CHAPTER XI—THE STATESMAN FROM NEW YORK
THE shop of government has been moved to Philadelphia. In the brief space between the overthrow of the rusty Schuyler by Aaron, and the latter taking his seat, the great ones talk of nothing but that overthrow. Washington vaguely and Jefferson clearly read in the victory of Aaron the beginning of a new order. It is extravagantly an hour of classes and masses; and the most dull does not fail to make out in the Senate unseating of the rusty but aristocratic Schuyler a triumphant clutch at power by the masses.
Something of the sort crops up in conversation about the President’s dinner table. The occasion is informal; save for Vice-President Adams, those present are of the Cabinet. Washington himself brings up the subject.
“It is the strangest news!” says he—“this word of the Senate success of Colonel Burr.”
Then, appealing to Hamilton: “Of what could your folk of New York have been thinking? General Schuyler is a gentleman of fortune, the head of one of the oldest families! This Colonel Burr is a young man of small fortune, and no family at all.”
“Sir,” breaks in Adams with pompous impetuosity, “you go wide. Colonel Burr is of the best blood of New England. His grandsire was Jonathan Edwards; on his father’s side the strain is as high. You would look long, sir, before you discovered one who has a better pedigree.”
“Whatever may be the gentleman’s pedigree,” retorts Hamilton splenetically, “you will at least confess it to be only a New England pedigree.”
“Only a New England pedigree!” exclaims Adams, in indignant wonder. “Why, sir, when you say ‘The best pedigree in New England,’ you have spoken of the best pedigree in the world!”