Madison and Jefferson

by Nancy Isenberg;Andrew Burstein

  The “schism” turned out to be more real than the optimists thought. As the party in power, the Republicans could no longer define themselves as outsiders. With their archenemy Hamilton gone, they took chances, exercising free speech in rowdy ways while showing less of an inclination to maintain party solidarity. The Republican Watch-Tower, a New York newspaper, urged that “passion should yield to justice and calm reflection” if society was to uphold “the cause of civil liberty, of social happiness, of our country, and of man.” Casting the issue in these cosmic terms, the paper admitted that “an extensive schism has long existed among us,” while agreeing with the Republican Spy that it had been “artfully fomented by our antagonists.” Regardless of its cause, the Watch-Tower warned, the internecine feud was being conducted “with too much heat and animosity.”

  The spirit of party had turned in on itself. Republicans were called upon to “sacrifice resentments upon the altar of your country’s welfare.” But the resentments were too real for noble appeals to reverse what was happening. A year after Randolph’s break with the administration, the language of schism persisted. The Tickler, in Philadelphia, printed a column titled “The New Split,” noting that “much interest has been excited by a new schism among the democratic republican party.” No one was tickled.18

  We must recognize where this was coming from. An intensification of state politics not only reflected but also in some ways preceded activity at the national level. In the case of Pennsylvania, Jefferson had told Gallatin as early as March 1803 that “a schism was taking place … between moderates and high flyers.” Clearly, there was more than one understanding of how the Democratic-Republican vision was to be realized in practice. Pennsylvania had a “Chase trial” all its own in the impeachment of Judge Alexander Addison, who had been overzealous in his enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts. In the Keystone State, the name Quid was assigned to those who sought to restrain radical democrats from undermining a structure that already supported prosperity for the many. As respectable merchants and manufacturers, political liberals who extolled “the blessings of republican government,” the Quids feared turbulence coming from public figures who were pushing for too much too fast. For their part, the radicals complained that political offices were still occupied by an exclusive corps of elite names and should be opened up to more ordinary citizens. In 1805 the radical Society of the Friends of the People claimed it represented the undervalued majority against aristocratic tendencies. Although the pro-administration governor Thomas McKean defeated the radicals’ candidate and was reelected, the vote was extremely close.

  Ironically, McKean could not have won without the votes of Federalists. He was an old warhorse, a signer of the Declaration of Independence well known to Madison and Jefferson and respected by them. Both had served with him in Congress—in fact, in 1781 McKean was president of Congress. In the 1790s he reigned as chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and in 1801 he was as eager as any to remove Federalists from office. But as soon as William Duane, editor of the newspaper Aurora since 1798, turned against McKean for being too moderate, he was pursued relentlessly. After his reelection as governor in 1805, the defeated radicals, bolstered by Duane, went about examining the grounds on which they could possibly impeach the now seventy-year-old executive. Duane would keep the movement alive through 1807.19

  Benjamin Rush put it tartly in a letter to John Adams during the acrimonious gubernatorial campaign of 1805: “We have four distinct parties in Pennsylvania: 1. old tories, 2. honest Federalists, 3. violent Democrats, 4. moderate Republicans.” Later, as McKean’s three-year term wound down, Rush agreed with the governor’s classification of the diverse population of their state (now divided merely in two): “one part of them ‘Traitors, tories, apostate whigs, and British agents,’ and the other ‘Fools, Geese, and Clodhoppers.’ ” Stripped of its hopeful-sounding vocabulary, this was the naked state of politics in what has been designated Jeffersonian America.

  For the Madisonian perspective in the midst of schism, we turn again to Dr. Rush, who informed Adams that the secretary of state was in a generous frame of mind. When James and Dolley visited Philadelphia in August 1805, the former spoke of the second president in unusually sympathetic terms. “He dwelt largely upon”—and here Rush quoted word for word—“your ‘genius and integrity,’ and acquitted you of ever having had the least unfriendly designs in your administration upon the present forms of our American governments.” Apparently, ex-President Adams, now that he was removed from the political game, could be seen as something less monstrous than a monarchist.20

  “The Transactions of Colonel Burr and Others”

  The Federalists who were still actively engaged in battling the administration had long considered those they dismissively called “democrats” as a species prone to emotionalism. They had been anticipating “schism” since the Jefferson-Burr electoral tie and followed the competition between Burrites and Clintonians in New York with great glee. It was not just the case in the North, where anti-Virginia sentiment ran strong. South Carolina Federalists noted the quarrels between Burrites and Clintonians as they were developing, and they interpolated from this intelligence that there were quarrels among “partizans of the Cabinet.” More than one paper deduced “a schism in the party at large and division has got among them.”

  This “storm of democratic madness … often predicted” was now widely recognized. As John Randolph’s attacks on the administration added to intraparty feuds in Pennsylvania and New York, the Federalists’ anxious prophecy had come true. In March 1806 the Aurora’s editor Duane wrote Jefferson that rumors were circulating to the effect that the president had gone soft, and that among the members of the cabinet only Madison still had any confidence as to the direction in which the administration was heading. But in reading the letters that Madison and Jefferson were writing on political subjects during this period, one cannot find even a glimmer of concern beyond the ordinary.21

  The administration was hopeful that Monroe’s diplomatic efforts in London would bear fruit. And in Louisiana, General James Wilkinson was being instructed to take care to avoid hostilities with neighboring Spanish forces. The president officially informed Madison that there was a “great probability of an amicable and early settlement of our differences with Spain,” and that the boundary between U.S. and Spanish spheres of influence in the Southwest was to be negotiated. Jefferson was cautiously optimistic, and Madison guarded, writing to one general that it was “premature to draw any positive conclusions.”22

  Hopes vanished in the waning weeks of 1806, when the best-laid plans for peace and growth dissolved, and Jefferson’s second term set a course for catastrophe. Madison and Jefferson found their lives increasingly complicated, once former Vice President Burr and the powerful General Wilkinson presented the administration with two possible scenarios, both drastic. One or the other was lying about a plan to circumvent federal policy and use military means to acquire land across the Spanish frontier. The scandal that ensued preoccupied Jefferson for many months, at a time when the secretary of state could not be sure of the trajectory of ongoing U.S. talks in London and Madrid.

  But before the so-called Burr Conspiracy could be resolved, an incident of British impressment off the coast of Virginia resulted in three deaths and sparked a contest of national honor that tied up the administration for the balance of Jefferson’s presidency. London’s unsatisfactory response would raise the specter of a second Anglo-American war and prompt Jefferson to step up his plan to act out a continental vision. During the summer of 1807 he confided in Madison the following thought:

  I had rather have war against Spain than not, if we go to war against England. Our southern defensive force can take the Floridas, volunteers for a Mexican army will flock to our standard, and rich pabulum will be offered to our privateers in the plunder of their commerce and coasts. Probably Cuba would add itself to our confederation.

  This noteworthy statement signals t
he president’s comfort with a southern-directed lust for land. It exposes, as well, his readiness to employ U.S. power to take advantage of a fluid situation. Uniquely capturing Jefferson’s zealotry, these few sentences occupy the foreground as we unravel the events of 1807.23

  There can be no mistake about it: Thomas Jefferson entertained grand expansionist plans, and James Madison was in favor of them all.24 Neither Jefferson nor Madison was opposed to what Burr was preparing for south of the border. What bothered them, and the president especially, was that Burr, only recently out of government, was already a step ahead. Jefferson, who never doubted Burr’s capabilities, feared that his rejected running mate was in a strong position to reap political gain from his independent efforts.

  Recent history offered solid examples of filibusters waiting to happen, proving that Burr’s idea was not original. Other influential men had crossed the line from ordinary land speculation to assemble private armies and conduct foreign policy on their own. Virginia’s George Rogers Clark, the frontier fighter whom Jefferson had consistently supported, once sought French aid to oust the Spanish from Louisiana. During the Adams presidency Tennessee Republican William Blount, Andrew Jackson’s patron, approached the British in a bid to obtain the same result; he was removed from the U.S. Senate when word got out. Even Alexander Hamilton thought of leading troops into Mexico.

  War would present opportunities to enlarge America’s borders. And filibustering was not illegal in a time of war. As long as Burr was in a wait-and-see mode, he was not guilty of treason or anything else. And no one really doubted that America would eventually, one way or another, oust the Spanish from the continent. From the perspective of Madison and Jefferson, the only question was the role of diplomacy in setting up the operation.25

  Early in 1805 Burr met with General Wilkinson in Washington. Together they discussed the prospects for expansion. When Burr traveled to New Orleans not long afterward, he seeded the ground. He saw opportunities every step of the way and gained support from western politicians. In Nashville he met with a former congressional colleague, Andrew Jackson, a rough-hewn man of definite likes and dislikes who detested the pretentious, overfed Wilkinson but was drawn to Burr. Poised for action as major general of a division of militia, Jackson hoped for assurances that the administration would welcome a force of Tennesseans in the larger effort to oust the Spanish.

  On Burr’s second trip west in the autumn of 1806, things suddenly changed. He began to raise eyebrows; rumors were fed to one newspaper after the next. Suggestions that he was forging a third party of disgruntled Federalists and Republicans blossomed into the new charge that he was plotting treason. Suspicion led from there to exaggerated claims of a massive recruitment effort and an even larger army, whose object—Burr’s object—was nothing less than an empire to rule over. Wilkinson recognized that it was time to disassociate himself from Burr, to save his own skin.26

  Jefferson decided to accept whatever General Wilkinson had to say about Burr. He needed Wilkinson to maintain a professional fighting force in the strategic Southwest, and to coordinate, if necessary, a larger campaign to seize all of Florida; he also needed Wilkinson to keep Burr at bay.

  In the final two months of 1806 Washington’s National Intelligencer reprinted rumors of a “western” conspiracy. Its headline: “AARON BURR.” “Two distinguished federalists,” the paper reported, “are parties to the contract for furnishing provisions on the waters of the Ohio.” The tension built: “Rumors have reached us from so many parts of the continent, respecting the transactions of Colonel Burr and others … calculated to excite much curiosity and interest.” Said the Scioto Gazette, in Ohio: Burr has “formed an Association for the purpose of making war against Spain.” And finally came a headline in a Massachusetts paper that committed a host of other newspapers to an unretractable position: “BURR’S CONSPIRACY.” The story below began: “We have hesitated to believe; because we thought that no man, possessing the cunning and intrigue of Burr, could be so far infatuated by a mad ambition, as to enterprize the seduction of a people from the rational government of their choice.” This remark was followed by a passage in Latin, taken from the Aeneid, that was meant to underscore Burr’s infatuation with personal gain: “Quid non mortalia pectoral cogis! Auri sacra fumes!” (To what lengths will man’s passion for gold not lead him?) “It is true!” the widely reprinted article asserted. “Burr has conspired to sever the western states from the Union, and join them with Louisiana; and by the conquest of Mexico, to establish a great Western Empire.” Words, in this case, meant more than actions; the absence of hard evidence almost did not matter.27

  General Wilkinson did not like being identified as Burr’s main partner in a greedy filibuster. To save himself, he wrote directly to President Jefferson, swearing loyalty as he conveyed knowledge of Burr’s bold intentions. He went so far as to declare that the “arch-conspirator” threatened the security of New Orleans. Trusting in Wilkinson completely, Jefferson announced to the nation in January 1807 that the disreputable Burr was guilty of treason. All that remained was to capture him and put him on trial.28

  Whether Burr’s design was in fact a quest to develop and populate western land, a staging action in case the opportunity arose to seize undergoverned Spanish territory, or a conspiracy to foment a war with Spain, it was an outright conspiracy in the mind of the president. Madison appears to have fundamentally agreed with Jefferson’s assessment of the situation; he gave no one any contrary indication, though the written record is otherwise silent.

  Captured in Mississippi Territory and brought east, Burr stood accused. He gathered a stellar defense team that included Luther Martin, who had been a thorn in Jefferson’s side as Justice Samuel Chase’s defense attorney. To make matters worse for the administration, the presiding judge at Burr’s Richmond trial was none other than the circuit-riding chief justice of the United States, John Marshall.

  In charge from start to finish, Marshall defined treason as an overt act of military aggression, which would be difficult to prove in this case. Nonetheless the trial dragged on through the spring and summer months of 1807. No one the prosecution brought in to testify could do better than level accusations. Wilkinson was forced to admit that he had tampered with the encoded letter Burr had sent him, altering what it said to make Burr look guilty. General William Eaton, another man of inflated self-importance in whom Burr was alleged to have confided, claimed that Burr was not content to stop with a western empire—he aimed to lead his forces to Washington and overthrow the government! Eaton’s credibility was properly doubted, even by administration partisans.29

  Then there was Andrew Jackson, who was subpoenaed from Nashville to testify. Jackson could see that Jefferson had been tainted by his connection to Wilkinson, and that Burr was being unfairly portrayed. The frontier general took to the courthouse steps to broadcast his disgust with the administration. It did his career no harm. At his trial, Burr spoke in his own defense, asking where the war was that he was supposed to have manufactured. As far as he could tell, it existed only in newsprint.

  In the end Burr went free, though his public career was finished. The grand jury foreman, none other than Congressman John Randolph, called Wilkinson “the only man I ever saw who was from the bark to the very core a villain.” Luther Martin concluded the case for the defense with a fourteen-hour summation. William Wirt, a Maryland-born Virginia lawyer just beginning work on his Patrick Henry biography, was one of the lead attorneys for the prosecution; while eloquent, he did not present nearly so compelling a case as Martin. From Wirt’s perspective, the “not guilty” verdict was attributable to the chief justice and his narrow definition of treason. “Marshall has stepped between Burr and death,” he wrote to his friend (and Jefferson’s nephew) Dabney Carr, himself a future judge.30

  The president played an active role in the trial as it unfolded. He sent suggestions to lead prosecutor George Hay on how to secure a conviction. He authorized nearly $100,000 in federal f
unds to bring one hundred or more witnesses to Richmond. Jefferson even had hopes of prosecuting Luther Martin, whom he called a “federal [i.e., Federalist] bulldog.” When a rumor that Martin was aiding and abetting Burr came to Jefferson’s desk, he promptly bought into it.

  As the case against his former vice president crumbled, Jefferson gave thought to whether Congress might take action to remove Chief Justice Marshall for twisting the law. His hatred for Marshall was intense—it might be said that Jefferson feared him. Whereas John Jay had considered the position of chief justice inert, Marshall was inclined to challenge executive authority. Allowing his pique to dictate his actions, Jefferson repeated the error of President Washington in the bullying of Edmund Randolph. Seeing political vulnerability through the lens of personal disloyalty caused both to overreact.

  The seditious libel trial of Joseph Dennie took place around the same time, though it was a minor sideshow compared to Burr’s trial. Jefferson’s second inaugural, a speech that deliberately lacked specificity, had contained an implied threat: that the executive would go after those in the press who crossed the line from reasonable disagreement into depraved and harmful activity. The cause for the Dennie indictment was a single paragraph in an 1803 issue of the Port Folio, but it could have been any one of Dennie’s loose terms of abuse. “A democracy is scarcely tolerable,” he had written, predicting (though no one could possibly construe that he was fomenting) “civil war, desolation, and anarchy.”