And Hamilton had incurred the dislike of Adams and the hostility of the Livingstons.  He had thought it best to scatter the votes for the Vice-President, lest there be the slightest risk of Washington’s defeat; and Adams who thought quite as much of himself as he did of George Washington, and had expected to be elected with little less than unanimity, instead of by a bare thirty-four votes, never forgave Hamilton the humiliation.  “I have seen the utmost delicacy used toward others,” he wrote to a friend, “but my feelings have never been regarded.”  He knew that Hamilton believed him to have been in sympathy with the Conway Cabal,—­a suspicion of which he never cleared himself,—­and attributed to the Federal leader the motive of wishing to belittle his political significance, lest he should endeavour to use his power as President of the Senate to hamper and annoy the Administration.  Perhaps he was right.  Far be it from anyone to attempt a journey through the utmost recesses of Hamilton’s mind.  He was frank by nature and habit, but he had resolved that the United States government should succeed, and had no mind to put weapons into the hands of Washington’s rivals.  He believed in Adams’s general integrity, patriotism, and federalism, however, and brought him to power in his own fashion.  He achieved his objects with little or no thought of personal consequences; and although this has been characterized as one of the great political mistakes of his career, it must be remembered that it was a time for nervousness and exaggerated fears.  Washington had enemies; no other man was believed, by the men who did the thinking for the country, to be able to hold the United States together until they were past their shoals, and the method of election was precarious:  each elector casting two votes without specification, the higher office falling to the candidate who received the larger number of votes.

The Livingstons had desired a seat in the Senate of the new Congress for one of their powerful family, and Hamilton had given the prize to Rufus King.  No gift could have been more justly bestowed; but the Livingstons felt themselves flouted, their great services to the country unrewarded.  Their open hostility roused all the haughty arrogance of Hamilton’s nature, and he made no effort to placate them.  When the great office of Chief Justice of the United States was given to John Jay, instead of to Robert Livingston, they attributed the discrimination to Hamilton’s influence over Washington; and the time came when this strong and hostile faction lent themselves to the scheming of one of the subtlest politicians that has ever lived.