The crisis was at hand. The two bodies of Congress met, the Senators as witnesses, the Representatives as electors. The question on which hung peace or war, nay, the union of the states was to be decided. What an awful responsibility was attached to every vote given on that occasion. The sitting was held with closed doors. It lasted the whole day, the whole night. Not an individual left that solemn assembly; the necessary refreshment they required was taken in rooms adjoining the Hall. They were not like the Roman conclave legally and forcibly confined; the restriction was self-imposed from the deep-felt necessity of avoiding any extrinsic or external influence. Beds, as well as food, were sent for the accommodation of those whom age or debility disabled from enduring such a long-protracted sitting. The balloting took place every hour—in the interval men ate, drank, slept or pondered over the result of the last ballot, compared ideas and persuasions to change votes, or gloomily anticipated the consequences, let the result be what it would. With what an intense interest did every individual watch each successive examination of the ballot-box; how breathlessly did they listen to the counting of the votes! Every hour a messenger brought to the editor of the _National Intelligencer_ the result of the ballot. That night I never lay down or closed my eyes. As the hour drew near its close, my heart would almost audibly beat, and I was seized with a tremour that almost disabled me from opening the door for the expected messenger.... For more than thirty hours the struggle was maintained, but finding the Republican phalanx impenetrable, not to be shaken in their purpose, every effort proving unavailing, the Senator from Delaware [_James A. Bayard—actually a Representative_], the withdrawal of whose vote would determine the issue, took his part, gave up his party, for his country, and threw into the box a blank ballot, thus leaving to the Republicans a majority. Mr. Jefferson was declared duly elected. The assembled crowds, without the Capitol, rent the air with their acclamations and gratulations, and the conspirators, as they were called, hurried to their lodgings under strong apprehensions of suffering from the just indignation of their fellow citizens. The dark and threatening cloud which had hung over the political horizon rolled harmlessly away, and the sunshine of prosperity and gladness broke forth and ever since, with the exception of a few passing clouds, has continued to shine on our happy country. Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address