dimmed in a stormy hour, his statesmanship would have controlled him in
such a crisis as this. He knew that the rejection of the treaty would
shatter the Federal party and cause national schisms and discords; that,
if left over to a Jacobin administration, the result would be still
worse for the United States. It was a poor thing, but no doubt the best
that could have been extracted from triumphant France; nor was it as bad
in some respects as the irritated Senate would have it. Such as it was,
it must be ratified, peace placed to the credit of the Federalists, and
the act of the man they had made President justified. Hamilton was
obliged to write a great many letters on the subject, for the
Federalists found it a bitter pill to swallow; but he prevailed and they
swallowed it.

Meanwhile, the Electoral College had met. Adams had received sixty-five
votes, Pinckney sixty-four, Jefferson and Burr seventy-three each. That
threw the decision upon the House of Representatives, for Burr refused
to recognize the will of the people, and withdraw in favour of the man
whom the Democratic hemisphere of American politics had unanimously
elected. Burr had already lost caste with the party by his attempts to
secure more votes than the leaders were willing to give him, and had
alarmed Jefferson into strenuous and diplomatic effort, the while he
piously folded his visible hands or discoursed upon the bones of the
mammoth. When Burr, therefore, permitted the election to go to the
House, he was flung out of the Democratic party neck and crop, and
Jefferson treated him like a dog until he killed Hamilton, when he gave
a banquet in his honour. Burr's only chance for election lay with the
Federalists, who would rather have seen horns and a tail in the
Executive Chair than Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton had anticipated their
hesitation and disposition to bargain with Burr, and he bombarded them
with letters from the moment the Electoral College announced the result,
until the House decided the question on the 17th of February. He
analyzed Burr for the benefit of the anxious members until the dark and
poisonous little man must have haunted their dreams at night. Whether
they approached Burr or not will never be known; but they were finally
convinced that to bargain with a man as unfigurable as water would be
throwing away time which had far better be employed in extracting
pledges from Jefferson.

One of Hamilton's letters to Gouverneur Morris,