Rufus King was as cautious as Pickering was indiscreet. He acknowledged this letter in vague terms of compliment,[115] saying that Pickering’s views “ought to fix the attention of the real friends of liberty in this quarter of the Union, and the more so as things seem to be fast advancing to a crisis.” Even King’s cool head was possessed with the thought which tormented Hamilton, Cabot, Ames, Pickering, Griswold, and Tracy,--the crisis which was always coming, and which, in the midst of peace, plenty, and contentment such as a tortured world had seldom known, overhung these wise and virtuous men like the gloom of death. A week later Roger Griswold followed Pickering’s example by writing to another of Hamilton’s friends, Oliver Wolcott, who apparently sent the letter to Hamilton.[116] A Congressional caucus, February 25, nominated George Clinton as the Republican candidate for Vice-President by sixty-five votes against forty-one,--Burr’s friends absenting themselves. This nomination showed some division between the Northern and Southern democrats; but Griswold rightly argued that nothing could be done in Congress,--the formation of a Northern interest must begin at home, and must find its centre of union in Burr. The arguments for this course were set forth with entire candor. “I have wished to ascertain,” wrote Griswold, “the views of Colonel Burr in relation to the general government; but having had no intimacy with him myself, and finding no one on the spot calculated, or indeed authorized, to require an explanation, I have obtained but little information. He speaks in the most bitter terms of the Virginia faction, and of the necessity of a union at the northward to resist it; but what the ultimate objects are which he would propose, I do not know. It is apparent that his election is supported in New York on the principle of resisting Virginia and uniting the North; and it may be presumed that the support given to him by Federal men would tend to reconcile the feelings of those democrats who are becoming dissatisfied with their Southern masters. But it is worthy of great consideration whether the advantage gained in this manner will not be more than counterbalanced by fixing on the Northern States a man in whom the most eminent of our friends will not repose confidence. If Colonel Burr is elevated in New York to the office of governor by the votes of Federalism, will he not be considered, and must he not in fact become, the head of the Northern interest? His ambition will not suffer him to be second, and his office will give him a claim to the first rank.”