He wrote: "If there be a man in this world I ought to hate, it is Jefferson.

With Burr I have always been personally well.

But the public good must be paramount to every private consideration." The result of the election was a terrible blow to Adams.

His vanity was so hurt that he could not bear to be present at the installation of his successor, and after working almost to the stroke of midnight signing appointments to office for the defeated Federalists, he drove away from Washington in the early morning before the inauguration ceremonies began.
Eventually he soothed his self-esteem by associating his own trials and misfortunes with those endured by classical heroes.

He wrote that Washington, Hamilton, and Pinckney formed a triumvirate like that of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, and "that Cicero was not sacrificed to the vengeance of Antony more egregiously than John Adams was to the unbridled and unbounded ambition of Alexander Hamilton in the American triumvirate." BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Abundant materials are available for the period covered by this work.
Chief among them are the Annals of Congress, the State Papers, and the writings of statesmen to be found in any library index under their names.
The style maintained by Washington early became a subject of party controversy and to this may be attributed a noticeable variation in accounts given by different authors.