When Madison wrote in 1795, soliciting him to accept the Republican nomination for the presidency, Mr. Jefferson replied: “The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than present fame. The question is forever closed with me.” Nevertheless, within a few months Mr. Jefferson accepted the nomination, chiefly, it is probable, because, with his usual sagacity, he foresaw that the Republican candidate would be defeated as President, but elected as Vice-President. It must be remembered that at that time the candidate receiving the next to the highest number of electoral votes was declared to be Vice-President; so that there was always a probability that the presidential candidate of the party defeated would be chosen to the second office. There were several reasons why Jefferson would have been glad to receive the office of Vice-President. It involved no disagreeable responsibility; it called for no great expenditure of money in the way of entertainments; it carried a good salary; it required only a few months’ residence at Washington. “Mr. Jefferson often told me,” remarks Mr. Bacon, “that the office of Vice-President was far preferable to that of President.” Mr. Jefferson therefore became the Republican nominee for President, and, as he doubtless expected, was elected Vice-President, the vote standing as follows: Adams, 71; Jefferson, 68; Pinckney, 59; Burr, 30. It is significant of Mr. Jefferson’s high standing in the country that many people believed that he would not deign to accept the office of Vice-President; and Madison wrote advising him to come to Washington on the 4th of March, and take the oath of office, in order that this belief might be dispelled. Jefferson accordingly did so, bringing with him the bones of a mastodon, lately discovered, and a little manuscript book written in his law-student days, marked “Parliamentary Pocket-Book.” This was the basis of that careful and elaborate “Manual of Parliamentary Practice” which Jefferson left as his legacy to the Senate. Upon receiving news of the election Jefferson had written to Madison: “If Mr. Adams can be induced to administer the government on its true principles, and to relinquish his bias to an English Constitution, it is to be considered whether it would not be, on the whole, for the public good to come to a good understanding with him as to his future elections. He is perhaps the only sure barrier against Hamilton’s getting in.” Mr. Adams, indeed, at the outset of his administration, was inclined to be confidential with Mr. Jefferson; but soon, by one of those sudden turns not infrequent with him, he took a different course, and thenceforth treated the Vice-President with nothing more than bare civility.