His opponent in the election, Thomas Jefferson, had won
the second greatest number of electoral votes and therefore had
been elected Vice President by the electoral college. Chief
Justice Oliver Ellsworth administered the oath of office in the
Hall of the House of Representatives in Federal Hall before a
joint session of Congress.
***
When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course
for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign
legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of
reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable
power of fleets and armies they must determine to resist than from
those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise
concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole
and over the parts of this extensive country. Relying, however, on
the purity of their intentions, the justice of their cause, and
the integrity and intelligence of the people, under an overruling
Providence which had so signally protected this country from the
first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of
little more than half its present number, not only broke to pieces
the chains which were forging and the rod of iron that was lifted
up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and
launched into an ocean of uncertainty.
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