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, who wielded much influence in the House, is typical of many.

...  Another subject. Jefferson or Burr?  The former beyond a doubt.  The latter in my judgement has no principle, public or private; could be bound by no agreement; will listen to no monitor but his ambition; and for this purpose will use the worst portion of the community as a ladder to climb to permanent power, and an instrument to crush the better part.  He is bankrupt beyond redemption, except by the resources that grow out of war and disorder; or by a sale to a foreign power, or by great peculation.  War with Great Britain would be the immediate instrument.  He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing.  From the elevation of such a man may heaven preserve the country.

Let our situation be improved to obtain from Jefferson assurances on certain points:  the maintenance of the present system, especially on the cardinal articles of public credit—­a navy, neutrality.  Make any discreet use you may think fit of this letter.

He was deeply alarmed at the tendency of the excited House, which sat in continuous session from the 11th to the 17th, members sleeping on the floor and sick men brought thither on cots, one with his wife in attendance.  The South was threatening civil war, and Burr’s subsequent career justified his alarm and his warnings; but in spite of his great influence he won his case with his followers by a very small margin.  They were under no delusions regarding the character of Burr, their letters to Hamilton abound in strictures almost as severe as his own, but their argument was that he was the less of two evils, that every move he made could be sharply watched.  It is quite true that he would have had Federalists and Democrats in both Houses to frustrate him; but it does not seem to have occurred to the former that impeachment would have been inevitable, and Jefferson President but a year or two later than the will of the people decreed.  But it was a time of terrible excitement, and for the matter of that their brains