The Life of John Marshall Volume III Part 38

plot of Aaron Burr was already on every tongue; but here, indeed, was an anti-climax.

The Senate referred the brief paragraph of the President's Message relating to the conspiracy to a special committee. The committee took no action. Everybody was in suspense. What were the facts? n.o.body knew. But the air was thick with surmise, rumor, conjecture, and strange fancies--none of them bearing the color of truth.[908] Marshall was then in Washington and must have heard all these tales which were on every tongue.

In two weeks from the time Jefferson's Message was read to Congress, John Randolph rose in his place in the House, and in a speech of sharp criticism both of Spain and of the President, demanded that the President lay before Congress any information in his possession concerning the conspiracy and the measures taken to suppress it.[909]

A heated debate followed. Jefferson's personal supporters opposed the resolution. It was, however, generally agreed, as stated by George W.

Campbell of Tennessee, that "this conspiracy has been painted in stronger colors than there is reason to think it deserves." There was no real evidence, said Campbell; nothing but "newspaper evidence."[910]

Finally that part of the resolution calling for the facts as to the conspiracy was pa.s.sed by a vote of 109 yeas to 14 nays; while the clause demanding information as to the measures Jefferson had taken was carried by 67 yeas to 52 nays.[911]

A week later the President responded in a Special Message. His information as to the conspiracy was, he said, a "voluminous ma.s.s," but there was in it "little to const.i.tute legal evidence." It was "chiefly in the form of letters, often containing such a mixture of rumors, conjectures, and suspicions, as renders it difficult to sift out the real facts." On November 25, said Jefferson, he had received Wilkinson's letter exposing Burr's evil designs which the General, "with the honor of a soldier and fidelity of a good citizen," had sent him, and which, "when brought together" with some other information, "developed Burr's general designs."[912]

The President a.s.sured Congress that "one of these was the severance of the Union of these States beyond the Alleghany mountains; the other, an attack on Mexico. A third object was provided ... the settlement of a pretended purchase of a tract of country on the Was.h.i.ta." But "this was merely a pretext." Burr had soon found that the Western settlers were not to be seduced into secession; and thereupon, said Jefferson, the desperado "determined to seize upon New Orleans, plunder the bank there, possess himself of the military and naval stores, and proceed on his expedition to Mexico." For this purpose Burr had "collected ... all the ardent, restless, desperate, and disaffected persons" within his reach.

Therefore the President made his Proclamation of November 27, which had thwarted Burr's purposes. In New Orleans, however, General Wilkinson had been forced to take extreme measures for the defense of the country against the oncoming plunderers. Among these was the seizure of Bollmann and Swartwout who were "particularly employed in the endeavor to corrupt the General and the Army of the United States," and who had been sent oversea by Wilkinson for "ports in the Atlantic states, probably on the consideration that an impartial trial could not be expected ... in New Orleans, and that the city was not as yet a safe place of confinement."[913]

As to Burr, Jefferson a.s.sured Congress that his "_guilt is placed beyond question_."[914]

With this amazing Message the President sent an affidavit of Wilkinson's, as well as two letters from that veracious officer,[915]

and a copy of Wilkinson's version of Burr's letter to him from which the General had carefully omitted the fact that the imprudent message was in answer to a dispatch from himself. But Jefferson did not transmit to Congress the letter, dated October 21, 1806, which he had received from Wilkinson.

Thoughtful men, who had personally studied Burr for years and who were unfriendly to him, doubted the accuracy of Wilkinson's version of the Burr dispatch: "It sounds more like Wilkinson's letter than Burr's,"

Senator Plumer records in his diary. "There are ... some things in it quite irrelevant.... Burr's habits have been never to trust himself on paper, if he could avoid it--when he wrote, it was with great caution.... Wilkinson is not an accurate correct man."[916]

No such doubts, however, a.s.sailed the eager mult.i.tude. The awful charge of treason had now been formally made against Burr by the President of the United States. This, the most sensational part of Jefferson's Message, at once caught and held the attention of the public, which took for granted the truth of it. From that moment the popular mind was made up, and the popular voice demanded the life of Aaron Burr. No mere trial in court, no adherence to rules of evidence, no such insignificant fact as the American Const.i.tution, must be permitted to stand between the people's aroused loyalty and the miscreant whom the Chief Executive of the Nation had p.r.o.nounced guilty of treason.

FOOTNOTES:

[752] "We were all deeply affected, and many shed tears." (Plumer to his wife, March 2, 1805, Plumer, 331; and see _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 367.)

"Tears did flow abundantly." (Burr to his daughter, March 13, 1805, Davis, II, 360.)

[753] "There was nothing written or prepared.... It was the solemnity, the anxiety, the expectation, and the interest which I saw strongly painted in the countenances of the auditors, that inspired whatever was said." (_Ib._ 360.)

[754] The speech, records the _Washington Federalist_, which had been extremely abusive of Burr, "was said to be the most dignified, sublime and impressive that ever was uttered."

"His address ... was delivered with great force and propriety." (Plumer to his wife, March 2, 1805, Plumer, 331.)

"His speech ... was delivered with great dignity.... It was listened to with the most earnest and universal attention." (_Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 367.) Burr made a profound impression on John Quincy Adams.

"There was not a member present but felt the force of this solemn appeal to his sense of duty." (J. Q. Adams to his father, March 14, 1805, _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, 119.)

The franking privilege was given Burr for life, a courtesy never before extended except to a President of the United States and Mrs. Washington.

(See Hillhouse's speech, _Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 272.)

[755] His father was the President of Princeton. His maternal grandfather was Jonathan Edwards.

[756] Hamilton's pursuit of Burr was lifelong and increasingly venomous.

It seems incredible that a man so transcendently great as Hamilton--easily the foremost creative mind in American statesmanship--should have succ.u.mbed to personal animosities such as he displayed toward John Adams, and toward Aaron Burr.

The rivalry of Hamilton and Burr began as young attorneys at the New York bar, where Burr was the only lawyer considered the equal of Hamilton. Hamilton's open hostility, however, first showed itself when Burr, then but thirty-five years of age, defeated Hamilton's father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, for the United States Senate. The very next year Hamilton prevented Burr from being nominated and elected Governor of New York. Then Burr was seriously considered for Vice-President, but Hamilton also thwarted this project.

When Burr was in the Senate, the anti-Federalists in Congress unanimously recommended him for the French Mission; and Madison and Monroe, on behalf of their colleagues, twice formally urged Burr's appointment. Hamilton used his influence against it, and the appointment was not made. At the expiration of Burr's term in the Senate, Hamilton saw to it that he should not be chosen again and Hamilton's father-in-law this time succeeded.

President Adams, in 1798, earnestly desired to appoint Burr to the office of Brigadier-General under Washington in the provisional army raised for the expected war with France. Hamilton objected so strenuously that the President was forced to give up his design. (See Adams to Rush, Aug. 25, 1805, _Old Family Letters_, 77; and same to same, June 23, 1807, _ib._ 150.)

In the Presidential contest in the House in 1801 (see vol. II, 533-38, of this work), Burr, notwithstanding his refusal to do anything in his own behalf (_ib._ 539-47), would probably have been elected instead of Jefferson, had not Hamilton savagely opposed him. (_Ib._)

When, in 1804, Burr ran for Governor of New York, Hamilton again attacked him. It was for one of Hamilton's a.s.saults upon him during this campaign that Burr challenged him. (See Parton: _Life and Times of Aaron Burr_, 339 _et seq._; also Adams: _U.S._ II, 185 _et seq._; and _Private Journal of Aaron Burr_, reprinted from ma.n.u.script in the library of W.

K. Bixby, Introduction, iv-vi.) So prevalent was dueling that, but for Hamilton's incalculable services in founding the Nation and the lack of similar constructive work by Burr, the hatred of Burr's political enemies and the fatal result of the duel, there certainly would have been no greater outcry over the encounter than over any of the similar meetings between public men during that period.

[757] Dueling continued for more than half a century. Many of the most eminent of Americans, such as Clay, Randolph, Jackson, and Benton, fought on "the field of honor." In 1820 a resolution against dueling, offered in the Senate by Senator Morrill of New Hampshire, was laid on the table. (_Annals_, 16th Cong. 1st Sess. 630, 636.)

[758] McCaleb: _Aaron Burr Conspiracy_, 19; Parton: _Burr_, 382.

[759] Vol. II, 545, of this work.

[760] Adams: _U.S._ I, 331.

[761] "His official conduct in the Senate ... has fully met my approbation," testifies the super-critical Plumer in a letter to his wife March 2, 1805. (Plumer, 331.)

[762] "Burr is completely an insulated man." (Sedgwick to King, Feb. 20, 1802, King, IV, 74.)

"Burr has lost ground very much with Jefferson's sect during the present session of Congress.... He has been not a little abused ... in the democratic prints." (Troup to King, April 9, 1802, King, IV, 103.)

Also see _supra_, chap. II; Adams: _U.S._ I, 280; and Parton: _Burr_, 309.

[763] Adams: _U.S._ I, 230-33; Channing: _Jeff. System_, 17-19.

[764] "Burr is a gone man; ... Jefferson is really in the dust in point of character, but notwithstanding this, he is looked up to ... as the Gog and Magog of his party." (Troup to King, Dec. 12, 1802, King, IV, 192-93.) See also Adams: _U.S._ I, 282.

[765] Channing: _Jeff. System_, 18-19.

[766] Adams: _U.S._ I, 332.

[767] Adams: _U.S._ II, 185.

"He was accused of this and that, through all of which he maintained a resolute silence. It was a characteristic of his never to refute charges against his name.... It is not shown that Burr ever lamented or grieved over the course of things, however severely and painfully it pressed upon him." (McCaleb, 19.) See also Parton: _Burr_, 336.

[768] "Burr ... is acting a little and skulking part. Although Jefferson hates him as much as one demagogue can possibly hate another who is aiming to rival him, yet Burr does not come forward in an open and manly way agt. him.... Burr is ruined in politics as well as in fortune."

(Troup to King, Aug. 24, 1802, King, IV, 160.)

[769] Davis, II, 89 _et seq._; Adams: _U.S._ I, 332-33; McCaleb, 20; Parton: _Burr_, 327 _et seq._

[770] See _supra_, 150-52, and vol. IV, chap. I, of this work.

[771] Plumer, 295.

[772] It appears that some of the New England Federalists urged upon the British Minister the rejection of the articles of the Boundary Treaty in retaliation for the Senate's striking out one article of that Convention. They did this, records the British Minister, because, as they urged, such action by the British Government "would prove to be a great exciting cause to them [the New England Secessionists] to go forward rapidly in the steps which they have already commenced toward a separation from the Southern part of the Union.