Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Volume 2. by Matthew L. (Matthew Livingston) Davis
page 69 of 568 (12%)


EXTRACT,

"Governor Clinton, however, remained unmoved by the most earnest
solicitations; and, with matchless firmness, resisted the arguments of
Mr. Burr, who forcibly asserted that it was a right inherent in the
community to command the services of an individual when the nature of
public exigences seemed to require it. He was inflexible to the last,
and then was nominated and elected without a distinct expression of
his approbation. Justice, however, induces me to acknowledge, that the
reasons he assigned for the reluctance with which he acted were
plausible and potent.

"He explicitly declared that he had long entertained an unfavourable
opinion of Mr. Jefferson's talents as a statesman and his firmness as
a republican. That he conceived him an accommodating trimmer, who
would change with times, and bend to circumstances for the purposes of
personal promotion. Impressed with these sentiments, he could not,
with propriety, he said, acquiesce in the elevation of a man destitute
of the qualifications essential to the good administration of the
government; and added other expressions too vulgar to be here
repeated. 'But,' said he, with energy, 'if you, Mr. Burr, was the
candidate for the presidential chair, I would act with pleasure and
with vigour.'"

It is so notorious that these were Governor Clinton's sentiments, that
it is scarcely necessary to produce authority to prove it. To remove,
however, every doubt in the reader's mind, I will refer him to Mr.
David Gelston, Mr. John Mills, Mr. John Swartwout, or Mr. Matthew L.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge