promise is uncertain. If such bargain were made,
General Samuel Smith was the channel of arrangement, and in view of the
inexplicable and ignominious deference of Jefferson and Madison to his
political demands, there is little doubt that he held a secret power
which they dared not resist. Gallatin felt it, suffered from it,
protested against it, but submitted to it.

The fear was that Congress might adjourn without a conclusion. To meet
this emergency Mr. Gallatin devised a plan of balloting in the House,
which he communicated to Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Nicholas. It stated the
objects of the Federalists to be, 1st, to elect Burr; 2d, to defeat the
present election and order a new one; 3d, to assume _executive_ power
during the interregnum. These he considers, and suggests alternative
action in case of submission or resistance on the part of the
Republicans. The Federalists, holding three branches of government,
viz., the presidency, a majority in the Senate, and a majority in the
House, might pass a law declaring that one of the great officers
designated by the Constitution should act as president pro tempore,
which would be constitutional. But while Mr. Gallatin in this paragraph
admitted such a law to be constitutional, in the next he argued that the
act of the person designated by law, or of the president pro tempore,
assuming the power is clearly "unconstitutional." By this ingenious
process of reasoning, to which the strict constructionists have always
been partial, it might be unconstitutional to carry out constitutional
law. The assumption of such power was therefore, Mr. Gallatin held,
usurpation, to be resisted in one of two ways; by declaring the interval
till the next session of Congress an interregnum, allowing all laws not
immediately connected with presidential powers to take their course, and
opposing a silent resistance to all others; or by the Republicans
assuming the executive power by a joint act of the two candidates, or by
the relinquishment of all claims by one of them. On the other hand, the
proposed outlines of Republican conduct were, 1st, to persevere in
voting for Mr. Jefferson; 2d, to use every endeavor to defeat any law on
the subject; 3d, to try to persuade Mr. Adams to refuse his consent to
any such law and not to call the Senate on any account if there should
be no choice by the House.

In a letter written in 1848 Mr. Gallatin said that a provision by law,
that if there should be no electi