The Senate sits aghast. Aaron’s respectable colleague, Rufus King, cannot believe his Tory ears. At last he totters to his shocked feet.
“I am amazed at the action of my colleague!” he exclaims. “I——”
Before he can go further, Aaron is up with an interruption. “It is my duty,” says Aaron, “to warn the senior senator from New York that he must not permit his amazement at my action to get beyond his control. I do not like to consider the probable consequences, should that amazement become a tax upon my patience; and even he, I think, will concede the impropriety, to give it no sterner word, of allowing it any manifestation personally offensive to myself.”
As Aaron delivers this warning, so dangerous is the impression he throws off, that it first whitens and then locks the condemnatory lips of colleague King. That statesman, rocking uneasily on his feet, waits a moment after Aaron is done, and then takes his seat, swallowing at a gulp whatever remains unsaid of his intended eloquence. The roll is called; Aaron votes against that resolution of confidence and thanks, carrying a baker’s dozen of the Senate with him, among them the lean, horse-faced Andrew Jackson from the Cumberland.
Washington bows his adieus to the people, and retires to Mount Vernon. Adams the wooden becomes President, while Jefferson the angular wields the Senate gavel as Vice-President. Hamilton is more potent than ever; for Washington at Mount Vernon continues the strongest force in government, and Hamilton controls that force. Adams is President in nothing save name; Hamilton—fawning upon Washington, bullying Adams and playing upon that wooden one’s fear of not succeeding himself—is the actual chief magistrate.
As Aaron’s term nears its end, he decides that he will not accept reelection. His hatred of Hamilton has set iron-hand, and he is resolved for that scheming one’s destruction. His plans are fashioned; their execution, however, is only possible in New York. Therefore, he will quit the Senate, quit the capital.
“My plans mean the going of Adams, as well as the going of Hamilton,” he says to Senator Jackson from the Cumberland, when laying bare his purposes. “I do not leave public life for good. I shall return; and on that day Jefferson will supplant Adams, and I shall take the place of Jefferson.”
“And Hamilton?” asks the Cumberland one.
“Hamilton the defeated shall be driven into the wilderness of retirement. Once there, the serpents of his own jealousies and envies may be trusted to sting him to death.”