140 ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



His only hope seemed to lie in further intrigues with 

 the Federalists. The wonderful success of Jefferson's 

 administration was winning fresh supporters daily from 

 the opposite ranks, and the Federalist minority was 

 fast becoming factious and unscrupulous. It was be- 

 lieved by some that Timothy Pickering and others in 

 New England were meditating secession from the 

 Union and the establishment of a Northern confed- 

 eracy, to which New York, and perhaps New Jersey 

 and Pennsylvania, might be added. Burr was a vain 

 and shallow dreamer. As governor of New York he 

 might rise to be president of a Northern confederacy. 

 At any rate it was worth while to be governor of New 

 York, and Burr, while still Vice-president of the United 

 States, became a candidate for that position in 1804. 

 Hamilton had earned the gratitude of his fellow- 

 countrymen by thwarting Burr's schemes in 1801. 

 He now thwarted them again. Burr failed of election 

 and vowed revenge. His political prospects were 

 already well-nigh ruined; to a wretch like him there 

 was some satisfaction in killing the man who had 

 stood in his way. The affair was cool and deliberate. 

 He practised firing at a target, while in a crafty cor- 

 respondence he wound his vile meshes around his 

 enemy, and at length confronted him with a challenge. 

 Hamilton seems to have accepted it because he felt 

 that circumstances might still call for him to play a 

 leading part in national affairs, and that to decline a 

 challenge might impair his usefulness. The meeting 

 took place on the nth of July, 1804, a * that ill-fated 

 spot under Weehawken Heights. Hamilton fell at the 

 first fire, and was carried home, to die the next day. 

 The excitement in New York was intense. Vast 



