982. BURR (Aaron), Political Services. [continued].
While I must congratulate
you on the issue of this contest [the Presidential],
because it is more honorable, and,
doubtless, more grateful to you than any station
within the competence of the Chief Magistrate,
yet for myself, and for the substantial service of
the public, I feel most sensibly the loss we sustain
of your aid in our new administration. It
leaves a chasm in my arrangements, which cannot
be adequately filled up. I had endeavored to
compose an administration whose talents, integrity,
names, and dispositions, should at once inspire
unbounded confidence in the public mind,
and insure a perfect harmony in the conduct of
the public business. I lose you from the list,
and am not sure of all the others. Should
the gentlemen, who possess the public confidence,
decline taking a part in their affairs,
and force us to take persons unknown to the
people, the evil genius of this country May
realize his avowal that “he will beat down the
administration.”—
To Aaron Burr. Washington ed. iv, 341.
Ford ed., vii, 467.
(W.
Dec. 1800)
