CHAPTER infant city had reached a greater maturity, started in XVII. the last Congress, much to the alarm of the proprietors 1804. of city lots, was renewed in this. A majority were ready enough to remove; but the question where to go proved an insurmountable difficulty. A concentration of the public buildings was also proposed, by taking the president's house for the accommodation of Congress, and building him another near by, on a more economical and republican plan. This sensible proposition, which would have added so much to the public comfort and convenience by creating at once a compact little town, failed to be adopted; and $50,000 were appropriated toward the completion of the south wing of the Capitol, much of the work on which already done was so imperfect that it had to be taken down and rebuilt. Such was the commencement of a series of annual appropriations, gradually increasing in amount, for the completion and sustentation of the public buildings at Washington.

Feb. 29.

Just at the close of the session, at a caucus of the administration members, about which, now for the first time, no secret was made, Jefferson was unanimously nominated as a candidate for re-election. The principal object of the caucus was to select a candidate for the vice-presidency. Burr never had much political strength out of New York, and even there he had been denounced as a traitor by the more influential Republican leaders. and presses. Indeed, he had all along been an object of suspicion and terror to the Virginia politicians, as a man whose energy, enterprise, and audacity would never allow him to rest content with a subordinate position. For him, by a private arrangement among a few leaders, was substituted George Clinton, now very willing to accept the second station as a stepping-stone to the first, while the Virginia aspirants saw in him a rival far less danger

ous than Burr.

XVII.

The selection, however, was not unan- CHAPTER imous, nor was it brought about without considerable maneuvering. Already a cry was raised against Vir- 1804. ginia dictation. Clinton received in the caucus sixtyseven votes; twenty were given for Breckenridge, mostly by members from the West; nine for Lincoln, the attorney general; seven for Langdon; four for Granger, the post-master general; and one for M'Clay, of Pennsylvania.

Of course it would be necessary for the administration party, at the approaching election for governor of New York, to find a new candidate in Clinton's place. At a caucus of Republican members of the Legislature, Chancellor Lansing had been nominated. He accepted; but a few days after declined, having found out, as he subsequently stated, that it would be expected of him, as governor, to be the mere tool of the Clintons. The candidate named in his place was Chief-justice Lewis, not so remarkable for talent that he would have been likely, but for his connection with the Livingston family, to have attained to much political eminence.

Though proscribed by his political rivals, Burr was not without adherents, most of them young men, ardent and ambitious, many of them unscrupulous like himself, and all impatient of the domination of the Clintons and Livingstons, and anxious to come in for their share of political honors and profits. This was Burr's last chance. Not only were his political fortunes in a very doubtful condition, but his pecuniary affairs had been reduced to a state of great disorder and ruin by unsuccessful speculations. Yet he was not altogether without prospect of In the interval between Lansing's declination and Lewis's nomination, he was brought forward, by public meetings of his friends held at New York and Albany,

success.

XVIL

CHAPTER as an independent candidate. The Federalists were too much broken to have any reasonable prospect of choosing 1804. a candidate of their own; and, could they be induced to vote for him, he might be elected.

While these political intrigues were in progress, a case came on for argument before the Supreme Court of New York, then sitting at Albany, in which the rights and freedom of the press were deeply involved. Ambrose Spencer, as attorney general, had instituted a prosecution for libel against a Federal printer for having asserted that Jefferson had paid Callender for traducing Washington and Adams. The case had been tried before Chiefjustice Lewis, who had held, among other things, that in a criminal trial for libel the truth could not be given in evidence, and that the jury were merely to decide the fact of publication, the question belonging exclusively to the court whether it were a libel or not. These points

coming on for a rehearing before the Supreme Court on a motion for a new trial, Spencer, himself shortly after elevated to the bench, maintained with great zeal the arbitrary doctrines laid down by Lewis. Hamilton, a volunteer in behalf of the liberty of the press, displayed, on the other side, even more than his wonted eloquence and energy, denouncing the maxim "the greater the truth the greater the libel," at least in its relation to political publications, as wholly inconsistent with the genius of American institutions. The court, after a long deliberation, sustained the chief justice; but Hamilton's eloquence was not lost. A declaratory bill as to the law of libel, conforming to the doctrine maintained by Hamilton, was introduced into the Assembly, then sitting, by a Federal member. The Republicans shrank from this implied censure on their candidate for governor, and the matter was postponed to the next session. The doctrines for

XVII.

which Hamilton had contended were then enacted by the CHAPTER Assembly, but defeated by the Council of Revision, composed of the judges and chancellor. The act, however, 1804. with some modifications, became law the next year; and such, either by constitutional provision, legislative enactment, or the decisions of the courts, is now the law throughout the United States.

Hamilton's opinion of Burr, so emphatically expressed three years before, had undergone no alteration. At a Federal caucus held at Albany, he warmly opposed the project, favored by a large portion of the party, of giving him support. He took no active part himself in the canvass, but his opinions were freely quoted by those who did. Burr carried the city by a small majority, but failed in the state, having received but 28,000 votes to 35,000 April. for Lewis. The chief-justiceship, which became vacant by the promotion of Lewis, was given to Kent, the senior associate justice-a departure from party discipline not agreeable to Clinton and Spencer; for Kent, though very learned as a lawyer, was also a Federalist.

Disappointed, and all his hopes blighted, as he believed, by Hamilton's instrumentality, Burr became eager for vengeance. Humiliating was the contrast between himself and Hamilton, to whom, in his anger, he was ready to ascribe, not his political defeat merely, but his blasted character also. Though fallen from his former station of commanding influence in the conduct of affairs, Hamilton still enjoyed the unbounded confidence of a party, outnumbered, indeed, but too respectable to be despised; while, of his bitterest opponents, none, with any pretensions to character or candor, doubted his honor or questioned his integrity. Burr, on the other hand, saw himself distrusted and suspected by every body, and just about to sink alike into political an

CHAPTER nihilation and pecuniary ruin. Two months' medita XVII. tion on this desperate state of his affairs wrought up his 1804. cold, implacable spirit to the point of risking his own life

to take that of his rival. He might even have entertained the insane hope-for, though cunning and dexterous to a remarkable degree, he had no great intellect that, Hamilton killed or disgraced, and thus removed out of the way, he might yet retrieve his desperate fortunes.

Among other publications made in the course of the late contest were two letters by a Dr. Cooper, a zealous partisan of Lewis, in one of which it was alleged that Hamilton had spoken of Burr as a "dangerous man, who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government.” In the other letter, after repeating the above statement, Cooper added, "I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr."

Upon this latter passage Burr seized as the means of forcing Hamilton into a duel. For his agent and assistant therein he selected William P. Van Ness, a young lawyer, one of his most attached partisans, and not less dark, designing, cool, and implacable than himself. Van June 18. Ness was sent to Hamilton with a copy of Cooper's printed letter and a note from Burr, insisting upon "a prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial of the use of any expressions which would warrant Cooper's assertions."

Perfectly well acquainted both with Burr and Van Ness, and perceiving as well from Van Ness's conversation as from Burr's note a settled intention to fix a quarrel upon him, Hamilton declined any immediate answer, promising a reply in writing at his earliest convenience. June 20. In that reply he called Burr's attention to the fact that the word "despicable," however in its general significa