There is a Judge Yates; his home is in Otsego. As though he had builded him, Aaron is aware of Yates in his elements. That honest man is of your natural-born martyrs. Is there a headsman’s block, there he lays his neck; given a scaffold, he instantly mounts it; into every pillory he thrusts his head and hands, into every stocks his heels; by every stake he takes his stand as soon as it is put up; and he would sooner meet a despot than a friend. And yet--to defend Yates--that bent for martyrdom is nothing less than a bent to be noble; for a martyr is but a hero reversed. The two are brothers; a hero is only a martyr who succeeds, a martyr only a hero who fails. Aaron sends for the oppression-thirsty Yates. “Here is a pamphlet flaying Adams,” says he. “It is raw and ferocious. Take it home and circulate it.” “Why?” asks Yates. “Because the Federalists will arrest you. They are fools enough to do it.” “Doubtless!”--this dryly. “But what advantage do you discover in having me locked up?” “Man! can’t you see? It will illustrate their tyranny! Your seizure will be on a United States warrant. That means they must bring you from Otsego to New York. Think what a triumph that should be--you, the paraded victim of the monarchical Adams!” Yates goes home to Otsego with a gay, elate heart, and publishes Aaron’s blood-raw pamphlet. He is seized and paraded, as the astute Aaron has foreseen. The flocking farmers fringe the captive’s line of march. Yates is a martyr, and makes his journey through double ranks of sympathy for himself and curses for the despotic Adams. The martyrdom of Yates is worth a thousand votes. “It is the difference between the eye and the ear,” says Aaron to his aide, Swartwout. “You might explain the iniquities of Alien and Sedition, and never rouse the people. Show them those iniquities, and they take fire. It is quite natural enough. I tell you of a man crushed by a falling tree; you feel a conventional shock that lasts a minute. Should you some day _see_ a man crushed by a falling tree, you will start in your sleep for a twelvemonth with the pure horror of it. Wherefore, never address the ear when you can appeal to the eye. The gateway to the imagination is the eye.” The campaign wags to a close; the day of the ballot has its dawning. To the amazed chagrin of Hamilton, Aaron and his Bucktails go over him at the polls with a rousing majority of four hundred and ninety; he is beaten, Aaron is dominant, New York is Jefferson’s. The blow shakes Hamilton to the heart, and for the moment he can neither plan nor act. In the face of such disaster, he sits stricken.