Burr's action was perfectly correct. As an impartial presiding officer, he could not well have done anything else. Alexander J. Dallas, Republican Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, wrote the Vice-President a letter approving his action. (Dallas to Burr, Feb. 3, 1802, Davis: _Memoirs of Aaron Burr_, II, 82.) Nathaniel Niles, a rampant Republican, sent Burr a letter thanking him for his vote. As a Republican, he wanted his party to be fair, he said. (Niles to Burr, Feb. 17, 1802, _ib._ 83-84.) Nevertheless, Burr's vote was seized upon by his enemies as the occasion for beginning those attacks upon him which led to his overthrow and disgrace. (See chaps. VI, VII, VIII, and IX of this volume.)
[199] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 178-79.
[203] It was five o'clock (_ib._ 178) when Senator Breckenridge began to speak; it must have been well after six when Senator Morris rose to answer him.
[207] Troup to King, April 9, 1802, King, IV, 103.
[208] Bayard to Bassett, Jan. 25, 1802, _Papers of James A. Bayard_: Donnan, 146-47.
[209] Except Colhoun of South Carolina, converted by Tracy. See _supra_, 62.
[211] _Ib._ 510. A correspondent of the _Columbian Centinel_, reporting the event, declared that "the stand which the Federal Senators have made to preserve the Constitution, has been manly and glorious. They have immortalized their names, while those of their opposers will be execrated as the assassins of the Constitution." (_Columbian Centinel_, Feb. 17, 1802.)
[212] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 518-19.
[215] _Washington Federalist_, Feb. 13, 1802.
[216] Henderson in _North Carolina Booklet_, XVII, 66.
[217] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 529-30.
[220] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 552-53.
[224] See, for example, the speeches of Thomas Morris of New York (_Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 565-68); Calvin Goddard of Connecticut (_ib._ 727-34); John Stanley of North Carolina (_ib._ 569-78); Roger Griswold of Connecticut (_ib._ 768-69).
[226] Anderson, 83. Grigsby says that "Mr. Jefferson pronounced him (Giles) the ablest debater of the age." His speech on the Repeal Act, Grigsby declares to have been "by far his most brilliant display." (Grigsby: _Virginia Convention of 1829-30_, 23, 29.)
[229] This statement, coming from the Virginia radical, reveals the profound concern of the Republicans, for Giles thus declared that the Judiciary debate was of greater consequence than those historic controversies over Assumption, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Bank, Neutrality, the Jay Treaty, the French complication, the army, and other vital subjects. In most of those encounters Giles had taken a leading and sometimes violent part.