The next day he wrote in the same vein to Aaron Burr to congratulate him in no uncertain terms on his election as Vice President, expressing his regrets that this distinction would prevent him from availing himself of the services of Burr in the Cabinet. He based his conclusion on the assurance he had received that South Carolina would withdraw one vote from Burr, that Smith of Tennessee would give its second vote to Gallatin. It was also surmised that the vote of Georgia would not be entire. This would leave Burr well ahead of Adams but decidedly in the second place. Jefferson indicated that several of the Federalists had expressed the hope that "the two Republican tickets may be equal" and in that case they expected to prevent a choice by the House and "let the Government devolve on a President of the Senate." Then came a gently insinuating sentence: "Decency required that I should be so entirely passive during the late contest that I have never once asked whether arrangements had been made to prevent so many from dropping votes intentionally, as might frustrate half the Republican wish; nor did I doubt till lately that such had been made." In the last paragraph, Jefferson, refusing even to consider that Burr might aspire to the presidency, indicated that he considered the matter as settled and firmly put Burr where he belonged: While I must congratulate you, my dear Sir, on the issue of this contest, because it is more honorable, and doubtless more grateful to you than any station within the competence of the chief magistrate, yet for myself, and for the substantial service of the public, I feel most sensibly the loss we sustain of your aid in the new administration. It leaves a chasm in my arrangements, which cannot be adequately filled up. If we put things together, the letter of Jefferson certainly meant first that the time had come to make some "arrangements" to thwart the schemes of the Federalists; second, that a tie was almost certain, and finally that it was up to Burr to declare that he was not running for the presidency. This conclusion is all the more probable because three days later, writing to John Breckenridge, Jefferson did not mention again Georgia and Tennessee, but declared that "we are brought into a dilemma by the probable equality of the two Republican candidates." Then he added: "The Federalists in Congress mean to take advantage of this, and either to prevent an election altogether, or reverse what has been understood to have been the wishes of the people, as to the President and Vice-President; wishes which the Constitution did not permit them specially to designate."[407] Nothing could be clearer; it was to some extent the situation of 1796, but reversed as to the candidates, and Jefferson expected that Burr would do the right thing by him.