“You will live to see every prophecy I have made in regard to Burr fulfilled.  I will not, because so long as I am alive he shall not even attempt to split the Union, to whose accomplishment and maintenance I pledged every faculty and my last vital spark.  Sanguine and visionary he may be, but he is also cunning and quick, and there is a condition ready to his hand at the present moment.  Jefferson is bad enough, Heaven knows.  He has retained our machinery, but I sometimes fancy I can hear the crumbling of the foundations; the demoralizing and the disintegrating process began even sooner than I expected.  He is appealing to the meanest passion of mankind, vanity; and the United States, which we tried to make the ideal Republic, is galloping toward the most mischievous of all establishments, Democracy.  Every cowherd hopes to be President.  What is the meaning of civilization, pray, if the educated, enlightened, broad-minded, are not to rule?  Is man permitted to advance, progress, embellish his understanding, for his own selfish benefit, or for the benefit of mankind?  And how can his superiority avail his fellows unless he be permitted to occupy the high offices of responsibility?  God knows, he is not happy in his power; he is, indeed, a sacrifice to the mass.  But so it was intended.  He is the only sufferer, and mankind is happier.”

“Jefferson and Burr both have a consummate knowledge of the limited understanding; they know how to tickle it with painted straws and bait it with lies.  Bonaparte is not a greater autocrat than Jefferson, but our tyrant fools the world with his dirty old clothes and his familiarities.  But I am not to be diverted.  I want to keep you for my old age.  I believe that you have done your part.  It has been a magnificent part; there is no greater in history.  Your friends are satisfied.  So should you be.  I want you to give up politics before it is too late.  I fear more than one evil, and it has kept me awake many nights.  Burr is not the only one who wishes you under ground.  His ‘little band’ is composed of men who are worse than himself without one of his talents.  Any one of them is capable of stabbing you in the dark.  The Virginia Junta know that the Federalist party will exist as long as you do, and that some external menace might cohere and augment it again under your leadership.  At every Federalist banquet last Fourth you were toasted as the greatest man in America; and I know this undiminished enthusiasm—­as well as the influence of the Evening Post—­alarms them deeply.  They are neither great enough nor bad enough to murder you, nor even to employ someone to do it; but more than one needy rascal knows that he has only to call you out and kill you according to the code, to be rewarded with an office as soon as decency permits.  There is another menace.  I suppose you have heard that Mrs. Croix married a Frenchman named Stephen Jumel while you were in Albany?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Hamilton, with interest; “who is he?”