Hamilton was far from being a silent witness to these events. By now he was thoroughly alarmed not only for himself but for the safety of the nation whose future he saw in jeopardy if the Presidency were to go to a man of the caliber he judged Burr to be. With all the vigor at his command he threw himself into the contest to prevent Burr from winning the necessary votes. “As unprincipled and dangerous a man as any country can boast,” “as true a Cataline as ever met in conclave,” a man whose “private character is not defended by his most partial friends,” “bankrupt beyond redemption except by the plunder of his country,” his “public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandizement”--these were among the extravagant epithets Hamilton applied to Burr in letters to friends. As much as he disliked Jefferson there was no question in Hamilton’s mind that the rangy Virginian doctrinaire was the lesser of the two evils. Burr could lay his failure to attain the Presidency to the violent animosity of Hamilton. Burr’s political success in New York was disturbing not only to the Federalists but equally so to certain members of his own party. The New York Republicans were then divided into three factions made up of the followers of the Livingston and Clinton families and of Burr. All three groups were steeped in intrigue and so bankrupt of moral principle that there was little choice between them. Albert Gallatin, Jefferson’s Secretary of the Treasury and political mentor, was inclined to give a preference to Burr. Not so Jefferson. The presidential election over, Burr showed his pique by kicking over the traces. In January 1802 a bill to repeal the hated judiciary act, passed in the previous year by the Federalists, reached the Senate. A motion to recommit led to a tie vote and left the decision to the Vice-President. Burr voted with the Federalists. Then a few weeks later, to add insult to injury, he appeared as guest at a dinner given by the Federalists and there proposed a toast to “the union of all honest men.” It was abundantly clear to those present that in the select company of honest men Burr emphatically did not mean to include Mr. Jefferson and the rest of the “Virginia dynasty.” Such disloyalty to his party could not be overlooked. Within a few days the Republican press, led by DeWitt Clinton’s New York _American Citizen_ and William Duane’s Philadelphia _Aurora_, was in full cry. There was no longer any doubt that Jefferson, the Clintons, and the Livingstons were determined to strip Burr of his power and drive him from the party.