Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Volume 2. by Matthew L. (Matthew Livingston) Davis
page 75 of 568 (13%)
page 75 of 568 (13%)
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effort to disappoint it; and it seems to me that there is a very
solemn obligation to employ the means in our power. The calling of the legislature will have for object the choosing of electors by the people in districts; this (as Pennsylvania will do nothing) will ensure a majority of votes in the United States for a federal candidate. The measure will not fail to be approved by all the federal party, while it will, no doubt, be condemned by the opposite. As to its intrinsic nature, it is justified by unequivocal reasons of _public safety_. The reasonable part of the world will, I believe, approve it. They will see it as a proceeding out of the common course, but warranted by the particular nature of the crisis and the great cause of social order. If done, the motive ought to be frankly avowed. In your communication to the legislature, they ought to be told that temporary circumstances had rendered it probable that, without their interposition, the executive authority of the general government would be transferred to hands hostile to the system heretofore pursued with so much success, and dangerous to the peace, happiness, and order of the country. That under this impression, from facts convincing to your own mind, you had thought it your duty to give the existing legislature an opportunity of deliberating whether it would not be proper to interpose, and endeavour to prevent so great an evil, by referring the choice of electors to the people distributed into districts. In weighing this suggestion, you will doubtless bear in mind that popular governments must certainly be overturned; and, while they |
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