Did Burr Commit Treason? (Spring 2012 | Volume: 62, Issue: 1)

Did Burr Commit Treason?

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Authors: David O. Stewart

Historic Era: Era 4: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

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Spring 2012 | Volume 62, Issue 1

In late March of 1807, Aaron Burr arrived in Richmond, Virginia, in a vile mood, filthy, and stinking. He had just endured a month of hard travel under heavy guard through the dense forests of the Southeast. “It is not easy for one who has been robbed and plundered till he had not a second shirt,” he complained to a friend, “to contend with a Govt having millions at command and active and vindictive agents in every quarter.”

Only two years after finishing his term as America’s third vice president, Burr was entering the shadow of the gallows. Nine rough-looking federal deputies had escorted him more than a thousand miles from near Mobile, Alabama, to Richmond. Not only did Burr face murder indictments in two states for killing Alexander Hamilton in their famous duel, but he now expected to be charged with treason.

No high American official has ever faced such profound legal peril. When the government did charge the small, slender, and charismatic lawyer with raising an insurrection against the government, the resulting trial would become one of the splashiest proceedings the nation has ever seen. Despite persuasive proof to the contrary, Burr would protest his innocence, cunningly conceal evidence, and run rings around his accusers, who were led by an extremely angry President Thomas Jefferson.

Burr’s Dream

When Burr left office as vice president in early March 1805, his public career lay in tatters, largely the result of a frosty relationship with fellow Republican Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson had relied on Burr in the 1800 election to win New York for their Republican ticket, and Burr had delivered. New York’s electoral votes were essential to the Republican victory that year. But Jefferson and Burr, ostensibly running mates, finished in a tie in the electoral vote. Federalists in the House of Representatives supported Burr, blocking Jefferson’s election for 35 ballots. The relationship between Jefferson and Burr, never close, did not survive the constitutional ordeal. For the 1804 election, the president dropped Burr as his running mate.

In the spring of 1804, Burr ran for governor of New York. The attempt to revive his political prospects failed miserably when his opponent, tacitly supported by Jefferson, thrashed him at the polls. Burr discovered that his longtime rival Alexander Hamilton had made a scurrilous remark about him during the race. He promptly challenged Hamilton and killed him in a duel on July 11, 1804.

Burr’s political opponents engineered his indictment on murder charges in both New York and New Jersey, which ensured the end of his political career. In response, he charted a course that was unconventional, to say the least. First he sent an emissary to Anthony Merry, the British minister to the United States, offering to assist Great Britain in separating the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains from the rest of the nation. Months later, Burr himself advised the British diplomat that the residents of Louisiana, who had recently joined the Union when France sold the territory, would join westerners in seceding. Burr