But while Mr.Gallatin in this paragraph admitted such a law to be constitutional, in the next he argued that the act of the person designated by law, or of the president pro tempore, assuming the power is clearly "unconstitutional." By this ingenious process of reasoning, to which the strict constructionists have always been partial, it might be unconstitutional to carry out constitutional law.

The assumption of such power was therefore, Mr.Gallatin held, usurpation, to be resisted in one of two ways; by declaring the interval till the next session of Congress an interregnum, allowing all laws not immediately connected with presidential powers to take their course, and opposing a silent resistance to all others; or by the Republicans assuming the executive power by a joint act of the two candidates, or by the relinquishment of all claims by one of them.

On the other hand, the proposed outlines of Republican conduct were, 1st, to persevere in voting for Mr.Jefferson; 2d, to use every endeavor to defeat any law on the subject; 3d, to try to persuade Mr.Adams to refuse his consent to any such law and not to call the Senate on any account if there should be no choice by the House.
In a letter written in 1848 Mr.Gallatin said that a provision by law, that if there should be no election the executive power be placed in the hands of some public officer, was a revolutionary act of usurpation which would have been put down by force if necessary.

It was threatened that, if any man should be thus appointed President he should instantly be put to death, and bodies of men were said to be organized, in Maryland and Virginia, ready to march to Washington on March 4 for that purpose.

The fears of violence were so great that to Governor McKean of Pennsylvania was submitted the propriety of having a body of militia in readiness to reach the capital in time to prevent civil war.