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congressmen were so reluctant to elect Thomas Jefferson, one of the noblest minds this nation has produced, but clung to Aaron Burr, one of the most mercurial and undependable, but the bitterness with which the Burr men opposed Jefferson is proved by the stubbornness of their vote.
    A great deal of politicking took place over the weekend. Certain deals were proposed and rejected. Others struck the fire of imagination and promised possibilities, which never did materialize. There was talk of rebellion; there was fear of anarchy; and on Monday the voting resumed.
    The thirty-fourth ballot revealed the same obdurate lines of resistance—8–6–2—but there was a rumor that the Maryland delegation might be prepared to break its deadlock, not through the death of Joseph Nicholson, who lived through to the bitter end, but because a Burr supporter felt that this travesty could continue no longer and threatened to vote for Jefferson. (Nicholson survived till 1817 and earned a place in history because one day he saw some lines scribbled by his brother-in-law and brought them to the attention of the public on the ground that they exhibited a fine patriotic sentiment. His brother-in-law was Francis Scott Key and the poem thus saved was “The Star-Spangled Banner.”)
    The House, sensing that grave decisions were impending, recessed so that adversaries could consider their positions, and on Tuesday morning, February 17, 1801, when the House reconvened, there was again wild rumor that Maryland had broken its tie and would vote for Jefferson, but on the thirty-fifth ballot Maryland continued her deadlock. When the thirty-sixth ballot was called for, however, members saw with amazement that the issue had been decided for them in an unforeseen way: one of the two chairs in the Vermont delegation was empty, and it was the Burr supporter who was abstaining. His state could now vote Jefferson one, Burr none. A President had been elected. To make it certain, Burr menin Maryland also abstained, allowing that state as well to go for Jefferson. In Delaware and South Carolina the delegations were all Burr men; they agreed to withhold their votes from him but they were damned if they would vote for Jefferson, so they did not participate and their states were recorded as abstaining. Final vote: Jefferson 10, Burr 4, abstentions 2.
    A major reason why the House had been able to hold the line for Jefferson through this parade of thirty-five deadlocked ballots was that Alexander Hamilton patriotically swallowed his personal hatred for Jefferson and led the fight against Burr, whom he knew to be inadequate. Said Hamilton at the beginning of the battle, “I trust the Federalists will not finally be so mad as to vote for Burr. I speak with intimate and accurate knowledge of his character. His elevation can only promote the purposes of the desperate and profligate. If there be a man in the world I ought to hate, it is Jefferson. With Burr I have always been personally well. But the public good must be paramount to every private consideration.” Three years later Burr killed Hamilton in a duel, occasioned in part by the bitterness of this election.
    Some historians make the point that this House election of 1801 ought not to be used as a precedent for trying to anticipate what a House election would be like in this century, because the Twelfth Amendment, which came quickly upon the heels of this disturbing performance, altered the rules to correct some of the weaknesses which the Jefferson-Burr fight disclosed. This is sound reasoning, except that the aspects of the 1801 House election which I have been stressing—theconfusions that grow out of the vulnerable system of allotting each state one vote—remain the same, and to that extent the analogy is pertinent. What happened in 1801 was exactly what we could have expected in 1969.
    The second House election, however, would in other respects present a closer analogy, for the constitutional rules which