evenly divided, and Mr. Adams, as presiding officer of that body, was often enabled to decide the question by his casting vote. In the first congress he gave as many as twenty casting votes upon questions of most vital importance to the whole subsequent history of the American people, and on all these occasions he supported Washington's policy. During Washington's administration grew up the division into the two great parties which have remained to this day in American politics — the one known as federalist, afterward as whig, then as republican; the other known at first as republican and afterward as democratic. John Adams was by his mental and moral constitution a federalist. He believed in strong government. To the opposite party he seemed much less a democrat than an aristocrat. In one of his essays he provoked great popular wrath by using the phrase “ the well-born.” He knew very well that in point of hereditary capacity and advantages men are not equal and never will be. His notion of democratic equality meant that all men should have equal rights in the eye of the law. There was nothing of the communist or leveller about him. He believed in the rightful existence of a governing class, which ought to be kept at the head of affairs; and he was supposed, probably with some truth, to have a predilection for etiquette, titles, gentlemen-in-waiting, and such things. Such views did not make him an aristocrat in the true sense of the word, for in nowise did he believe that the right to a place in the governing class should be heritable; it was something to be won by personal merit, and should not be withheld by any artificial enactments from the lowliest of men, to whom the chance of an illustrious career ought to be just as much open as to “the well-born.” At the same time John Adams differed from Jefferson and from his cousin, Samuel Adams, in distrusting the masses. All the federalist leaders shared this feeling more or less, and it presently became the chief source of weakness to the party. The disagreement between John Adams and Jefferson was first brought into prominence by the breaking out of the French revolution. Mr. Adams expected little or no good from this movement, which was like the American movement in no respect whatever except in being called a revolution. He set forth his views on this subject in his “Discourses on Davila,” which were published in a Philadelphia newspaper. Taking as his text Davila's history of the civil wars in France in the 16th century, he argued powerfully that a pure democracy was not the best form of government, but that a certain mixture of the aristocratic and monarchical elements was necessary to the permanent maintenance of free government. Such a mixture really exists in the constitution of the United States, and, in the opinion of many able thinkers, constitutes its peculiar excellence and the best guarantee of its stability. These views gave great umbrage to the extreme democrats, and in the election of 1793 they set up George Clinton, of New York, as a rival candidate for the vice-presidency; but when the votes were counted Adams had 77, Clinton 50, Jefferson 4, and Aaron Burr 1. During this administration Adams, by his casting vote, defeated the attempt of the republicans to balk Jay's mission to England in advance by a resolution entirely prohibiting trade with that country. For a time Adams quite forgot his jealousy of Washington in admiration for the heroic strength of purpose with which he pursued his policy of neutrality amid the furious efforts of political partisans to drag the United States into a rash and desperate armed struggle in support either of France or of England.
In 1796, as Washington refused to serve for a third term, John Adams seemed clearly marked out as federalist candidate for the succession. Hamilton and Jay were in a certain sense his rivals; but Jay was for the moment unpopular because of the famous treaty that he had lately negotiated with England, and Hamilton, although the ablest man in the federalist party, was still not so conspicuous in the eyes of the masses of voters as Adams, who besides was surer than any one else of the indispensable New England vote. Having decided upon Adams as first candidate, it seemed desirable to take the other from a southern state, and the choice fell upon Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina, a younger brother of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Hamilton now began to scheme against Mr. Adams in a manner not at all to his credit. He had always been jealous of Adams because of his stubborn and independent character, which made it impossible for him to be subservient to a leader. There was not room enough in one political party for two such positive and aggressive characters. Already in the election of 1788 Hamilton had contrived to diminish Adams's vote by persuading some electors of the possible danger of a unanimous and therefore equal vote for him and Washington. Such advice could not have been candid, for there was never the smallest possibility of a unanimous vote for Mr. Adams. Now in 1796 he resorted to a similar stratagem. The federalists were likely to win the election, but had not many votes to spare; the contest was evidently going to be close. Hamilton accordingly urged the federalist electors, especially in New England, to cast all their votes alike for Adams and Pinckney, lest the loss of a single vote by either one should give the victory to Jefferson, upon whom the opposite party was clearly united. Should Adams and Pinckney receive an exactly equal number of votes, it would remain for a federalist congress to decide which should be president. The result of the election showed 71 votes for John Adams, 68 for Jefferson, 59 for Pinckney, 30 for Burr, 15 for Samuel Adams, and the rest scattering. Two electors obstinately persisted in voting for Washington. When it appeared that Adams had only three more votes than Jefferson, who secured the second place instead of Pinckney, it seemed on the surface as if Hamilton's advice had been sound. But from the outset it had been clear (and no one knew it better than Hamilton) that several southern federalists would withhold their votes from Adams in order to give the presidency to Pinckney, always supposing that the New England electors could be depended upon to vote equally for both. The purpose of Hamilton's advice was to make Pinckney president and Adams vice-president, in opposition to the wishes of their party. This purpose was suspected in New England, and while some of the southern federalists voted for Pinckney and Jefferson, eighteen New Englanders, in voting for Adams, withheld their votes from Pinckney. The result was the election of a federalist president with a republican vice-president. In case of the death, disability, or removal of the president, the administration would fall into the hands of the opposite party. Clearly a mode of election that presented such temptations to intrigue, and left so much to accident, was vicious and could not last long. These proceedings gave rise to a violent feud between John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, which ended in breaking up the federalist party, and has left
