Francis F. Beirne

“ Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his happiness, thus seduced from the paths of innocence and peace; thus confounded in the toils that were deliberately214 spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another—this man, thus ruined and undone and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and treason—this man is to be called the principal offender, while he, by whom he was plunged into misery, is comparatively innocent, a mere accessory. Is this reason? Is it law? Is it humanity? ”

“ On this occasion Burr was a guest at the Hermitage for eight days. Of the second visit the Colonel wrote in glowing terms to Theodosia: “For a week I have been lounging at the house of General Jackson, once a lawyer, after a judge, now a planter; a man of intelligence, and one of those prompt, frank ardent souls whom I love to meet.” ”

“ Whatever the practical, common-sense reason, there were many who failed to seize the opportunity presented them by Saint-Mémin. They could not know that a hundred years or so after they had gone to their reward their portraits, in black and white crayon on pink paper, hanging on a wall in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Annapolis, or Richmond, and duly authenticated as an ancestor, entitled its owner to a place in the most exclusive social circles.
In a country where a coronet is not worn a “Saint-Mémin” comes closest to being the equivalent symbol of nobility. ”

“ Common sense, it seems, creates an accessory and introduces him as a principal, contrary to the Constitution. Common sense does not say, like the Constitution, that treason consists in levying war, but brings in a new person to participate in the guilt and punishment of treason. ”

“ With all his democratic principles, Jefferson was not a good mixer. He had an innate reserve that made ordinary men self-conscious in his company. When reports reached him that John Marshall was the most popular man in Richmond, he could not contain himself. Was not Marshall, by thus cultivating the good will of the masses, poaching on territory Jefferson regarded as peculiarly his own? In the autumn of 1795 he wrote to his friend Madison: “His lax lounging manners have made him popular with the bulk of the people in Richmond; and a profound hypocrisy with many thinking men of our own country. ”

“ Alston’s letter, of course, soon became public property. Could a young man have found himself in a more embarrassing position? His good name had been dangerously compromised. Alston rightly felt he should clear himself of the suspicions which mention of his name in the letter naturally aroused. But how could he do that without casting reflections on his father-in-law? And how could he cast reflections on his father-in-law without showing disloyalty to Theodosia? ”

“ With all the vigor at his command he threw himself into the contest to prevent Burr from winning the necessary votes. “As unprincipled and dangerous a man as any country can boast,” “as true a Cataline as ever met in conclave,” a man whose “private character is not defended by his most partial friends,” “bankrupt beyond redemption except by the plunder of his country,” his “public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandizement”—these were among the extravagant epithets Hamilton applied to Burr in letters to friends. ”

“ If this be law, for which gentlemen now contend, God forbid that I should remain a citizen of the United States.
“And is Mr. Jefferson to be the judge of the relevancy of evidence, in a prosecution in which he has taken so active a part against the accused? Mr. Jefferson, Sir, is a man of no legal knowledge. He was of no celebrity as a lawyer before the Revolution, and he has since been so much engaged in political pursuits that he has had time enough to unlearn the little law he ever knew.”
Hay rose to the defense of the President against Martin’s vituperation. ”

“ The only dwelling of distinction which stood there at the time of the Burr trial and which stands today is the house of Chief Justice Marshall. Restored and reverently cared for, it enables visitors to visualize what life on the Hill was like when, under its roof or in the shade of the trees on the lawn, the master penned his famous opinions.
The master himself and his beloved Molly have moved a few blocks away. They and their family and friends occupy more restricted quarters in Shockoe Cemetery. In death as in life fashion predominates. ”

“ Wirt’s hypothetical case was beginning to show a striking resemblance to what Aaron Burr was charged with having done. And he was not yet through. This imaginary man might prepare the whole mechanism of the stupendous and destructive engine and put it in motion. Let the rest be done by his agents. He might then go a hundred miles from the scene of action. Let him but keep himself from the scene of the assemblage and the immediate site of battle and he would be innocent in law, while those whom he had deluded would suffer the death of traitors!
“Who,” he asked, “is the most guilty of treason? ”

“ He admitted that in Great Britain there was a species of treason which consisted in the intention without any act consummating the guilt of treason. He meant, of course, compassing the death of the king when the crime was only imagined. But in America, since there was no king, there were only two species of treason, which were levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. ”

“ He would suppose that a hero distinguished for military science and valor and as patriotic as he was ambitious of honorable fame—but whose good name was blighted and blasted by the malice of his countrymen—should have seen the dangers hanging over his country: New Orleans threatened with invasion and conquest by a Spanish force, the citizens there in danger of murder and captivity, their wives and daughters ready to be a prey to Spanish lust, and all else in that favored country exposed to desolation. ”

“ As they proceeded on their journey the report of the outcome of the trials in Richmond went ahead of them. It was a report of the miscarriage of justice painted in the lurid colors of the most extreme animosity of political partisanship.
The crisis came with the arrival of the party in Baltimore on November 3. That city was a hotbed of Republicanism and its frequent emotional outbursts already were conditioning it for the popular name of “Mobtown.” Handbills had been printed and distributed announcing the hour for the hanging in effigy of the Chief Justice, Burr, Blennerhassett, and Martin. ”

“ Richmond itself continued to grow and prosper. Its important status as capital of the State of Virginia, the seat of the administrative branch of state government, of the legislature and the judiciary, and its favorable location as a center of commerce contributed toward a continued activity of which the Burr trial was merely one outstanding episode.
Prosperity had its reflections in the physical appearance of the city. As Lawyer Wickham’s practice became more lucrative, and as his increasing progeny began to tax his domestic establishment, he bethought himself of building a new house. ”

“ Sir, neither the human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perversion so monstrous and so absurd! So shocking to the soul! So revolting to the reason!”
Thus ended Wirt’s classic accusation of Burr. The time remaining to the speaker was devoted to a prosaic discussion of bellum levatum as distinguished from bellum percussum. Gentlemen on the other side, said Mr. Wirt, asked for battles, bloody battles, hard knocks, the noise of cannon. But there was none. There did not have to be. The Constitution said “levying war,” not “making war.” ”

“ From Nashville Burr proceeded to New Orleans where his welcome was as cordial as that extended him in Kentucky and Tennessee. In August he was back in Nashville after a strenuous journey on horseback through wild country that would have tested the physical vigor of any man and satisfied the Tennesseans that here was no effete easterner but a red-blooded individual who could keep pace with the best of them. This was not the Burr of the drawing room but the veteran warrior of the Quebec campaign and numerous pitched battles of the Revolution. ”

“ In a letter to a Spanish friend he described Burr as a “brave, learned, eloquent, gallant, honorable, discreet gentleman, rich in the best affections of the human heart—in short a man who has filled the second place in the Government of the United States with dignity and admiration.”
To Senator John Adair, Kentucky leader, he penned an intriguing note in which he said, “He [Burr] understands your merits, and reckons on you. Prepare to visit me, and I will tell you all. We must have a peep at the unknown world beyond.” ”

“ Without adverting to that integrity of principle, which even my enemies I trust have allowed me, can it be supposed that a man situated as I am—descended from a family which has never known dishonor, happy in the affection and esteem of a large number of relations and friends, possessed of ample fortune, and standing high in the confidence of his fellow-citizens—could harbor for an instant, a thought injurious to the country which was the scene of those blessings? ”

“ So it came about that when Secretary of War Dearborn found it necessary to communicate with his subordinate in Tennessee on the subject of the nation’s defense, he assumed he was writing to a man whose loyalty was seriously questioned.
Prefacing his letter on his belief that an unlawful enterprise against the Government had been commenced, Dearborn stated hesitantly that “it is presumed that the Proclamation of the President ... will have produced every exertion ... and that you will have been among the most jealous opposers of any such unlawful expedition.” ”

“ Surely no President of the United States ever expressed gratitude in such extravagant terms to a subordinate who deserved it less. Necessity makes strange bedfellows.
While the Grand Jury was behind closed doors examining witnesses, stagnation settled on the courtroom. Again there was need for diversion to while away the time. The ever-resourceful Burr, seldom wanting for an idea, supplied it. He moved that an attachment be issued against General Wilkinson for contempt in obstructing the administration of justice by rifling the mails, imprisoning witnesses, and extorting testimony by torture. ”

“ For a time she despaired of her life and in one of her melancholy moods she wrote Alston: “Death is not welcome. I confess it is ever dreaded. You have made me too fond of life. Adieu, then, thou kind, thou tender husband. Adieu! friend of my heart. May Heaven prosper you and may we meet hereafter.”
In the fateful summer of 1806 when Colonel Burr departed from the East “never to return,” he was joined in the western country by the Alstons—Theodosia, Joseph, and little Aaron. The Alstons were for a time guests of the Blennerhassetts on their island in the Ohio River. ”

“ But, he reminded, it had been said that all these authorities had been overruled by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of the United States versus Bollman and Swartwout. Now it would be expected that an opinion which was to overrule all former precedents and to establish a principle never before recognized would be expressed in plain and explicit terms. Had the intention been to make so material a change, then the Court ought to have expressly declared that any assemblage of men whatever who had formed a treasonable design constituted the fact of levying war. ”

“ Burr, with whom I am totally unacquainted, shows that from him still greater danger than even from Mr. Jefferson may be apprehended. But I can take no part in the business. I cannot bring myself to aid Mr. Jefferson.”
Here then was Jefferson, afraid that Marshall and his followers would turn the nation’s government into an hereditary monarchy; and Marshall equally afraid that Jefferson and his party, unless restrained, would soon reduce the nation to anarchy. To such absurd extremes can political partisanship drive otherwise highly intelligent men. ”

“ General Wilkinson’s presence in court was brief. The Grand Jury, which had been waiting so long, was impatient to hear him. Grand jury proceedings are customarily regarded as sacred and what goes on behind closed doors is supposedly held in the strictest confidence. But the Grand Jury in the Burr case, like so many other features of that strange performance, refused to conform to the normal pattern. At least one serious leak led to a controversy in the press. In his continued correspondence with Judge Nicholson the jury’s foreman set down some salty observations. ”

“ The prosecution lost no opportunity of reminding him of it. It was on this opinion that it had largely counted on a conviction.
So, in his opening remarks to the jury, Mr. Hay once more quoted from the Chief Justice’s opinion: “... if war be levied, that is, if a body of men be actually assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable purpose, all those who perform any part, however minute, or however remote from the scene of action, are to be considered as traitors.” ”

“ For a naturally hospitable people the temptation to entertain was overwhelming.
A popular custom among the members of the legal profession was “lawyer dinners” at which the lights of bench and bar sat down together to partake of good food and drink and to engage in sparkling conversation. In this form of entertainment John Wickham excelled. He was among the élite who dwelt on Shockoe Hill and no household there enjoyed a higher reputation for serving the best of food. ”

“ The establishment of their guilt will let the world see what they ought to think of their clamors; it will dissipate the doubts of those who doubted for want of knowledge and will place you on higher ground in the public estimation and public confidence.” Then wholeheartedly and without reservation Jefferson declared: “No one is more sensible than myself of the injustice which has been aimed at you. ”

“ Wirt wished to make it clear that, for their part, the prosecution wished only a fair trial of the case. “If the man be innocent, in the name of God let him go; but while we are on the question of his guilt or innocence, let us not suffer our attention and judgment to be diverted and distracted by the introduction of other subjects foreign to the inquiry.”
For three days opposing counsel held forth until the Chief Justice, with a sigh of exhaustion, announced that he had heard enough arguments on which to base a sound opinion. ”