XVH.

complained to the Legislature, and out of this matter CHAPTER was made an article of impeachment against Addison.

A second article was insolence toward his Democratic 1804. colleague, in having observed to a jury which Lucas had addressed in opposition to a previous charge given by Addison, that he, Addison, differed in opinion with that judge, and probably often should do so.. Whether this remark had been volunteered, or whether it was not naturally drawn out by something which Lucas had previously said, the evidence left very doubtful. Upon these two charges Addison was impeached. The trial came on before a Senate in which the Republicans had, for the first time, an overwhelming majority (January, 1803). Incapable of conducting the prosecution themselves, the managers had the assistance of Dallas, and of the attorney general, M'Kean, the governor's son. The respondent was constantly tripped up by the sharpest rules of evidence. Dallas displayed his usual talent in an artful appeal to the political prejudices of the senators. Addison replied with great ability, dignity, and pathos. His high qualifications, his integrity and devotion to the duties of his office, were confessed by the most respectable residents in the district, of both parties; but the certificates offered to that effect the Senate refused to hear read, even as a part of Addison's argument, though they had driven him to that resort by declining to allow him to bring witnesses at the public expense. They even refused to take the vote on the charges separately-the one amounting, at most, to an error of judgment, in which the other judges had concurred, and the other to a breach of politeness-but, lumping them together, found him guilty of both by a strict party vote, the sentence being removal from office, with incapacity to sit as a judge in any Pennsylvania court.

CHAPTER

XVIL

Such was the precedent which Randolph followed, and upon which the Pennsylvania Assembly itself-in both 1804. branches of which there remained but six Federalists, one in the Senate and five in the House-almost simultaneously acted in an impeachment of three out of the four judges of the Supreme Court of that state, for alleged arbitrary conduct in committing to prison for contempt of court, in one of the parties in a suit pending before them, by an abusive publication in the newspapers made against the opposite party. Brackenridge, the fourth judge, happened to be absent at the time of the committal, and so was not embraced in the impeachment. Choosing, however, not to separate himself from his brethren, he sent a letter to the Assembly declaring his full concurrence in the course taken by the other judges, and desiring to share their fate. The House replied by addressing the governor for his removal on a charge of insolence to them, and neglect of his duty by frequent absence from the bench. But the harmony between McKean and the Democratic majority of the Legislature having by this time come to an end, he neglected to comply with their request. He by no means concurred with their projects for legal reforms, sufficiently needed, but which they did not well understand how to make. They seemed to entertain the idea that if trials by jury could be got rid of, lawyers might also be dispensed with; and with that view they had passed an act substituting referees in civil cases instead of juries, and prohibiting the employment of counsel. McKean had put his veto on this act as unconstitutional, as well as upon another, which was passed in spite of him, giving a greatly extended jurisdiction to justices of the peace; from which moment there sprang up between him and the Assembly a violent quarrel, which presently reached a great height,

and in the course of which the governor found himself CHAPTER bitterly assailed by his late ally, Duane.

XVII.

The chief supporter of Duane in this foray upon 1804. McKean was Dr. Leib, always intimately connected with

the Aurora. To meet it, a new paper was set up, called the Freeman's Journal, in which Tench Coxe, once a large contributor to the Aurora, took up the pen for the governor. The battle was carried on with great fury, the combatants principally urging against each other charges which, when formerly brought forward by the Federalists, they had seemed to think of little weight. Coxe was charged with having been a Tory in the Revolution, and with piloting the British army into Philadelphia; with having betrayed Hamilton's confidence when in office under him; with being "a snake in the grass, a Jesuit whom every one doubted and no one could trust." Leib was accused of disgraceful fraud in a private pecuniary affair-an accusation brought forward by the Federalists several years before, but which the Democrats then thought of no great consequence. As Coxe held the office of Purveyor of Supplies under the Treasury Department, Gallatin came in for his share of abuse as prostituting the patronage of the treasury "to the establishment of a third party on the ruins of the Republican interest." A very earnest effort was made by the new paper to defeat Leib's re-election to Congress, but this totally failed of success.

Ever since the removal of the seat of government to Washington, the members of Congress had found themselves very uncomfortably situated. The public buildings were separated from each other by "magnificent distances," while accommodations for domestic comfort continued very few, and those for social intercourse still fewer. The project of removing somewhere else till the

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.

The selection, however, was not unan- CHAPTER

XVII.

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.