Hamilton's proposition naturally provoked the indignation of his opponents, and later writers have used it as a text for unlimited vituperation; but if one may judge from what happened and continued to happen during the next three decades, not a governor who followed Jay in those eventful years would have declined under similar circumstances to concur in Hamilton's suggestion. It was undoubtedly a desperate proposal, but it was squarely in line with the practice of party leaders of that day. George Clinton countenanced, if he did not absolutely advise, the deliberate disfranchisement of hundreds of voters in 1792 that he might continue governor. A few years later, in 1816, methods quite as disreputable and unscrupulous were practised, that Republicans might continue to control the Council of Appointment. Hamilton's suggestion involved no concealment, as in the case of the Manhattan Bank, which Jay approved; no violation of law, as in the Otsego election case, which Clinton approved; no deliberate fraud, as in the Allen-Fellows case, which Tompkins approved. All this does not lessen the wrong involved in Hamilton's proposed violation of moral ethics, but it places the suggestion in the environment to which it properly belongs, making it appear no worse if no better than the political practices of that day. CHAPTER IX MISTAKES OF HAMILTON AND BURR 1800 The ten months following the Republican triumph in New York on May 2, 1800, were fateful ones for Hamilton and Burr. It is not easy to suggest the greater sufferer, Burr with his victory, or Hamilton with his defeat. Hamilton's bold expedients began at once; Burr's desperate schemes waited until after the election in November; but when the conflict was over, the political influence of each had ebbed like water in a bay after a tidal wave. Although Jay's refusal to reconvene the old Legislature in extra session surprised Hamilton as much as the Republican victory itself, the great Federalist did not despair. He still thought it possible to throw the election of President into the House of Representatives, and to that end he wrote his friends to give equal support to John Adams and Charles C. Pinckney, the candidates of the Federal party. "This is the only thing," he said, "that can possibly save us from the fangs of Jefferson."[92] [Footnote 92: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, p. 549. Letter to Theo. Sedgwick.]