Alexander flung his napkin onto the table in disgust. “Not only the worst constructions are put upon my conduct as a public man, but it seems my birth must still be the subject of the most humiliating criticism!”
I put a hand on my husband’s knee in comfort. His birth wasn’t his fault, and yet, no conduct of his could ever seem to change it. And even McHenry seemed sensible of the wound he’d opened. “My dear Hamilton, with respect to the legitimacy of your birth, not one of your friends would respect you less even if everything your enemies say on this head were true.”
“Well, that is kind, Mac,” Hamilton allowed. “But my friends are precious few.”
That was only partially true, I thought. Because even then, my husband still wore the aura of a victor. His star had dimmed but still blazed. And I confused followers for friends.
I know better now.
But at the time, I merely smiled at McHenry in gratitude.
Mac gave a long sigh. “While I’m at it, you might as well know this, too. During his tirade against me, the president declared Mr. Jefferson an infinitely better man than you; one who, if president, would act wisely. He said he’d rather be vice president under Jefferson than indebted to you, a man who ruled George Washington, and would rule still if he could.”
I understood what this meant, and chills raised gooseflesh on my arms. “John Adams is changing sides. He’s going to abandon the Federalists.”
McHenry nodded. “You’re not the only one to think the president has cut a deal with Jefferson to save his own neck.”
At that, Alexander abruptly rose from the table to pace behind the chairs and looked as if he wished to throw one of them out of our bow window into the street below. “The man is more mad than I ever thought him, which he just might force me to say.”
I was inclined to agree. Adams was going to abandon us to the bloodthirsty clutches of the Republican mob, who blamed my husband for every unpopular act of his own administration. And, for the first time since the days of the revolution—the revolution of ’76—I began to consider that we might need to flee.
McHenry did nothing to change my mind. “Certainly, the president spoke in ways to persuade me he’s actually insane.”
“Very well, then.” Alexander drained his wineglass, as if for courage. “Then Federalist electors must withdraw their support of Adams for president. If we must have an enemy at the head of the government, let it be one we can oppose and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of foolish and bad measures.”
I dismissed this as merely hot talk. No one could prefer that Jacobin, Thomas Jefferson, even to an insane John Adams. And I said as much to my husband later that night, in the darkness of our bed.
His exhausted sigh crossed the space between us. “Mayhaps it makes no matter who becomes president, because four years from now I don’t expect to have a head still upon my shoulders. Unless it is at the head of a victorious army.”
*
December 1800
New York City
President Adams declared peace with France and dissolved the army. Too late to stave off his ignominious defeat at the polls.
Nationwide, the presidential election was a tie.
Not between Jefferson and Adams, whose erratic actions sealed his own fate. But a tie between Jefferson and Burr.
The presidential candidate and the vice presidential candidate had, through a quirk of our system, received the same number of electoral votes. But the people plainly meant for Jefferson to be president and wished that Burr would simply accept the vice presidency as intended.
I hoped for something else altogether. Because popular reason doesn’t always know how to act right, nor does it always act right when it knows. Fortunately, the choice would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where my husband’s Federalists reigned.
Alexander would choose our new president. And in this, I sensed our salvation.
Nearly laughing at the absurdity of Burr as president, I nevertheless felt a glorious relief. Burr was a trickster and a maker of chaos to be sure, but he was also a man we knew well. Burr might be a libertine, but he wasn’t a chilly zealot like Jefferson, musing about the desolation of the earth in the pursuit of liberty.
In Burr, I felt certain we were to be delivered from our worst Jacobin nightmare of Jefferson unleashing the French Revolution on our shores.
So I was both stunned and dismayed to find myself in a heated argument about it when I passed by Alexander’s study and overheard him telling our eldest son, “Upon every virtuous and prudent calculation, Jefferson is to be preferred over Burr.”