CHAPTER XYII.

THE   VICE-PRESIDENT.

The Office op Vice-Pkesidbnt—Maeeiage of Theodosia—Hbe Son — Bttee's »»
LIGHT IN Him — His Style of Living — His Coubtship of Celeste—His Popti-
LABiTT and Geneeal Good Foktune.

We behold our hero now upon the summit of his career.
At the age of forty-five, ten years after becoming known in
national politics, he stands one step below the highest place
to which by politics a man can rise.

The office of Vice-President of the United States, besides
the chance which gives it importance, has, in any case, an
odor of nationality about it which gives it dignity. Impetuous
John Adams called it an insignificant office. But that was
when the old war-horse heard the noise of battle in the House
of Representatives, or saw it waging before him in the Senate,
and longed, as of old, to plunge into the thickest of the fight.
Adams really enjoyed the safe honors of the place as well as
any man. At that day, something of the old sanctity still
clung to high office, and it was more to be Vice-President than
it is now. Burr, too, stood in the line of succession. Adams
rose from the second office to the first, and Jefferson had just
done the same. That Aaron Burr should in like manner be
advanced, was what precedent indicated, what his partisans
counted on, and what the people naturally looked for. Mean¬
while, he wore his honors with the airy dignity which be¬
longed to the man. It is apparent in his merry, sprightly
correspondence, that he took pleasure in filling a place that
called into conspicuous exercise the very qualities in which he
excelled all the public men of his time.

He was happy in his domestic circumst^ances. His two
step-sons, to whom he had ever shown more than a father's

13*