Aaron Burr had a majority; but, the number of those voting for them being equal, no choice was made by the people; and that, consequently, the remaining duties devolve upon the House of Representatives.

Already a committee had been appointed to prepare a set of rules for the House, in case the count should show that it was the duty of the House to elect a President; and the rules, having been discussed in committee of the whole, were adopted as follows: —

First. In the event of its appearing, upon the counting and ascertaining of the votes given for President and Vice-President, according to the mode prescribed by the Constitution, that no person has a constitutional majority, and the same shall have been duly declared and entered on the Journals of this House, the Speaker, accompanied by the members of the House, shall return to their Chamber.

Second. Seats shall be provided in this House for the President and members of the Senate, and notification of the same shall be made to the Senate.

Third. The House, on their return from the Senate Chamber, it being ascertained that the constitutional number of States are present, shall immediately proceed to choose one of the persons from whom the choice is to be made for President; and in case upon the first ballot there shall not appear to be a majority of the States in favor of one of them, in such case the House shall con¡inue to ballot for a President, without interruption by other business, until it shall appear that a President is duly chosen.

Fourth. After commencing the balloting for President, the House shall not adjourn until a choice is made.

Fifth. The doors of the House shall be closed during the balloting, except against the officers of the House.

Sixth. In balloting the following mode shall be observed, to wit: The representatives of the respective States shall be so seated that the delegation of each State shall be together. The representatives of each State, shall, in the first instance, ballot among themselves, in order to ascertain the vote of that State; and it shall be allowed, where deemed necessary by the delegation, to name one or more persons of the representation to be tellers of the ballots. After the vote of each State is ascertained, duplicates thereof shall be made;

and in case the vote of the State be for one person, then the name of that person shall be written on each of the duplicates; and in case the ballots of the State be equally divided, then the word "divided" shall be written on each duplicate, and the said duplicates shall be deposited, in manner hereafter prescribed, in boxes to be provided. That for the conveniently taking the ballots of the several representatives of the respective States, there be sixteen ballot-boxes provided; and that there be, additionally, two boxes provided for receiving the votes of the States; that after the delegation of each State shall have ascertained the vote of the State, the Sergeant-at-Arms shall carry to the respective delegations the two ballot-boxes, and the delegation of each State, in the presence and subject to the examination of all the members of the delegation, shall deposit a duplicate of the vote of the State in each ballot-box; and where there is more than one representative of a State, the duplicates shall not both be deposited by the same perWhen the votes of the States are all thus taken in, the Sergeant-at-Arms shall carry one of the general ballot-boxes to one table, and the other to a second and separate table. Sixteen members shall then be appointed as tellers of the ballots, one of whom shall be taken from each State, and be nominated by the delegation of the State from which he was taken. The said tellers shall be divided into two equal sets, according to such agreements as shall be made among themselves, and one of the said sets of tellers shall proceed to count the votes in one of the said boxes, and the other set the votes in the other box; and in the event of no appointment of teller by any delegation, the Speaker shall in such case appoint. When the votes of the States are counted by the respective sets of tellers, the result shall be reported to the House; and if the reports agree, the same shall be accepted as the true votes of the States; but if the reports disagree, the States shall immediately proceed to a new ballot, in manner aforesaid.

son.

Seventh. If either of the persons voted for shall have a majority of the votes of all the States, the Speaker shall declare the same; and official notice thereof shall be immediately given to the President of the United States, and to the Senate.

Eighth. All questions which shall arise after the balloting commences, and which shall be decided by the House voting per capita to be incidental to the power of choosing the President, and which shall require the decision of the House, shall be decided by States, and without debate; and in case of an equal division of the votes of States, the question shall be lost.

Inmediately upon the retirement of the House from the Senate Chamber to its own hall, after the count had been made and the result declared, a ballot was taken. The Federalists had already taken the strange resolution to support Mr. Burr in opposition to Mr. Jefferson. It does not appear that there was any understanding between Burr and the Federalists, nor was it ever charged that there was such an understanding; but the alliance was immoral, nevertheless. On the part of Burr it showed a willingness to profit by an accident to gain the Presidency, for which, say what he and his friends might, he was not nominated or designedly voted for; while, so far as the Federalists were concerned, it was a trick to defeat the will of the people, to gratify their feelings of personal

hostility to Jefferson. The first ballot and eighteen more on the first day, February 11, nine ballotings on the 12th,

one on the 13th, four on the 14th, one on the 16th (Mon. day), and one on the 17th, making thirty-five trials in all, produced identically the same result. Eight States were for Mr. Jefferson, six for Mr. Burr, and two were divided. The vote of nine States being necessary, there was no choice. On all these ballots the votes of the members and of the States were as given on the preceding table (p. 43).

On the thirty-sixth ballot, taken also on the 17th of February, Mr. Jefferson was elected. He received the votes of ten States, and Burr of four States; and there were two blanks. One member from Vermont and four from Maryland declined to vote, giving Jefferson both of these States, and Delaware and South Carolina cast blank votes. Four New England States only continued to vote for Burr. No Federalist ever undertook to defend the course of his party at that election. Hamilton was very strongly against it, but his influence did not prevail. In a letter written by Mr. James A. Bayard, the single member from Delaware, a Federalist, who had voted for Burr up to the

last ballot, and then voted blank, dated on the day the election was effected, but not made public until the year 1823, that gentleman said:

The New England gentlemen came out and declared they meant to go without a constitution and take the risk of a civil war. They agreed that those who would not agree to incur such an extremity ought to recede without loss of time. We pressed them to go with us and preserve unity in our measures. After great agitation and much heat, all agreed but one. But in consequence of his standing out the others refused to abandon their old ground.

Upon the election of Mr. Jefferson as President, Mr. Burr became Vice-President, in accordance with the Constitution, and a very grave peril to the young country was happily averted.

VI.

JEFFERSON RE-ELECTED.

THE danger that the will of the people might be frus trated by the selection of an inferior man as President, under the provisions of the Constitution as originally adopted, was fully revealed by the election of the year 1800. It might be done accidentally by a few scattering votes, or designedly, as might have been the case in 1801. Accordingly there was a determined movement in favor of an amendment of the Constitution to remedy this defect. Both New York and North Carolina adopted and sent to Congress, in February, 1802, a proposed amendment recommended by their respective legislatures, to the effect that, "in all future elections of President and VicePresident of the United States, the persons voted for shall be particularly designated, by declaring which is voted for as President and which as Vice-President."

The history of the adoption of the amendment which left the Constitution in its present form is not interesting or suggestive. An amendment in the above words was adopted by the House, May 1, 1802, by a vote of 47 to 17. The Senate refused to adopt it, 15 being in favor and 8 opposed, not two thirds. The proposition was brought forward substantially in its present form at the next session, but it did not pass. A third attempt was made at the October session of 1803; and, after careful consideration and long debate, it was adopted, having been passed by the Senate by a vote of 22 to 10, and by the House by the exact constitutional majority, 84 to 42. The vote of