After the New Haven episode, so jealous was Jefferson of his good name, that while he confided all new appointments to the hands of his political friends, he made few removals, and these for apparent cause. The mere statement of his position had proved an invitation to the Federalists in office to join his earlier friends in the support of his administration. Many of them did it, so many that the clamorings of truer friends could not be hushed. With a view to create a new excuse, Jefferson declared that all appointments made by Adams after February 14th, when the House began its ballotings for President, were void, these appointments belonging of right to him, and from this act of Adams we date the political legacies which some of our Presidents have since handed down to their successors. One of the magistrates whose commission had been made out under Adams, sought to compel Jefferson to sign it by a writ of mandamus before the Supreme Court, but a “profound investigation of constitutional law” induced the court not to grant the motion. All commissions signed by Adams after the date named were suppressed. Jefferson’s apparent bitterness against the Federalists is mainly traceable to the contest in the House, and his belief that at one time they sought a coalition with Burr. This coalition he regarded as a violation of the understanding when he was nominated, and a supposed effort to appoint a provisional office he regarded as an usurpation in fact. In a letter to James Monroe, dated February 15th, speaking of this contest, he says: “Four days of balloting have produced not a single change of a vote. Yet it is confidently believed that to-morrow there is to be a coalition. I know of no foundation for this belief. If they could have been permitted to pass a law for putting the government in the hands of an officer, they would certainly have prevented an election. But we thought it best to declare openly and firmly, one and all, that the day such an act passed, the Middle States would arm, and that no such usurpation, even for a single day, should be submitted to.”