Fortunately for the country, Federalist Alexander Hamilton, who knew
Burr was unfit to be President, opposed his party’s plan to defeat
Jefferson. But while this crucial decision was being made, the nation
waited breathlessly. The excitement in Washington is recorded in the
following selection from the notebook of Margaret Bayard Smith, wife of
the editor of the _National Intelligencer_.
It was an awful crisis. The people, who with such an overwhelming
majority had declared their will, would never peaceably have allowed
the man of their choice to be set aside and the individual they had
chosen as Vice-President to be put in his place. A civil war must have
taken place, to be terminated in all human probability by a rupture of
the Union. Such consequences were at least calculated on and excited a
deep and inflammatory interest. Crowds of anxious spirits from the
adjacent county and cities thronged to the seat of government and hung
like a thunder cloud over the Capitol, their indignation ready to
burst on any individual who might be designated as President in
opposition to the people’s known choice. The citizens of Baltimore,
who from their proximity were the first apprised of this daring
design, were with difficulty restrained from rushing on with an armed
force, to prevent—or if they could not prevent, to avenge this
violation of the people’s will and in their own vehement language to
hurl the usurper from his seat.
Mr. Jefferson, then President of the Senate, sitting in the midst of
these _conspirators_, as they were then called, unavoidably hearing
their loudly whispered designs, witnessing their gloomy and restless
machinations, aware of the dreadful consequences which must follow
their meditated designs, preserved through this trying period the most
unclouded serenity, the most perfect equanimity. A spectator who
watched his countenance would never have surmised that he had any
personal interest in the impending event. Calm and self-possessed, he
retained his seat in the midst of the angry and stormy, though
half-smothered passions that were struggling around him, and by this
dignified tranquility repressed any open violence. Though insufficient
to prevent whispered menaces and insults, to these, however, he turned
a deaf ear and resolutely maintained a placidity which baffled the
designs of his enemies.
The crisis was at hand. The two bodies of Congress met, the Senators
as witnesses, the Representatives as electors. The question on which
hung peace or war, nay, the union of the states was to be decided.
What an awful responsibility was attached to every vote given on that
occasion. The sitting was held with closed doors. It lasted the whole
day, the whole night. Not an individual left that solemn assembly; the
necessary refreshment they required was taken in rooms adjoining the
Hall. They were not like the Roman conclave legally and forcibly
confined; the restriction was self-imposed from the deep-felt
necessity of avoiding any extrinsic or external influence. Beds, as
well as food, were sent for the accommodation of those whom age or
debility disabled from enduring such a long-protracted sitting. The
balloting took place every hour—in the interval men ate, drank, slept
or pondered over the result of the last ballot, compared ideas and
persuasions to change votes, or gloomily anticipated the consequences,
let the result be what it would.
With what an intense interest did every individual watch each
successive examination of the ballot-box; how breathlessly did they
listen to the counting of the votes! Every hour a messenger brought to
the editor of the _National Intelligencer_ the result of the ballot.
That night I never lay down or closed my eyes. As the hour drew near
its close, my heart would almost audibly beat, and I was seized with a
tremour that almost disabled me from opening the door for the expected
messenger....
For more than thirty hours the struggle was maintained, but finding
the Republican phalanx impenetrable, not to be shaken in their
purpose, every effort proving unavailing, the Senator from Delaware
[_James A. Bayard—actually a Representative_], the withdrawal of whose
vote would determine the issue, took his part, gave up his party, for
his country, and threw into the box a blank ballot, thus leaving to
the Republicans a majority. Mr. Jefferson was declared duly elected.
The assembled crowds, without the Capitol, rent the air with their
acclamations and gratulations, and the conspirators, as they were
called, hurried to their lodgings under strong apprehensions of
suffering from the just indignation of their fellow citizens.
The dark and threatening cloud which had hung over the political
horizon rolled harmlessly away, and the sunshine of prosperity and
gladness broke forth and ever since, with the exception of a few
passing clouds, has continued to shine on our happy country.