en violated; and instead of a President, it would have had
a mute, a sort of image, hand-bound and tongue-tied, the dupe and slave
of a party, placed on the theatre of the United States, and acting the
farce of President.

It is of little importance, in a constitutional sense, to know what the
terms to be proposed might be, because any terms other than those which
the constitution prescribes to a President are criminal. Neither do I
see how Mr. Burr, or any other person put in the same condition, could
have taken the oath prescribed by the constitution to a President, which
is, "_I do solemnly swear (or affirm,) that I will faithfully execute
the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of
my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United
States_."

How, I ask, could such a person have taken such an oath, knowing at the
same time that he had entered into the Presidency on terms unknown
in the Constitution, and private, and which would deprive him of the
freedom and power of acting as President of the United States, agreeably
to his constitutional oath?

Mr. Burr, by not agreeing to terms, has escaped the danger to which
they exposed him, and the perjury that would have followed, and also
the punishment annexed thereto. Had he accepted the Presidency on
terms unknown in the constitution, and private, and had the transaction
afterwards transpired, (which it most probably would, for roguery is a
thing difficult to conceal,) it would have produced a sensation in the
country too violent to be quieted, and too just to be resisted; and in
any case the election must have been void.

But what are we to think of those members of Congress, who having taken
an oath of the same constitutional import as the oath of the President,
violate that oath by tampering to obtain a President on private
conditions. If this is not sedition against the constitution and the
country, it is difficult to define what sedition in a representative can
be.

Say not that this statement of the case is the effect of personal or
party resentment. No. It is the effect of _sincere concern_ that such
corruption, of which this is but a sample, should, in the space of a few
years, have crept into a country that had the fairest opportunity that
Providence ever gave, within the knowledge of history, of making itself
an illustrious example to the world.

What the terms were, or were to be, it is probable we never sha