Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Part 35

"Burr misread Daviess if he believed such tactics would intimidate or embarra.s.s him. He arose and in turn-and I believe for the first time in the discharge of his duties-seemed to talk to the benches; and the court perceiving it, moved his seat from the jury box to the bench-but Daviess continuing to face the audience, made a Federalist speech in support of the Union and the const.i.tution and revealed at some length the conspiracy of Burr and his followers. What he said pleased me greatly and was not without effect upon the audience, though the majority were Democrats and in sympathy with Burr. He announced: 'I am ready to proceed as soon as the attendance of the government's witnesses can be procured.' The Court asked him to fix a day and conferring with the United States marshal he named the following Wednesday, which, proving satisfactory to Colonel Burr, was named for the hearing.

"Burr, until Wednesday, appeared to pa.s.s the time in easy tranquillity.

On Wednesday, the court room was filled to suffocation. Mr. Daviess, calling his witnesses, discovered that Davis Floyd, the most important one, was absent; but Judge Innes, who, all the while, has shown partiality for the accused, discharged the grand jury.

"Colonel Burr, accompanied by his counsel, Henry Clay and Col. Allen, came forward, expressed regret that the grand jury had been discharged and asked the reason.

"(Daviess) 'The Government's witness, Davis Floyd, is a member of the Indiana Territorial Legislature and as it is in session he cannot attend.'

"(Burr) 'Will the Court have noted of record the reason for postponement.' Then bowing to the Court, he addressed the audience upon the subject of the accusation and with such power, fervor and air of injured innocence, that the majority present looked upon Daviess as a persecutor for political reasons. Burr said: 'I a.s.sure you good people of Kentucky of my innocence and beg you will dismiss your apprehension of danger from me, if such you have. I am a man of peace and feel hurt that your able district attorney is striving so zealously to connect me with schemes and rumors of war. I am engaged in no enterprise that can endanger the peace or tranquillity of our country as you will most certainly learn, when the district attorney shall be ready, which I surmise will never be. Though pressing business demands my presence elsewhere, I feel compelled to give your zealous official one more opportunity of proving his charge; or acknowledging my innocence and admitting that it is persecution.'

"Nevertheless, watching Burr day by day, I notice he is slowly losing his tranquillity; even his face, when at rest, has a nervous expression.

"I learn that he has sought to engage my friend, John Rowan, as one of his counsel; but Mr. Rowan declined, saying: 'My position as a congressman-elect precludes the employment, as the charge involves fidelity to the Government.'

"This reason did not satisfy Burr, who offered him a thousand dollars (what I earn in three years by preaching) and began arguing against his objection; but Mr. Rowan interrupted him: 'Pardon me, Colonel Burr, but I have been taught from earliest childhood not to reason on subjects which my conscience in the first instance condemns.'

"Rumor of this conversation reached Mr. Clay, who was also a member-elect of Congress, and he came to Mr. Rowan asking advice as to his employment. Rowan advised: 'Since you have already appeared as counsel, I think you should continue; that is, if your client will give you written a.s.surance of his innocence.'

"At Mr. Clay's request Colonel Burr, on December 1, gave him this statement: 'I have no design nor have I taken any measure to promote a dissolution of the Union, or a separation of any one or more states from the residue. I have neither published a line on this subject nor has any one through my agency or with my knowledge. I have no design to intermeddle with the government, or to disturb the tranquillity of the United States, nor of its territories, or any part of them. I have neither issued nor signed, nor promised a commission to any person for any purpose. I do not own a musket or bayonet or any single article of military stores nor does any person for me by my authority or my knowledge. My views have been explained to and approved by several of the princ.i.p.al officers of the government and I believe are well understood by the administration and seen by it with complacency; they are such as every man of honor and every good citizen must approve.

Considering the high station you now fill in our national councils, I have thought these explanations proper, as well as to counteract the chimerical tales, which malevolent persons have industriously circulated, as to satisfy you that you have not espoused the cause of a man in any way unfriendly to the laws, the government or the interests of his country.'

"This statement Burr gave without hesitancy, though his guilt is now established. Some months prior to giving it, on July 29th, he wrote General Wilkinson:

"'I have obtained funds and have actually commenced the enterprise.

Detachments from different points and on different pretences, will rendezvous on the Ohio on the 1st of November. Everything internal and external favors views * * * Already are orders given to contractors to forward six months' provisions to point Wilkinson may name. The project is brought to the point so long desired. Burr guarantees the result with his life and honor and with the lives and fortunes of hundreds-the best blood of the country. Wilkinson shall be second only to Burr. Wilkinson shall dictate the rank of his officers. Burr's plan of operations is to move down rapidly from the falls by the 15th of November, with the first five or ten hundred men, in light boats now constructing, to be at Natches between the 5th and 15th of December, there to meet Wilkinson; there to determine whether it will be expedient in the first instance to seize on or pa.s.s by Baton-Rogue.'

"On the 25th of November Mr. Daviess announced to the Court that he could have Davis Floyd present on December 2nd and asked that a second grand jury be empaneled for that date; which was done.

"But on the 2nd Mr. Daviess was again forced to ask a postponement because of the absence of John Adair; though he asked that the grand jury be retained until he could enforce Adair's attendance by attachment.

"This occasioned a lively and prolonged argument between Burr's counsel and Daviess, to which all the overcrowded court room listened with marked attention.

"Clay had the sympathy of the majority of the audience. The proposed expedition and its leader were popular. Clay was a Democrat. Daviess was a Federalist, a decidedly minority party in Kentucky. The people believed in the innocence of the smiling and composed Burr. The judge was with him and refused to retain the grand jury after the disposition of pending business. It was up to Daviess to make business until Adair could be found. He asked an attachment for him, which the Court denied, holding he was not in contempt until the end of the day's session. He drafted an indictment charging Adair with complicity in the Burr conspiracy; but the grand jury returned it, 'not a true bill.' As it was late, Daviess asked for and procured an adjournment until the next day.

"When the court rea.s.sembled, Daviess asked, as prosecuter, to go before the grand jury to examine his witnesses so they would understand and be able to piece together the detached evidence const.i.tuting the conspiracy. The request was resisted by counsel for Burr and refused by the court, though the judge himself had suggested it the evening before.

"The grand jury at the close of the hearing returned the indictment submitted against Col. Burr, 'Not a true bill'-and further declared in their report, that the evidence submitted completely exonerated him from any designs against the peace and dignity of the United States.

"Burr's acquittal was celebrated by a great ball given by his friends; and was followed by another given in honor of the defeated district attorney-and privately, I felt very much inclined to attend the Daviess ball; and if I had, would have been tempted to dance, as I was at my own wedding to my Dear Dorothy.

"On November 27th the President by proclamation denounced the Burr enterprise and warned the people of the Western country against partic.i.p.ation in it.

"In the meantime preparations for the enterprise continued until the arrival of the proclamation, which in conjunction with the efforts of Mr. Graham, the government's special agent, effectively scotched it.

"The way this came about, Blannerha.s.sett, under the impression that Graham was a friend of Col. Burr, disclosed the details of the expedition. Graham informed Blannerha.s.sett to the contrary and sought to persuade him from partic.i.p.ation, but without avail; then he proceeded to Chillicothe, where the Ohio legislature was in session and interviewed Governor Tiffin. The governor sent a message to the legislature and that body, in secret session, pa.s.sed an act to suppress the expedition.

Thereupon the Ohio authorities seized the boats and provisions on the Ohio sh.o.r.e and the Ohio recruits abandoned the expedition.

"Graham then hastened to Kentucky, where the legislature, then in session, pa.s.sed a similar law; and orders were given to apprehend all boats in Kentucky waters. Several days before Graham's arrival, Burr had departed for Nashville.

"Graham, following after him, induced the governor of Tennessee to order all boats in Tennessee waters seized and all persons implicated arrested. Burr and his confederates were informed and made their escape in two small boats, paddling to the mouth of the c.u.mberland.

"There they joined the remnant of the great flotilla, eleven boats and sixty men and proceeded down the Ohio to the Mississippi and down that stream towards the trap which Wilkinson had prepared for his former co-conspirator.

"Wilkinson had always been a careful and calculating conspirator; disregarding all connections and shifting about as self interest dictated. He was the servant of the highest bidder and in the Burr conspiracy doubtless the instigator; as also the first to recognize that the scheme was chimerical. Soon learning the real Kentucky spirit, he made up his mind to abandon Burr and at the first opportunity traitorously disclosed the plans to President Jefferson; and towards the end did everything in his power to frustrate Burr's designs.

"When Burr, visiting Wilkinson in St. Louis, spoke of discontent in Kentucky, he replied: 'If you have not profited more by your journey in other respects than this, you would better have staid in Washington. The Western people dissatisfied to the government! They are bigoted to Jefferson and Democracy.'

"When the enterprise collapsed, Wilkinson, like many others who had been loudest in Burr's praise and deepest in his schemes, was now the loudest in denouncing the conspiracy and the most zealous with suggestions to apprehend him.

"I understand that Burr, blaming its failure upon Wilkinson, denounced him: 'As to any prospects which may have been formed between General Wilkinson and myself heretofore; they are now completely frustrated by his perfidious conduct, and the world must p.r.o.nounce him a perfidious villain. If I am sacrificed my portfolio will prove him to be such.'

"One can readily understand why his expedition appealed to a great many Kentuckians. The people are hardy and adventurous. There are yet many among us who lived through the most heroic era of our history; and the younger generation, fired by their tales, are ready for any adventurous enterprise. Spain is an old enemy, the State is growing rapidly, many feel crowded if they live within sight of a neighbor; the enterprise offered great opportunities for adventure, for a new pioneer life; and land was to be had for the taking.

"Even the longest letter must have an ending, and I have found a friend going to Powell's Valley, who has promised to deliver mine. I shall come home in January. My heart bleeds because I will not be able to spend Christmas with you and the boy. I feel I have no home, but my Master had not a place to lay his head, nor a wife and son. I pray daily for your safety and good health. The Lord bless and keep both of you.

"Your husband, "Calvin."

The Kentucky Legislature was pet.i.tioned in December, 1806, to make inquiry into the conduct of Judge Sebastian, a member of the Court of Appeals, as an intriguer with Spain in an effort to bring about Kentucky's secession from the Union. In an effort to stifle the inquiry, Sebastian resigned, but the inquiry continued. Evidence submitted, including his confession, disclosed that he had been a pensioner of Spain for many years, receiving $2,000.00 per annum. Many believed Judge Innes implicated; and at the session of the succeeding legislature, a resolution was pa.s.sed recommending that Congress inquire into his conduct, as being United States judge for the district of Kentucky it was beyond the province of Kentucky authority. This was done and resulted in his acquittal.

The disclosures of the Sebastian investigation, and the Burr conspiracy, resulted in a renewal by the Atlantic states of the old and oft-repeated charge that Kentucky was disloyal to the Union. The people of Kentucky resented the charge.

A great ma.s.s meeting was held in Lexington when the people of the State understood the charges made by the eastern states. After a patriotic speech by Rev. Calvin Campbell, which Henry Clay declared the smoothest argument he had ever heard in support of centralized power against state rights, the meeting unanimously adopted a resolution:

"* * * That all charges or insinuations against the people of this State of disaffection to the Union or Government of the United States are gross misapprehensions and without foundation." This resolution was published in the Palladium on January 7, 1807.

On January 14, 1807, Burr, a fugitive in the then great Southwest Wilderness, was apprehended on the Tombigbee river by Captain Gaines, of the United States army, and carried to Richmond for trial.

CHAPTER XXI.-Controversies and Peace.

Calvin Campbell, ordained in 1790, slowly rose to first place among all the preachers of Kentucky. His popularity was deserved. He was not only a great preacher, but a scholar, a patriot, and a modest, winsome and most unselfish Christian worker. His zeal was not smothered by a clammy conservatism and his work was of the highest order; though his hearers occasionally gave sensational physical manifestations of their conversion, there was nothing sensational about his preaching.

For the decade beginning with the Great Awakening in 1800, religious growth of all denominations in Kentucky had been phenomenal, exceeding a thousand per cent.

Churches having large congregations were organized and no ministers were available to preach to them. This was especially true of the Presbyterian Church, grown strong in a land suffering from a dearth of schools and colleges-a church which under its rules of government could only license and ordain for service candidates having cla.s.sical and theological training. In Kentucky, as elsewhere, the growth of the kingdom does not wait for a preacher to be educated to grammatically enunciate the gospel of Christ.

The greatest growth from these revivals had been in the c.u.mberland country-a section taking this name because it embraced the c.u.mberland River valley in Kentucky and Tennessee, and which subsequently gave name to the c.u.mberland Presbyterian Church. The cause of its severance from the Presbyterian Church is not without interest.

Father Rice, the patriarch of Presbyterianism in Kentucky, visiting the Green River and c.u.mberland country, saw the need of preachers and, knowing of no other way to meet it, suggested to the c.u.mberland and Green River Presbyteries that they select pious and promising young men from their churches and prepare them for the ministry, saying: "You understand they should be trained to meet the requirements of the church rules, but the harvest is going to waste; there is no other way to save it, and such training is beyond our reach."

This suggestion was adopted, and several young men, after a primitive theological course, were advanced to the ministry.

This was the beginning of a great controversy between the liberal preachers and those ministers who were sticklers for the old ecclesiastical order. The sticklers not only found fault with this method of supplying the demand, but criticised the revivals and their attendant demonstrations. There was also between the liberals and the conservatives some divergences in doctrinal belief centered upon that portion of the confession of faith and the catechism which it was claimed taught the doctrine of fatalism.

These divergences, protracted through several years, grew with time, until finally they became so serious that the Synod of Kentucky appointed a commission to meet at Gasper River Meeting House and endeavor to adjust them. The attempt failed, the controversy seemed unending. To end it, these two presbyteries were dissolved by order of the Synod, but they still continued to advance to the ministry men not up to the educational standard of the church, nor in accord with the doctrine of predestination. This was very offensive to the conservative membership and ministry of the church, while the liberal or revival party, deeming themselves oppressed and wronged argued: "There is no other way to supply our churches with preachers. Your doctrine of predestination is the fatalism of the ancients."