Even George Cabot deserted Hamilton, and wrote from Boston to Rufus King a long letter, in the tone of indolent speculation which irritated restless fighters like Pickering and Griswold:[117]—
“An experiment has been suggested by some of our friends, to which I object that it is impracticable, and if practicable would be ineffectual. The thing proposed is obvious and natural; but it would now be thought too bold, and would be fatal to its advocates as public men; yet the time may soon come when it will be demanded by the people of the North and East, and then it will unavoidably take place.”
He explained his favorite thesis,—the last resource of failing protestants,—that things must be worse before they were better; but closed by wishing success to Burr. “I should rejoice to see Burr win the race in your State, but I cannot approve of aid being given him by any of the leading Federalists.”
Ten days later, March 27, Congress adjourned; and thenceforward the intrigue centred about Burr and Hamilton in New York. No sooner did Griswold reach that city, a week afterward, on his way from Washington to Connecticut, than he kept his engagement with Burr, and the conversation strengthened him in his policy.[118] Burr was cautious, but said that in his present canvass “he must go on democratically to obtain the government; that if he succeeded, he should administer it in a manner that would be satisfactory to the Federalists. In respect to the affairs of the nation, Burr said that the Northern States must be governed by Virginia, or govern Virginia, and that there was no middle course; that the democratic members of Congress from the East were in this sentiment,—some of those from New York, some of the leaders in Jersey, and likewise in Pennsylvania.” Further than this he would not go; and Griswold contented himself with such vague allurements.
On the other hand, Rufus King’s library was the scene of grave dissensions. There Pickering went, April 8, to urge his scheme of disunion, and retired on the appearance of his colleague, Senator Adams, who for the first and last time in his life found himself fighting the battle of Alexander Hamilton, whom he disliked as decidedly as Pickering professed to love him. As the older senator left the house at his colleague’s entrance, King said to Adams:[119] “Colonel Pickering has been talking to me about a project they have for a separation of the States and a Northern Confederacy; and he has also been this day talking of it with General Hamilton. Have you heard anything of it at Washington?” Adams replied that he had heard much, but not from Colonel Pickering. “I disapprove entirely of the project,” said King; “and so, I am happy to tell you, does General Hamilton.”
The struggle for control between Hamilton and the conspirators lasted to the eve of the election,—secret, stifled, mysterious; the intrigue of men afraid to avow their aims, and seeming rather driven by their own passions than guided by the lofty and unselfish motives which ought to inspire those whom George Cabot emphatically called the best! The result was a drawn battle. Hamilton prevented leading Federalists from open committal of the party, but he could not prevent the party itself from voting for Burr. The election took place April 25, 1804; and although Burr succeeded in carrying to the Federalists a few hundred voters in the city of New York, where his strength lay, giving him there a majority of about one hundred in a total vote of less than three thousand, he polled but about twenty-eight thousand votes in the State against thirty-five thousand for the Clinton candidate. The Federalists gained nothing by supporting him; but only a small portion of the party refused him their aid.
The obstinacy of Pickering and Griswold in pressing Burr on the party forced Hamilton to strain his strength in order to prevent what he considered his own humiliation. That all Hamilton’s doings were known to Burr could hardly be doubted. When the election closed, a new era in Burr’s life began. He was not a vindictive man, but this was the second time Hamilton had stood in his way and vilified his character. Burr could have no reason to suppose that Hamilton was deeply loved; for he knew that four fifths of the Federal party had adopted his own leadership when pitted against Hamilton’s in the late election, and he knew too that Pickering, Griswold, and other leading Federalists had separated from Hamilton in the hope of making Burr himself the chief of a Northern confederacy. Burr never cared for the past,—the present and future were his only thought; but his future in politics depended on his breaking somewhere through the line of his personal enemies; and Hamilton stood first in his path, for Hamilton would certainly renew at every critical moment the tactics which had twice cost Burr his prize.
Pickering and Griswold saw their hopes shattered by the result of the New York election. They gained at the utmost only an agreement to hold a private meeting of leading Federalists at Boston in the following autumn;[120] and as Hamilton was to be present, he probably intended to take part only in order to stop once for all the intrigues of these two men. Such an assemblage, under the combined authority of Cabot, King, and Hamilton, could not have failed to restore discipline.
Nearly two months passed after the New York election, when, on the morning of June 18, William P. Van Ness, not yet known as “Aristides,” appeared in Hamilton’s office. He brought a note from Vice-President Burr, which enclosed newspaper-cuttings containing Dr. Cooper’s report of Hamilton’s “despicable” opinion of Burr’s character. The paragraph, Burr said, had but very recently come to his knowledge. “You must perceive, sir, the necessity of a prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial of the use of any expression which would warrant the assertions of Dr. Cooper.” General Hamilton took two days to consider the subject; and then replied in what Burr thought an evasive manner, but closed with two lines of defiance: “I trust on more reflection you will see the matter in the same light with me; if not, I can only regret the circumstance, and must abide the consequences.”[121]
These concluding words were the usual form in which men expressed themselves when they intended to accept a challenge to a duel. At first sight, no sufficient reason for accepting a challenge was shown by Hamilton’s letter, which disavowed Dr. Cooper’s report so far as Burr was warranted in claiming disavowal. Hamilton might without impropriety have declined to give further satisfaction. In truth, not the personal but the political quarrel drew him into the field; he knew that Burr meant to challenge, not the man, but the future political chief, and that an enemy so bent on rule must be met in the same spirit. Hamilton fought to maintain his own right to leadership, so rudely disputed by Burr, Pickering, and Griswold. He devoted some of his moments before the duel to the task of explaining, in a formal document, that he fought only to save his political influence.[122] “The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular.”