That morning Jefferson remained quietly at Conrad’s, receiving friends. As he entered the dining-room for breakfast, the wife of Senator Brown rose impulsively and offered him her seat. With an appreciative smile he declined and sat down as usual at the end of the table near the door.[1936]
At ten o’clock there was a flurry among the men, women, and children standing reverently in front of Jefferson’s lodgings, when, with a swinging stride, companies of riflemen and artillery from Alexandria paraded before the boarding-house. At noon, dressed plainly, with nothing to indicate the dignity of his position, Jefferson stepped out of Conrad’s, accompanied by citizens and members of Congress, and walked to the Capitol. As he passed the threshold, there was a thunder of artillery. When he entered the little Senate Chamber, the Senators and Representatives rose, and Aaron Burr, now Vice-President, left his seat—all standing until Jefferson sat down in the chair he had occupied until a week before. On his right hand, Burr; on his left, Marshall. Only a little while, and Burr, arrested for treason at the instigation of Jefferson, would be tried by Marshall at Richmond.
After a moment, Jefferson rose and read a conciliatory address, in a tone scarcely audible in the tiny room.[1937] ‘We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its Republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.’ As he concluded, he turned to Marshall, his Hamilton of the future. The Chief Justice administered the oath. It was over. The festivities of ‘83 had celebrated the achievement of the right of the American people to form their own government and make their own laws. The roar of artillery as the new President emerged from the Capitol meant that the real American Revolution had triumphed, and definitely determined that this should be a democratic republic.
In the streets and public-houses that afternoon there was rejoicing, shouting, singing, laughing, drinking. Even the more tolerant of the vanquished fraternized with the victors, and the wife of the editor of the Jeffersonian organ[1938] poured tea for Gouverneur Morris, Jonathan Dayton, and James A. Bayard. For the moment ‘all were Republicans, all were Federalists.’ That night Washington saw its first illumination.
Lumbering along the wretched mud roads in his coach rode Adams, the reverberations of the artillery peal of the morning still hammering on his nerves, meditating bitterly on the treachery of men.... Somewhere in hiding, Sedgwick—cursing the fates.... And somewhere in New York, Alexander Hamilton was tasting the bitter fruits of the victory he had fought to win for his greatest opponent. From his window he could see the marching men and he could hear the pæans of triumph. The brilliant party he had moulded was in ruins—his leadership scorned by the crawling creatures who had shone only in the reflected light of his brilliance. He was alone—isolated.... A little while and he would write Morris, ‘What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me.’[1939] ... A few months, and he would be describing himself as a ‘disappointed politician’ in a letter to Pinckney requesting melon seeds for his garden and parroquets for his daughter.[1940] ... Four years—and before Burr’s pistol he would fall on the banks of the Hudson one tragic summer morning.... Some years more, and a visitor to the home of the retired sage of Monticello would see in the hall a marble bust of Hamilton—the tribute of one great man to another.
The eighteenth century witnessed their Plutarchian battles; the twentieth century uncovers at the graves at Monticello and in Trinity Churchyard—but the spirits of Jefferson and Hamilton still stalk the ways of men—still fighting.
THE END