tion of general anarchy and licentiousness. He was familiarly characterized as an atheist, and the patron saint of French atheists, whom he encouraged to migrate to this country; as a demagogue and disorganizer, industriously sapping the foundations of religion and virtue, and insidiously paving the way for the establishment of a legalized system of infidelity and libertinism. Decency would revolt were we to pursue the catalogue into that low region of obscene invective, which was employed to vilify his private character, and which abounded in fabrications that have been the theme of infinite lampoonry, in prose and verse.

While the madness of faction was thus raging, and attempting to despoil him of his well earned reputation, Mr. Jefferson remained a passive spectator of the scene. Covered with the impenetrable ægis of truth, and supported by a proud consciousness of his innocence, he surveyed, with godlike composure, the impotent tempest of detraction which was furiously howling around him. He was not insensible under the ferocious depredations upon his character; on the contrary, no man was more feelingly alive to unmerited censure, or to well-grounded applause. But his confidence in the ultimate justice of public opinion was even stronger than his sensibility under its temporary reproaches, and he quietly submitted to the licentiousness of the press, as an alloy which was inseparable from the inestimable boon of its freedom. Besides, he felt a glorious and animating pride in being made the subject of the first great experiment in the world, which was to test the soundness of his favorite prinple, that freedom of discussion, unaided by power, was sufficient for the protection and propagation of truth.' Although frequently solicited by his friends, he never would descend to a newspaper refutation of a single calumny; and he never, in a single instance, appealed to the righteous retribution of the laws. "I know," he wrote to a friend in Connecticut, "that I might have filled the courts of the United States with actions for these slanders, and have ruined, perhaps, many persons who are not innocent. But this would be no equivalent for the loss of character. I leave them, therefore, to the reproof of their own consciences. If these do not condemn them, there will yet come a day when the false witness will meet a judge who has not slept over his slanders. If the Rev. Cotton Mather Smith, of Shena, believed this as firmly as I do, he would surely never have affirmed that I had obtained my property

by fraud and robbery; that in one instance I had defrauded and robbed a widow and fatherless children of an estate to which I was executor, of ten thousand pounds sterling, by keeping the property and paying them in money at the nominal rate, when it was worth no more than forty to one; and that all this could be proved." Every tittle of this pulpit denunciation was founded in falsehood. Mr. Jefferson never was executor but in two instances, which happened about the beginning of the Revolution; and he never meddled in either executorship. In one of the cases only were there a widow and children. She was his sister, and retained and managed the estate exclusively in her own hands. In the other case, he was co-parcener, and only received on division the equal portion allotted him. Again, his property was all patrimonial, except about seven or eight hundred pounds' worth, purchased by himself and paid for, not to widows and orphans, but to the gentleman from whom he purchased. The charges against Mr. Jefferson were indeed so audacious, and persevered in with such unblushing assurance, as to excite the solicitude of his friends in different sections of the Union; and they addressed him frequent letters of inquiry on the subject. These he invariably answered with the frankness and liberality which belonged to his disposition; but he annexed to every answer a restraint against its publication. In a letter of this kind to Samuel Smith of Maryland, he concludes:

"These observations will show you how far the imputations in the paragraph sent me approach the truth. Yet they are not intended for a newspaper. At a very early period of my life, I determined never to put a sentence into any newspaper. I have religiously adhered to the resolution through my life, and have great reason to be contented with it. Were I to undertake to answer the calumnies of the newspapers, it would be more than all my own time and that of twenty aids could effect. For while I should be answering one, twenty new ones would be invented. I have thought it better to trust to the justice of my countrymen, that they would judge me by what they see of my conduct on the stage where they have placed me, and what they knew of me before the epoch, since which a particular party has supposed it might answer some view of theirs to vilify me in the public eye. Some, I know, will not reflect how apocryphal is the testimony of enemies so palpably betraying the views with which they give it. But this is an injury to which duty requires every one to submit whom the public think proper to call into its councils. I thank you, my dear Sir, for the have for me on this occasion. Though I have made

interest you

up my mind not to suffer calumny to disturb my tranquillity, yet I retain all my sensibilities for the approbation of the good and just. That is, indeed, the chief consolation for the hatred of so many, who, without the least personal knowledge, and on the sacred evidence of Porcupine and Fenno alone, cover me with their implacable hatred. The only return I will ever make them, will be to do them all the good I can, in spite of their teeth.”

The result of this memorable conflict is fresh in the minds of our countrymen. It established an illustrious epoch in the history of the world. How consolatory to the friend of man, how inspiring to the votary of human rights, under every pressure of adversity, is the recollection of that bloodless and glory-hallowed triumph! It realized, beyond the power of future dismay, the confidence of those who believe that man may be intrusted with the government of his affairs, while it carried a proportional abortion to the hopes and machinations of the apostate revilers of republicanism. Its memory will be immortal, as the era of the political resurrection of man, by the triumphant re-establishment, under new and better auspices, of the sacred principles of the Revolution.

Mr. Jefferson was successful over his competitor by a vote of seventy-three to sixty-five, in the electoral colleges. The states of New York, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, were unanimous for him. The New England states, with Delaware and New Jersey, were unanimous for Mr. Adams. Pennsylvania and North Carolina, acting by districts, gave a majority of votes to Mr. Jefferson; and Maryland was equally divided between the two candidates.

But owing to a strange defect in the Constitution, or an unaccountable inattention to its provisions, an unexpected contingency arose which threatened to reverse the declared will of the nation, and to place in the Executive Chair a man, who, it was notorious, had not received a solitary vote for that station. Mr. Jefferson was elected President, and Aaron Burr Vice President, by an equal number of votes; and, as the Constitution required no specification of the office, for which each respectively was designed, but simply confined the choice to the person having the highest number of votes, the consequence was that neither had the majority required by law. Under this dilemma, the election devolved on the House of Representatives, and produced storms of an unprecedented character. The federalists seized on the occasion, as a capital one for

acting on the monarchical principle of corruption, and bidding defiance to the acknowledged suffrage of the people. They held a private caucus, and resolved on the daring alternatives, either to elect Burr in the room of Jefferson, or, by preventing a choice altogether, to create an interregnum. In the latter event, they agreed to pass an act of Congress, devolving the government on a President, pro tem, of the Senate, who would of course be a person of their choice. On the developement of this conspiracy, a tremendous sensation was excited. The republicans declared, one and all, openly and firmly, that in the event of a legislative usurpation, devolving the government on a President of the Senate, the republican states would instantly arm, and resist the usurpation by force. On the 11th of February, the House proceeded in the manner prescribed by the Constitution to elect a President of the United States. The representatives were required to vote by States, instead of by persons. On opening the ballots it appeared there were eight states for Mr. Jefferson, six for Colonel Burr, and two divided; consequently there was no choice. The process was repeated, and the same result was indicated, through FIVE successive days and nights, and THIRTY-FIVE ballotings. During this long and awful suspense, the decision depended on a single vote! Either one of the federalists from the divided States, Vermont and Maryland, coming over to the republican side, would have made a ninth State, and decided the election in favor of Mr. Jefferson. But the opposition appeared invincible in the resolution to have a minority President, or to break up the elective succession. The republicans, on the other hand, deserve eternal praises for the inflexibility of their adherence to the will of the people. Various and weighty overtures were made to them, but they resisted them all; while, what is equally honorable, not a single overture is pretended to have proceeded from them! Their fidelity on this occasion, was even stronger than their love of existence; for while they were equally incapable of being either the subjects or the agents of corruption, they would have resigned their lives, at any moment, to have saved the election of Mr. Jefferson. A precious reminiscence, in proof of this assertion, is related by a distinguished lady* of Washington :-"Mr. N. one of the representatives from Maryland, had been for

*Mrs. S. H. Smith. See Mrs. Hale's Magazine, Nov. 1831.

some weeks confined to his bed, and was so ill that his life was considered in danger; ill as he was, he insisted on being carried to the Hall of Representatives, in order to give his vote. The physicians absolutely forbid such a proceeding; he insisted, and they appealed to his wife, telling her that such a removal, and the consequent excitement, might prove fatal to his life. Be it so, then,' said she, 'if my husband must die, let it be at the post of duty; no weak. ness of mine shall oppose his noble resolution.' How little did these physicians expect, when they appealed to the influence of one of the fondest and most devoted of wives, this' more than Spartan courage, and in an American, to find a Roman matron! Of course they withdrew their opposition; the patient was carried, in a litter, to the Capitol, where a bed was prepared for him in an anti-room adjoining the Senate Chamber, followed by his heroic wife, where, during the four or five days and nights of ballotting, she remained by his side; supporting by various restoratives, but more by her presence, the strength of the feeble and almost expiring invalid, who with difficulty traced the name of Jefferson each time the ballot box was handed to him. Such was the spirit of that day-the spirit of that party!"

Finally, on the thirty-sixth ballot, the opposition gave way, ap parently from sheer exhaustion. Mr. Morris of Vermont withdrew, which enabled his only colleague, Lyon, to give the vote of that State to Mr. Jefferson. The four federalists from Maryland, who had hitherto supported Burr, voted blanks, which made the positive ticket of their colleagues the vote of that State. South Carolina and Delaware, both represented by federalists, voted blanks. So there were, on the last ballot, ten States for Mr. Jefferson, four for Colonel Burr, and two blanks. The result, on being proclaimed, was greeted with loud and reiterated bursts of applause from the galleries, which were immediately ordered by the Speaker to be cleared. Mr. Jefferson did not receive a federal, nor Colonel Burr a democratic vote. The latter became, of course, Vice President; but his apostacy separated him irretrievably from the confidence of the re

*

* On the last ballot, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryand, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, voted for Mr. Jefferson. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, or Colonel Burr. Delaware and South Carolina, voted blanks.