Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  One of the lawyers to join Chase’s team was Charles Lee (no relation to the court-martialed Revolutionary War general of the same name). A Virginian, and one of Burr’s Princeton classmates, this Lee had served as attorney general under Washington; later, he would defend Burr at his treason trial. Though not a particularly gifted speaker, Lee nevertheless was convincing in his effort to show how Randolph and the other Republican managers had mangled the law. But it was the Maryland attorney Luther Martin, also a Princeton graduate, a close friend of Chase, and an avowed enemy of Jefferson, who served up the most entertaining forensic performance. In his closing remarks, Martin kept the audience on the edge of their seats for over five hours. He, too, as it happened, would become a major figure on Burr’s defense team in the near future.16

  Former Federalist senator Robert Goodloe Harper also ably defended Chase. Offering a sentimental portrait of the “aged patriot and statesman,” Harper succeeded in generating sympathy for the insufferable jurist. At the end of his long closing remarks, Luther Martin set the tone for a valedictory by complimenting the vice president for his “impartiality, politeness and dignity.” Randolph, who had been gravely ill during most of the proceedings, closed the prosecution’s case with an odd, rambling speech, giving off sparks of brilliance, but not as many as his fits of exasperating digressions.17

  Burr supervised the vote. Chase was acquitted on all eight articles, surprising even his most ardent defenders. There were twenty-four Republicans and ten Federalists in the Senate, which meant that Chase owed his acquittal to the Republicans who refused to vote along party lines. Six Republicans joined nine Federalists in voting not guilty on all articles. Only one article, the one that specifically addressed Chase’s inflammatory charge to the Baltimore jury (which had most infuriated Jefferson), brought Chase close to conviction—4 votes shy of the two-thirds majority that was required. As the voting concluded, Burr calmly announced: “Hence it appears that there is not a constitutional majority of votes finding Samuel Chase, Esquire, guilty, on any one Article.” The vice president pronounced the judge’s acquittal, and then adjourned the court.18

  Randolph flew into a rage. He rushed from the Senate chamber to the generally more boisterous House, calling for a constitutional amendment that would allow for the removal of any federal judge by the president on the basis of a simple majority in both houses. His last-ditch effort failed, however, and the quick-tempered Virginia planter would always remember the humiliation he had suffered.

  Chase, though acquitted, had been duly chastised. He tempered his courtroom behavior. It would seem that Burr understood the case better than most of his peers. He suspected that Chase would not be impeached if the law was fairly applied. At the same time, he taught the justice a lesson.19

  “AWAKENED FROM A KIND OF TRANCE”

  On March 2, one day after the trial concluded, Burr made his last official appearance as vice president. As president of the Senate, he had one final duty to perform: a farewell speech. All present attested to the sublime power of Burr’s address. Many of the men who heard it delivered were moved to tears.20

  Senator Samuel Mitchill of New York, who was not at all close to Burr, captured these feelings in a letter to his wife written that day:

  When Mr. Burr had concluded he descended from the chair, and in a dignified manner walked to the door, which resounded as he with some force shut it after him. On this the firmness and resolution of many of the Senators gave way, and they burst into tears. There was a solemn and silent weeping for perhaps five minutes.

  But the outpouring of emotion did not end there. Mitchill continued:

  For my own part, I never experienced any thing of the kind so affecting as this parting scene. . . . My colleague, General Smith, stout and manly as he is, wept as profusely as I did. He laid his head upon his table and did not recover from his emotion for a quarter of an hour or more. And for myself, though it is more than three hours since Burr went away, I have scarcely recovered my habitual calmness. Several gentlemen came up to me to talk about this extraordinary scene, but I was obliged to turn away and decline all conversation.21

  Mitchill’s rendition of the speech was echoed by others. The Washington Federalist (a paper hardly disposed to treat Burr favorably at this time) gave this laudatory account:

  In this cold relation a distant reader—especially one to whom Col. Burr is not personally known, will be at a loss to discern the cause of those extraordinary emotions which were excited . . . the whole senate was in tears, and so unmanned, that it was half an hour before they could recover themselves.22

  Two days later, at the President’s House, one senator described Burr’s speech as “the most extraordinary event” of a lifetime. And another confessed that the performance was strangely spellbinding, causing him to lose all sense of time, so that when Burr finished, the senator felt as if he had “awakened from a kind of trance.”23

  Why was Burr’s simple address so moving? His eloquence in the Senate on that day makes sense only if we see in it a clear affirmation of political justice. Burr issued an appeal that echoed the moving prose of William Godwin, one of his favorite writers, husband of the late Mary Wollstonecraft, and author of the acclaimed 1794 novel Caleb Williams. His speech was another telling example of how the man Hamilton accused of having no principles was in fact a man deeply imbued with the Enlightenment ideals of truth and justice.24

  Burr began with a discussion of the rules of the Senate—an appeal to reason—and quickly proceeded to his affecting declaration of sincere respect for the men who sat before him. He apologized if he had ever “wounded the feelings of individual members.” He said he felt no anger or resentment, noting only that “on his part he had no injuries to complain of—If any had been done or attempted, he was ignorant of the authors: and if he had ever heard he had forgotten; for he thanked God he had no memory for injuries.” At a time when Burr had every reason to feel vindictive, he seized higher ground. He voiced his faith in impartiality, celebrating the Senate as an enlightened forum, a body of equals, where all present could openly discuss their views. This, he explained, was the ideal he had always sought as a public man. He had done his best to behave fairly, “uniform and indiscriminate,” and to make sure that in his “official conduct” he had “known no party—no cause—no friend.”25

  The parallel to the final dramatic scene in Caleb Williams is quite remarkable. For Godwin, as for Burr, public principle had to trump selfish interest; “sound reasoning and truth . . . must always be victorious over error.” The character Caleb is a man caught up in a “nightmare of irrationality,” a world riddled with injustice. Made a fugitive, he is relentlessly hunted by his tormentor, the powerfully connected Falkland, who has falsely accused him of a crime and misrepresented his character.26

  Facing his enemy in the courtroom, Caleb is at peace with himself. He refuses every opportunity to shout down the symbols of power; he foregoes the chance to exact revenge. Like Burr before the Senate, Caleb addresses the magistrate with humility, and overwhelms Falkland with his profound sense of fairness. His only weapon is, in Godwin’s words, his “frankness” and the “sovereignty of truth.” Falkland’s hostility instantly melts away, for as Caleb narrates: “He saw my sincerity; he was penetrated with my grief and compunction. He rose from his seat, supported by the attendants, and—to my infinite astonishment—threw himself into my arms!”27

  Burr possessed scruples, too. He was a politician, to be sure, but his ability to rise above his resentments moved the Senate in the same way that Falkland had been moved by Caleb Williams. For Burr, there was a vital principle at stake: Only truth and sincerity, he reminded his colleagues, ensured that the Senate would remain a “sanctuary” of liberty, a “citadel” against corruption. He believed the Senate to be the lifeblood of the republic. It rose, he said, above considerations of “merely their personal honor and character.” It was the guardian of the “Law, of Li
berty and the Constitution.” As he put it, and as it was recorded:

  It is here—it is here—in this exalted refuge—here, if any where will resistance be made to the storms of popular phrenzy and the silent arts of corruption:—and if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hands of a Demagogue or the Usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor.28

  After praising the Senate, Burr ended on an emotional note, perhaps melodramatic to our ears, but sounding the language of the literature that prevailed in the first decade of the nineteenth century. He brought up the “afflicting sensations which attended a final separation.” He was separating from that august body, and might be heard from no more. For him, at least, a chapter in the history of the republic had come to an end. And so, all he could do was to remind his colleagues of the humanity he believed the collective Senate was capable of exhibiting. Men who believed in the “principles of freedom and social order” were also men of feeling.29

  At first, Burr’s enemies tried to ignore the speech; then they mocked it. William Coleman of New York’s Hamiltonian Evening Post called reports of the speech a “hoax.” As more news of the address made its way to New York, James Cheetham’s concern grew. Burr’s sudden acclaim was inexplicable to him. Given at seemingly his lowest moment, the speech was being called a “sublime” achievement. Disapproval arising from the killing of Hamilton was weakening. Frustrated, Cheetham could only complain that Burr was magically reinventing himself.30

  Burr’s own reaction was subdued. In writing Theodosia, he admitted that he had not prepared an address, but that the ideas he expressed had been on his mind for several days, or at least, that he had “to say something.” Though he sent her a copy from the newspapers, he felt that the story had been “awkwardly and pompously told.” As he looked out at his colleagues, he explained, his speech had emerged spontaneously: “It was the solemnity, the anxiety, the expectation, and the interest which I saw strongly painted in the countenances of the auditors, that inspired what I said.” He had said what he felt—hardly what was expected any more in the rancorous partisan climate of Washington. His candor had unnerved his enemies. Indeed, his candor was what made him unusual.31

  HAD “TURNED HIMSELF WHOLLY TOWARD MEXICO”

  Burr’s fascination with the West began long before his duel with Hamilton. He had probably thought about the tremendous possibilities of this territory as early as the 1780s, when he first befriended Augustine Prevost, who had acquired land in Louisiana long before it became part of the United States. In 1803, he had contemplated a trip to New Orleans, discussing the details of it with his boyhood friend Jonathan Dayton, by then a U.S. senator. New Orleans and its environs was alluring to the investor, open to land speculation. Burr saw a chance to recoup his flagging finances.32

  But now, after leaving office, he had a grander project in mind: In the event of a war with Spain, he would lead a filibuster into Spanish territory. A filibuster was an invasion by a private army without government sanction. There was a loophole for such would-be adventurers: the laws of neutrality, which made filibustering criminal, did not apply during a time of war. He also knew that it was accepted practice for Americans to engage in personal diplomacy, so appeals for foreign assistance were not illegal.33

  Burr was not alone in viewing filibustering as a necessary means for territorial expansion. Like many American filibusterers before and after him, he used the language of liberty and national pride to justify conquest. In 1775, Richard Montgomery had invaded Canada uninvited, spearheading an offensive inspired by the Revolutionary desire to liberate Canadians from their English colonial oppressors. Other attempts to incite rebellion in Canada were tried by American citizens in 1796 and 1800.34

  The lure of Spanish lands was just as strong. Long before Burr set his sights on Mexico, the Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark united with the French to invade the Spanish-held territory of Louisiana, while Thomas Jefferson, then secretary of state, conveniently looked the other way, unconcerned, he claimed, with “what insurrections should be excited.” In 1797, Republican senator William Blount attempted something similar, turning this time to the British as potential allies in ousting the Spanish. And Alexander Hamilton was so enamored with the plan of Francisco de Miranda, who dreamed of liberating South America from Spanish rule, that in 1798, he imagined himself as the conquering hero leading U.S. forces into Mexico.35

  But for Burr, the above precedents were not enough. His plan required the existence of certain political and military conditions, whereby the United States would be drawn into a war along its southwestern border. He observed such tensions brewing during his vice presidency.

  In 1801, Spain had ceded control of the Mississippi and New Orleans to France. Though the strategic port of New Orleans was still administered by the Spanish, Jefferson feared it would momentarily come within Napoleon’s grasp. Rumors of massive numbers of French troops arriving in Louisiana heightened his concern. The next year, the Spanish confirmed his fears, refusing to allow Americans to deposit goods at New Orleans. There was no doubt that Jefferson was willing to go to war to secure this crucial commercial hub at the southern end of the Mississippi. The president even dared to make a pact with “harlot England” to force Napoleon out of the American theater.36

  Warmongering filled the air, in Washington and elsewhere. Even as Jefferson was secretly negotiating an agreement to purchase New Orleans from France, Republicans and Federalists alike clamored for war. In 1803, Senator Samuel Smith of Maryland gave a toast at a dinner held in honor of special envoy James Monroe, who was about to depart for France. In the presence of the French and Spanish foreign ministers, Smith arrogantly lifted his glass with these bold words: “Peace if peace is honorable, war if war is necessary.”37

  In the West, American residents in New Orleans felt the United States should seize the city before French forces arrived. One anxious observer compared the residents of the Crescent City to the Jews awaiting the Messiah. Peter Irving’s Burrite newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, was one of those encouraging this war frenzy. A writer in its pages argued that the entire militia system should be reorganized, so that the Kentucky militia could take New Orleans and the militias of Georgia and South Carolina could march into Spanish Florida. Burrites justified bold measures with appeals to the “manly feelings of national pride,” and America’s Revolutionary heritage. Nothing was meant to interfere with America’s “national greatness,” which meant, of course, the will to expand westward and grow commercially. The Mississippi trade route was key.38

  As vice president, Burr was keenly aware of the diplomatic shift toward war when he went about collecting information from the U.S. consul in London. He knew exactly how his friends felt. His understanding of the political climate can be gauged from a letter he received from Charles Biddle in 1803. The Philadelphia merchant was primed for war with France and Spain, confidently declaring that “we could do more injury to them than they could do us.” Biddle symbolizes how many Americans felt when he compared the simmering conflict to the American Revolution. Back then, his mother had proudly defended her country, he said, in declaring to a British officer that she herself would lead her seven sons into war. Biddle, likewise, pledged his sons, whom “I would much sooner lead to the field than suffer our country to be insulted.”39

  On July 4, 1803, when Jefferson announced that the government had purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $11.5 million, tensions in the Southwest did not disappear. France may no longer have posed an immediate danger to American interests, but the Spanish continued to be a thorn for security-conscious Americans. Jefferson had originally planned to acquire West Florida (along the Gulf of Mexico) in addition to New Orleans, but this crucial strip of land remained within Spain’s colonial domain. There were also significant disputes about the borders. Jefferson tried the same strategy with Spain that had worked with France: military bluste
r concurrent with negotiation. But there was an important difference. In Jefferson’s thinking, as a weak and declining imperial power, Madrid offered little resistance to American expansionism.40

  The administration assumed that the conquest of Spanish America was inevitable. American expansion was a natural force—private settlement was thought to represent the catalyst by which Madrid would feel obliged to cede its territory. As Madison explained in 1803 to Charles Pinckney, the American minister to Spain, that country could do little to curtail the “growing power of this country, and the direction of it against her possessions within its reach.” He added emphatically: “Can she annihilate this power? No. Can she sensibly retard its growth? No.” Madison portrayed Spain as a weak woman, with borders so permeable that private American citizens—not the government—would take the lead and lay claim to her possessions. So, what was Burr thinking of doing? Nothing different from what the administration itself was predicting. Jefferson’s theory of natural conquest, echoed by Madison and Monroe, opened the door wide for private filibusters. Without calling directly for invasion, Washington was all but giving the green light to private citizens who were contemplating transgressing those borders.41

  Jefferson’s own words reveal how well established this theory was when he wrote to James Bowdoin, his second minister to Spain, in April 1807. In defending his decision to prosecute Burr for treason, the president made a surprising admission: Burr had abandoned the idea of separating the western states, he said, and had “turned himself wholly toward Mexico.” This made sense, in his mind. “So popular is an enterprise on that country in this that we had only to lie still, and [Burr] would have had followers enough to have been in the City of Mexico in six weeks.” In six weeks? Jefferson was capable of hyperbole. His statement was far from a realistic assessment of Burr’s power, for the expeditionary force he had assembled was capable of achieving little, as we shall see; but it is nonetheless significant that Jefferson believed such a conquest possible. It speaks to the fact that people like Burr and Jefferson (and many others) viewed Mexico and Spain’s other colonial possessions as vulnerable entities that could be easily toppled by private citizens—it was, to them, a matter of when, not if, it would happen.42