The Aaron Burr Conspiracy and Trial I

Of all the figures whose dark visages have appeared on the American landscape, none is quite so mysterious or eerily compelling as that of Aaron Burr, Jr. (1756-1836). A man of soaring intellect, skilled courtroom manner, aristocratic mien, and significant accomplishment in law and politics, Burr should have been the acme of the one whom Rousseau defined in Emile as the educated man: one who had "the greatest experience of felt life." But when one considers the way that his life collapsed in the period of 1805-1807, one wonders about the inner workings of his mind as well as the demons within which drove him, if not into the Gadarene swine, then over the precipice and into the bottomless sea.

This and the next two essays will introduce you to this man in this crucial period of his life. It will culminate in a narration of leading issues in the 19th century "Trial of the Century," in which he was acquitted on charges of treason against the USA in the United States Circuit Court in Richmond, VA, Justice John Marshall (Chief Justice of the US in his role as Circuit Justice) presiding.

Setting the Context

The reference to Burr's 1807 trial as the "trial of the century" immediately reminds us of the 20th century trial so named, that of OJ Simpson. The similarities of the two are not to be gainsaid. Both men were in their late 40s when the events which provoked their trials commenced. Both men were acquitted but shunned by nearly everyone after their trials. Both suffered subsequent heartbreaking losses and continued to spiral downward even after their spectacular acquittals. While Burr lived to the ripe old age of 80, Simpson celebrated his 60th birthday in 2007.

But the life of Burr from 1805-1807 also recalls a parallel series of events in that period--the exploration of the Louisiana Territory by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The years 1805-06 saw two remarkably opposite journeys in the new territory acquired in 1803 under dubious constitutional authority by that most strict constitutional interpreter, Thomas Jefferson. That wonderfully large purchase, doubling the land mass of the United States in one fell swoop, consisted of fertile plains, soaring mountains, serpentine rivers and thick forests. So vast was this territory that it provided a ready home for curious explorers, circuit-riding missionaries, lost souls and disaffected people of all sorts from the East and Europe. Jefferson knew that the "subduing" of the land, to quote an old translation of Genesis 1, first required an inventory of all living things in the land and a report of the possibilities and dangers lurking in that vast wilderness. And so he sent out the young explorers and scientists, and with these men rode the hopes of a young nation.

We as a nation just joyfully celebrated the bi-centennial of their journey. Modern vacationers retrace the Lewis & Clark trail, camping at the same spots that L & C stopped, trying to drink into their spirits the same spirit of those intrepid men of an earlier day. Indeed, L & C are American heroes. They occupy a lower rung in the pyramidal pantheon of American demigods than Washington or Lincoln or even Jefferson, but they still command our respect.

A Different Louisiana Purchase Journey in 1805-06

Yet at the same time as Lewis & Clark were traveling the mighty Mississippi or the sinuous Missouri a more nefarious scheme of exploration was happening in that same territory, a scheme that almost no one today knows anything about and no one retraces. On the face of it, this scheme had at least as much credibility and chance of success as the first. Headed not by Presidential appointees but by the erstwhile Vice-President of the US itself, Aaron Burr, this exploratory journey in 1805-06 wanted to "scope out" the length and breadth of the Eastern part of the region.

But its aims were, at first, much more shadowy. No one was quite sure of what Burr was doing. Perhaps at first it wasn't clear to Burr himself. Many things could have been on his mind. He might have realized, for example, that when he left the Senate chamber for the last time on March 3, 1805, after delivering a most eloquent farewell speech which reduced many of those venerable statesmen to tears, his career was in shambles. Though he had been "in the right" in killing Alexander Hamilton in their July 11, 1804 duel, he was treated as an outcast as a result of it. Cries of "Murderer!" followed him in the North, and Burr had to escape to the friendly confines of Pierce Bultler's plantation in Georgia during the Fall of 1804 to find a more amicable reception. When he returned to Washington DC to preside over the Senate, which opened its session in Dec. 1804, he was immediately cast in the role of the moderator of US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase's impeachment trial. The quip quickly spread, egged on by a Richmond, VA newspaper, that when Justice Chase stood before Burr to await instructions, it was as if the order of nature and justice had been reversed. Normally it was the murderer who stood quietly before the judge; now it was the judge who was subdued before the murderer. With this kind of opposition, spoken and unspoken, dogging him everywhere he went, it is not unexpected that Burr would want to escape Washington upon the completion of his Vice Presidential duties on March 4.

In this state, Burr might have been exploring the "West" with completely innocent designs. He might be looking for a more hospitable region for himself to live. He leased an immense tract of land from the Spanish government of Texas (400,000 acres), and perhaps he was just seeking what Americans have been searching for ever sense--a place to spread their wings, escape from their neighbors and live a life of peace and quiet. Or, he might have had something completely different on his mind. Perhaps he was writing to many people, from Army generals to common people, in order to raise troops and supplies for some kind of military expedition. But what kind of expedition? Was it an all-out attack on Florida, which by that time was still a Spanish possession and a pain in the side of the anxiously expansionistic United States? Or, was it much more evil? Perhaps an attack on New Orleans, the choke-point of the Mississippi, which, if he took it, provided a perch from which he could command the Louisiana territory, encourage secession of the West from the United States and form a separate nation in the West, with himself as its first head? Or, perhaps he was designing something in between.

In any case, 1805 and 1806 were years fraught with feverish exploratory activity in the new land known only as the Louisiana Territory after an Act of Congress so designated it on July 4, 1805. The next essay explores some of the chronology of events of 1805-06 which led to President Thomas Jefferson's issuing an order for Burr's arrest late in 1806. Exciting times, to be sure.

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