LETTER CCLXVI.--TO JAMES MADISON, December 19,1800
TO JAMES MADISON.
Washington, December 19,1800.
Dear Sir,
Mrs. Brown's departure for Virginia enables me to write confidentially
what I could not have ventured by the post at this prying season.
The election in South Carolina has in some measure decided the great
contest. Though as yet we do not know the actual votes of Tennessee,
Kentucky, and Vermont, yet we believe the votes to be on the whole, J.
seventy-three, B. seventy-three, A. sixty-five, P. sixty-four. Rhode
Island withdrew one from P. There is a possibility that Tennessee may
withdraw one from B., and Burr writes that there may be one vote in
Vermont for J. But I hold the latter impossible, and the former not
probable; and that there will be an absolute parity between the two
republican candidates. This has produced great dismay and gloom on the
republican gentlemen here, and exultation in the federalists, who openly
declare they will prevent an election, and will name a President of
the Senate, _pro tem_, by what they say would only be a stretch of the
constitution. The prospect of preventing this, is as follows. Georgia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New
York, can be counted on for their vote in the, House of Representatives,
and it is thought by some, that Baer of Maryland, and Linn of New Jersey
will come over.
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