The Mechanics' Bill passed the legislature late in February, and was sent to the Council of Revision. At that time the chancellor and the judges of the Supreme Court formed a Council of Revision, and had a qualified negative on all bills. If they considered a bill unconstitutional, they returned it to the house in which it originated, with their objections; after which, if it received the vote of two thirds of both houses, it became a law. This bill was returned on the 9th of March by the council, with their objections, and, two thirds not voting in favour, it was lost. These objections, in substance, were precisely what had been urged against it by Colonel Burr on the floor of the assembly. The petitioners were forty-three in number. The bill gave them unlimited powers in some particulars. It did not incorporate their successors, only so far as they pleased to admit them. They might hold landed estate in perpetuity to an unlimited amount, provided their _income_ did exceed fifteen hundred pounds beyond their _outgoings_. Their by-laws were to be approved by the city corporation; thus, by rendering the one dependant on the other, either the mechanics would influence the magistrates, and the powers of the corporation of the city and county of New-York be made, at some future day, instruments of monopoly and oppression; or, which was more probable, the corporation of the city and county of New-York obtain a controlling power over the mechanics, and thus add to the extensive influence which that corporation already enjoyed, thereby rendering it dangerous to the political freedom of the people. Such were some of the objections entertained and urged by Colonel Burr against this bill. The great body of the community were prepared to sustain him; and, before the succeeding session of the legislature, the intelligent among the mechanics were so well satisfied with the correctness of his views, that a similar application was never afterward made,
From the year 1785 until the year 1788, Colonel Burr was unknown as a politician. His practice was extensive and lucrative. His domestic relations seemed to occupy all his leisure time. His family was large, and to direct the education of his children was to him the most delightful employment. His zeal for their improvement is evinced in some of the preceding letters. His own health was precarious, while that of Mrs. Burr caused him constant alarm and apprehension. He had but one child, a daughter; but the children of his wife by her first husband (Colonel Prevost) he reared as his own, and with all the tenderness of an affectionate father. The subjoined letters present Mrs. Burr in a most estimable point of view, while they cast some light upon Colonel Burr's character as a parent and a husband. They cannot be read, it is believed, by even the giddy and the thoughtless without feeling an interest in the destiny of their writers.