote was cast for him. Burr carried his
old stronghold, New York City, but he was beaten elsewhere in the State.
The hopes of the Federalists were shattered; the conspirators were
confounded; and the bubble of a Northern Confederacy vanished.

The immediate consequences of this political episode were personal.
Hamilton had again thwarted the ambitions and incurred the deadly enmity
of an embittered political desperado. A challenge followed and was
accepted. On a summer morning, July 11, 1804, at Weehawken across the
Hudson, the rivals faced each other for the last time. Hamilton threw
away his fire: Burr aimed with murderous intent, and Hamilton fell
mortally wounded. From this moment Burr was a marked man and an outcast
from respectable society in the East. The newer society of the West,
less sensitive in such matters, thought none the less of a man who had
shot his foe in a fair fight. Thither Burr betook himself when his term
of office expired.

As the presidential election approached, the Republicans determined to
prevent any recurrence of the accident which had so nearly seated Burr
in the President's chair. This resolve took the form of a constitutional
amendment which provided that presidential electors should designate on
distinct ballots the persons voted for as President and Vice-President.
To change the Constitution in this wise was a delica