It was an awful crisis. The people, who with such an overwhelming majority had declared their will, would never peaceably have allowed the man of their choice to be set aside and the individual they had chosen as Vice-President to be put in his place. A civil war must have taken place, to be terminated in all human probability by a rupture of the Union. Such consequences were at least calculated on and excited a deep and inflammatory interest. Crowds of anxious spirits from the adjacent county and cities thronged to the seat of government and hung like a thunder cloud over the Capitol, their indignation ready to burst on any individual who might be designated as President in opposition to the people’s known choice. The citizens of Baltimore, who from their proximity were the first apprised of this daring design, were with difficulty restrained from rushing on with an armed force, to prevent—or if they could not prevent, to avenge this violation of the people’s will and in their own vehement language to hurl the usurper from his seat. Mr. Jefferson, then President of the Senate, sitting in the midst of these _conspirators_, as they were then called, unavoidably hearing their loudly whispered designs, witnessing their gloomy and restless machinations, aware of the dreadful consequences which must follow their meditated designs, preserved through this trying period the most unclouded serenity, the most perfect equanimity. A spectator who watched his countenance would never have surmised that he had any personal interest in the impending event. Calm and self-possessed, he retained his seat in the midst of the angry and stormy, though half-smothered passions that were struggling around him, and by this dignified tranquility repressed any open violence. Though insufficient to prevent whispered menaces and insults, to these, however, he turned a deaf ear and resolutely maintained a placidity which baffled the designs of his enemies.