CHAPTER XV—THE INTRIGUE OF THE TIE
HAMILTON writhes and twists like a hurt snake. Helpless in that first effort before the adamantine honesty of Jay, when the breath of his courage returns, he bends himself to consider, whether by other means, fair or foul, the election may not yet be stolen for Pinckney. He sends out a flock of letters to the Federal leaders, whom he addresses loftily as their commander in chief of party.
It is now he receives a fresh stab. By their replies, and rather in the cool tone than in the substance, the Federal chiefs show that his bare word is no longer enough to move them. Washington is dead; that potential name no more remains to conjure with. And now, to the passing of Washington, has been added his own defeat. The two disasters leave his voice of scanty consequence in the parliaments of the Federalists. He finds this out from such as Cabot of Massachusetts, Cooper of New York and Bayard of Delaware, who peremptorily decline a Pinckney intrigue as worse than hopeless. They propose instead—and therein lurks horror—that the Federal electors be asked to abandon Adams for Aaron. They can take the Adams electors, they argue, and, with what may be coaxed from the Jefferson strength, make Aaron President—their President—the President of the Federalists.
The suggestion to take up Aaron shocks Hamilton even more than does his discovered loss of power—which latter, of itself, is as a blade of ice through his heart. It is bitter to lose the election; more bitter to learn that his decree is no longer regarded; most bitter to hear of Aaron as a possible President, and by Federal votes at that. Broken of heart and hope, the deposed king retires to his country seat, the Grange, and sits in mourning with his soul.
Meanwhile, Aaron, as though a presidency in his personal favor possesses but minor interest, devotes himself to the near nuptials of baby Theo, who is to marry Joseph Alston, a rich young rice planter of South Carolina.
Having turned the shoulder of their disregard to Hamilton, the Federal chiefs confer among themselves by letter and word of mouth. Their great purpose is to save themselves from Jefferson, whom they fear and hate. They would sooner have Aaron, as not so much the stark democrat as is the Man of Monticello. There be folk to whom nothing is so full of terror in a democracy as a democrat; and our Federalists are white at the thought of Jefferson. Aaron would suit them better; they think him less of a leveler. Still they must know his feelings. They will bind him with promises; for they, cautious gentlemen, have no notion of buying a pig in a poke. They seek out Aaron, who has left off politics for orange wreaths and is up to the ears in baby Theo’s wedding. As a preliminary they send his lieutenant, Swartwout, to take soundings.
“If the presidency be tendered, will you accept?” asks Swartwout.
“Assuredly! There are two things, sir, no gentleman may decline—a lady and a presidency.”
Aaron sobers a bit after this small flippancy, and tells Swartwout that, should he be chosen, he will serve.
“There can be no refusal,” he says. “The electors are free to make their choice, and he on whom they pitch must serve. Mark this, however,” he goes on, warningly; “I shall lift neither hand nor head in the business; the thing must come to me unsought and uninvited. Also, since you, yourself, are of those who will select the electors for our own State, I tell you, as you value my friendship, that New York must go to Jefferson. We carried the State for him, and he shall have it.”
Following Swartwout’s visit, Federalists Cabot and Bayard wait upon Aaron. They point out that he can be President; but they seek to condition it upon certain promises.
“Gentlemen,” returns Aaron, “I know not what in my past has led you to this journey. I’ve no promises to make. Should I ever be President, I shall be no man’s president but my own.”
“Think of the honor, sir!” says Federalist Bayard.
“Honor?” repeats Aaron. “Now I should call it disgrace indeed if I went into the White House in fetters to you. Believe me, I can see my own way to honor, sir; you need hold no candle to my feet.”
Although rebuffed by Aaron, the Federal chiefs—all save the broken Hamilton, eating out his baffled heart at the Grange—none the less go forward with their designs. They call away from Adams what electors will follow them, and gain a handful from Jefferson besides. The law-demanded vote is finally taken and the count shows Jefferson seventy-three, Aaron seventy-three, Adams sixty-five, Jay one.
No name having received a majority, the ejection must go to the House. The sixteen States, expressing themselves through their House delegations and owning each one vote, are now to pick the world a president. At this the campaign is all to fight over again. But in a different way, on different ground, and the two candidates Jefferson and Aaron.
In the weeks which pass before the House convenes, Federalist Bayard, in the heat of the pulling and hauling among House men, makes a second pilgrimage to Aaron. The latter, baby Theo being by this time safely married and abroad upon her honeymoon, has leisure to talk.
Federalist Bayard lays open the situation, “As affairs are,” he explains—he has made a count of noses—“Jefferson, when the House convenes, will have New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and his home State of Virginia. You, for your side, will have New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, South Carolina, and my own State of Delaware. The delegations of Maryland and Vermont, being evenly divided between yourself and Jefferson, will have no voice. The tally will show eight for Jefferson, six for you, two not voting. None the less, in the face of these figures the means of electing you exist. By deceiving one man—a great blockhead—and tempting two—not incorruptible—you can still secure a majority of the States. I——”
“You have said enough, sir,” breaks in Aaron. “I shall deceive no one, tempt no one; not even you. Go, sir; carry what I say to what ring of Federalists you represent. Also, you may consider yourself personally fortunate that I do not ask how far your conduct should have construction as an insult.”
Federalist Bayard hurries away with a red face and a flea in his ear. Gulping his chagrin, he tells his fellow chiefs that the obdurate Aaron will do nothing, consent to nothing, to help himself.
Jefferson does not share Aaron’s chill indifference. While the latter comports himself as carelessly as though a White House is an edifice of every day, the Man of Monticello goes as far the other way, and feels all the uneasy anger of him who is on the brink of being robbed. He calls on the wooden Adams, and demands that the wooden one exert his influence with his party in favor of Aaron’s defeat.
“It is I, sir,” says Jefferson, “whom the people elected; and you should see their will respected.”
Adams grows warm. “Sir,” he retorts, “the event is in your power. Say that you will do justice to the Federalists, and the government will instantly be put into your hands.”
“If such be your answer, sir,” returns Jefferson, equaling, if not surpassing the Adams heat, “I have to tell you that I do not intend to come into the presidency by capitulation.”
Jefferson leaves the White House, while Adams—who is practical, even if high-tempered—begins his preparations to create and fill twenty-three life judgeships, before his successor shall take possession.
As much as the Man of Monticello, however, our wooden Adams is afire at the on-end condition of the times. Only his wrath arises, not over the war between Jefferson and Aaron, but because he himself is to be ousted. The action of the people, in its motive, is beyond his understanding. As unrepublican in his hidebound instincts as any royal Charles, he cannot grasp the reason of his overthrow.
Speaking with Federalist Cabot, he furnishes his angry meditations tongue. “What is this mighty difference,” he cries, “which the public discovers between Jefferson and myself? He is for messages to Congress, I am for speeches; he is for a little White House dinner every day, I am for a big dinner once a week; I am for an occasional reception, he is for a daily levee; he is for straight hair and liberty, while I think a man may curl or cue his hair and still be free. Their Jefferson preference, sir, convinces me that, while men are reasoning, they are not reasonable creatures. The one difference between Jefferson and myself is this: I appeal to men’s reason, he flatters their vanity. The result—a mob result—is that he stands victorious, while I lie prostrate.” Saying which the wooden, angry Adams resumes his arrangements for creating and filling those twenty-three life judgeships—being resolved, in his narrow breast, to make the most of his dying moments as a president.
The day of White House fate arrives; the House comes together. Seats are placed for President and Senate. Also lounges are brought in; for there are members too ill to occupy their regular seats—one is even attended by his wife. Before a vote is taken, the House adopts an order which forbids any other business until a President is chosen and the White House tie determined.
The voice of the House is announced by States; the ballot falls as foreseen by Federalist Bayard. It runs eight for Jefferson, six for Aaron, with Maryland and Vermont voiceless, because of their evenly divided delegations, and a refusal on the part of the House to count half votes for any name. There being no choice—since no name possesses a majority of all the States—another vote is called. The upcome is the same: eight Jefferson, six Aaron, two mute. And so through twenty-nine hours of ceaseless balloting.
Seven House days go by; the vote continues unchanged. At the close of the seventh day, Federalist Bayard—who is the entire delegation from his little State of Delaware, and until then has been casting its vote for Aaron—beholds a light. No one may know the sort of light he sees. It is, however, altogether a Bayard and in no wise a Jefferson light; for the Man of Monticello is of too rigid a probity to entertain so much as the ghost of a bargain. On the seventh day, by that new light, Federalist Bayard changes his vote. Jefferson is named President, with Aaron Vice-President, and that heartbreaking tie is at an end.
The result leaves Aaron as coolly the picture of polished, icy indifference as ever during his icily polished days. The Man of Monticello, who has been gloom one moment and angry impatience the next, feels most a burning hatred of the imperturbable Aaron, whom he blames for what he has gone through. The color of this hatred will deepen, not fade, until a day when it gets trippingly in front of Aaron’s plans to send them sprawling. There is, however, no present hateful indications; for Jefferson, reared in an age of secrets, can lock his breast against the curious and prying. President and Vice-President, he and Aaron go about their duties upon terms which mingle a deal of courtesy with little friendly warmth. This excites no wonder; friendships between President and Vice-President have never been the habit.
In wielding the Senate gavel, Aaron is an example of the lucidly just. He refuses to be partisan, and presides for the whole Senate, not a half. He knows no friend, no foe, and adds another coat of black to the Jefferson hate, by voting when a tie occurs with the Federalists, against the repeal of those twenty-three engaging life judgeships, which the practical Adams created and filled in his industrious last days.
Not alone does Aaron shine out as the north star of Senate guidance, but his home rivals the White House—which leans toward the simple-severe under Jefferson—as a polite center of society; for baby Theo comes up from South Carolina to preside over it—Theo, loving and lustrous! Aaron, with the lustrous Theo, entertains Jerome Bonaparte, on his way to a Baltimore bride. Also, Theo, during moments informal, lapses into gossip with Dolly Madison, the pair privily deciding that Miss Patterson has no bargain in the Franco-Corsican.
On the lustrous Theo’s second visit to her Vice-Presidential parent, she brings in her arms a small, red-faced, howling bundle, and, putting it proudly into his arms, tells him it bears the name of Aaron Burr Alston. Aaron receives the small red-faced howling bundle even more proudly than it is offered, and hugs it to his heart. From this moment, until a dark one that will come later, little Aaron Burr Alston is to live the focus and central purpose of all his ambitions. It is for this little one he will make his plots, and lay his plans, to become a western Bonaparte and swoop at empire.
During these days of Aaron’s eminence and triumph, the broken, beaten Hamilton mopes about his Grange. Vain, resentful, since politics has turned its fickle back upon him, he does his best to turn his back on politics. For all that, his mortification, while he plays farmer and pretends retirement, finds voice at every chance.
He receives his friend Pinckney, and shows him about his shaven acres. “And when you return home,” he says, imitating the lightsome and doing it poorly, “send me some of your Carolina paroquets. Also a paper of Carolina melon seed for my garden. For a garden, my dear Pinckney”—this, with a sickly smile—“is, as you know, a very usual refuge for your disappointed politician.” It is now, his acute bitterness coming uppermost, he breaks into not over-manly complaint—the complaint of selflove wounded to the heart. “What an odd destiny is mine! No man has done more for the country, sacrificed more for it, than have I. No man than myself has stood more loyally by the Constitution—that frail, worthless fabric which I am still striving to prop up! And yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes to pay for it. What can I do better than withdraw from the arena? Each day proves more and more that America, with its republics, was never meant for me.”