The Senate’s suggestion was referred to the House, where it aroused no little opposition. Congressman Tucker, of South Carolina, inquired: “Will it not alarm our fellow-citizens? Will they not say that they have been deceived by the Convention that framed the Constitution? One of its warmest advocates--nay, one of its framers--has recommended it by calling it a pure democracy. Does giving titles look like a pure democracy? Surely not. Some one has said that to give dignity to our government we must give a lofty title to our chief magistrate. If so, then to make our dignity complete, we must give first a high title, then an embroidered robe, then a princely equipage, and finally a crown and hereditary succession. This spirit of imitation, sir, this spirit of mimicry and apery, will be the ruin of our country. Instead of giving us dignity in the eyes of foreigners, it will expose us to be laughed at as apes.” So decided was the feeling of the House against the adoption of a sonorous title for the chief executive, that the Senate’s proposal was dropped. Nevertheless, a more elaborate ceremonial was maintained at the Presidential mansion--at first in New York, then in Philadelphia, and finally at Washington--during the first twelve years of the government, than after Jefferson’s accession in 1801. Washington’s two elections to the Presidency was the nation’s tribute to the splendid personal character and military record of the man who, above all others, gave it nationality. When he refused a third election, the honor went to John Adams, as his political heir, although the Federalists, whose candidate Adams was, had only a bare majority of the electoral college--seventy-one votes against sixty-eight for Jefferson. It was at that time the almost invariable rule for the electors to be chosen by the State Legislatures, not, as now, by a popular vote. Had the conflict between Adams and Jefferson been waged before the people at large, it is probable that the latter, the champion of advanced democracy, would have been successful. John Adams was a man of decided aristocratic tendencies. He was the first American minister to England, and had spent ten years at the courts of Europe. He did not conceal his admiration for English institutions. While in London he wrote a “Defence of the American Constitution,” which proved to be a laudation of the British form of government rather than that of the United States. In his “Discourses on Davilla,” he advocated a powerful centralized executive and a system of titles. He was frequently charged with favoring a monarchy and a hereditary legislature like the House of Lords. His political opponents nicknamed him “the Duke of Braintree”--Braintree being the Massachusetts town where he lived.