Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| took the reins of government in the State. It was of course but a short step from making removals for political reasons, without regard to the fitness of the incumbent, to making appointments in which considerations of political expediency outweighed considerations of propriety. The step was soon taken. The Council of Appointment even occasionally gave lucrative local offices in the city of New York to influential partisans of loose character from remote sections of the State. |
| The Clintonians and Livingstons, backed by all the weight of the national administration, reduced Burr’s influence in the Democratic party to a nullity, and finally drove him out. He was not renominated for Vice-President, George Clinton being put in his place. In the State election, about the same time, Chancellor Livingston’s brother-in-law, Morgan Lewis, was nominated for governor. Burr ran for the office as an Independent, hoping to carry not only his own faction of the Democracy, but also the entire Federalist vote. The majority of the Federalists did support him; but a large number, under Hamilton’s lead, refused to do so, and though he just carried the city, he was beaten overwhelmingly in the State at large. |
| Burr was now a ruined man, hated by all factions and parties. Nevertheless, he played out the losing game to the last with unmoved force |