Troup knew that it was useless to remonstrate further.  He had followed this Captain to the bitter end too often.  Underneath the immense sanity of Hamilton’s mind was a curious warp of obstinacy, born of implacability and developed far beyond the normal bounds of determination.  When this almost perverted faculty was in possession of the brain, Hamilton would pursue his object, did every guardian in his genius, from foresight to acuteness, rise in warning.  His present policy if a failure might be the death of the Federalist party, but the flashing presentiment of that historic disaster did not deter him for a moment.

“It is the time for politics,” Hamilton continued.  “Statesmanship goes begging.  I shall be entirely frank about it, for that matter.  There will be no underhand scheming, Adams is welcome to know every step I take.  The correspondence must begin at once.  I’ll make out a list for you.  I shall begin with Wolcott.”

IV

When the tidings of the New York election reached Philadelphia, the Federals of the House met in alarmed and hurried conference.  In their desperation they agreed to ask Hamilton to appeal to the Governor of New York, John Jay, to reconvene the existing legislature that it might enact a law authorizing in that State the choice of Presidential electors in districts.  Why they did not send a memorial to Jay themselves, instead of placing Hamilton in a position to incur the full odium of such a suggestion, can only be explained by the facts that during the entire span of the party’s existence, their leader had cheerfully assumed the responsibility in every emergency or crisis, and that if the distinguished formalist in the Executive Mansion of New York had a weak spot in him, it was for Hamilton.

When Hamilton read this portentous letter, he flushed deeply and then turned white.  The expedient had not occurred to him, but it was too near of kin to his disapproval of a provision which had delivered the State into the hands of an industrious rascal, not to strike an immediate response; especially in his present frame of mind.  He was alone with his wife at the moment, and he handed her the letter.  She read it twice, then laid it on the table.  “It savours very much of fraud, to me,” she said.  “Why do politics so often go to the head?”

“Sometimes one sort rises as an antidote to another.  There comes a time in human affairs when one is forced into a position of choosing between two evils; a time when the scruples of delicacy and propriety, as relative to a common course of things, ought to yield to the extraordinary nature of the crisis.”

“Right is right, and wrong is wrong,” said Betsey, with her Dutch sturdiness.  “This measure—­were it adopted by Mr. Jay—­would merely mean that the party in power was taking an unconstitutional advantage of its situation to nullify the victories gained by the other.”