Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr in the United States

Burr, Aaron (1756_1836)

According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled 495 BURR, AARON (1756_1836) Aaron Burr of New York served as a Continental Army officer during the Revolutionary War and later practiced law in Albany and New York City. He was elected four times to the legislature and was for two years state attorney general before serving a term in the United States.

From law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/burr/burrkeyfigures.html:

Aaron Burr was a central figure in American public life for nearly three decades, but is remembered mainly for two episodes in his life: his duel with Alexander Hamilton in 1804 and his schemes of empire-building that formed the basis for his 1807 treason trial.

Burr was born in Newark, New Jersey on February 6, 1756. Burr’s parents died at an early age, leaving him in the care of an uncle who sometimes “beat him like a sack.” Despite his hardships, Burr developed into an adventuresome and precocious child. At age 16, Burr graduated from Princeton. Three years later Burr joined Colonel Benedict Arnold’s crusade against Quebec. His courage and success on the battlefield earned him a place on General Washington’s staff.

In 1782, Burr stood for the bar in Albany and opened a law practice. That same year Burr married Theodosia Prevost, a woman ten years his senior with whom he would enjoy a close and loving relationship until her death in 1794. The other great love in Burr’s life was his superbly talented daughter, also named Theodosia, born a year after the couple’s marriage. (His hopes for Theosia’s career, and insistence that she not be denied opportunities open to men, have led some historians to call Burr America’s “first male feminist.”)

By 1791, Burr had become a powerful political figure, having been elected United States Senator from New York. Burr’s politics were marked by his liberal instincts and his expansionist dreams. In the election of 1800, Burr tied Thomas Jefferson in the electoral college. Burr became Vice President when the House of Representatives selected Jefferson as President in a contest that left the two men bitter enemies.

Burr’s ambitions in conventional politics came to an end in 1804 when he was defeated in his bid for the governorship of New York. Burr blamed opposition leader Alexander Hamilton for his defeat, and challenged the famous Federalist to a duel. On July 11, 1804 in Weehawken, New Jersey, Burr mortally wounded Hamilton and was forced to flee New York and New Jersey when warrants were issued for his arrest.

After the duel, Burr’s thoughts turned to the West. Historians disagree as to whether Burr’s dealings with figures such as General James Wilkinson, former senator Jonathan Dayton and others constituted treason, or simply reflected the expansionist sentiments shared by many patriotic settlers west of the Alleghenies. If Burr’s correspondence with the foreign ministers of Great Britain (Merry) and Spain (Yrujo) are taken at face value, Burr indeed was bent on securing a treasonous separation of the West from the Union, one that might have left him as the leader of a new western empire. On the other hand, it is possible that Burr’s letters to the foreign ministers were only an attempt to capitalize on Great Britain’s and Spain’s hatred of the new American Republic, and to secure for himself the funds that would enable him to mount an expedition against the Spanish territory of Mexico. Whatever the precise nature of this scheme, it is clear that expansion and conquest were at its heart.

Burr’s dreams, of course, went unrealized, and he became the defendant in an 1807 treason trial that is the focus of this website. Largely owing to a favorable interpretation of the law of treason by Chief Justice (and trial judge) John Marshall, Burr was acquitted. Nonetheless, the prosecution left Burr disgraced and facing constant harassment by creditors.

Burr lived out his later years in relative obscurity, dying in Staten Island, New York on September 14, 1836.

Aaron Burr Treason Trial

In 1807 Aaron Burr was prosecuted for Treason and high misdemeanor in the federal circuit court in Richmond, Virginia. This famous criminal trial (United States v. Burr, No. 1021) was submitted in May 20, 1895 and decided in June 3, 1895.

Marshall swept away the prosecution’s case. He said that: “If those who perpetrated the fact be not traitors, he who advised them [Burr] cannot be a traitor.” The Chief Justice stated that we would exclude testimony “relative to the conduct or declarations of the prisoner elsewhere and subsequent to the transaction on Blennerhassett’s Island.”

Chief Justice Marshall’s decision ended the prosecution’s case and on September 1, the case was sent to the jury. They had little choice. Nonetheless, the jury hinted that they might have decided the case differently, but for the court’s instructions: “We of the jury say that Aaron Burr is not proved to be guilty under this indictment by any evidence submitted to us. We therefore find him not guilty.”

Statement of Aaron Burr

This is the statement given by Aaron Burr at his commitment hearing on
March 31, 1807 in the House of Delegates in Richmond, before Chief Justice John Marshall.

“Colonel Burr then addressed the court, not, as he said, to remedy any omission of his counsel, who had done great justice to the subject, but to state a few facts, and repel some observations of a personal nature. The present inquiry involved a simple question of treason or misdemeanor. According to the Constitution, treason consisted in acts; whereas, in this case, his honor was invited to issue a warrant based upon mere conjecture. Alarms existed without cause. Mr. Wilkinson alarmed the President, and the President alarmed the people of Ohio. He appealed to historical facts. No sooner did he understand that suspicions were entertained in Kentucky of the nature and design of his movements, than he hastened to meet an investigation.

The prosecution not being prepared, he was discharged. That he then went to Tennessee. While there he heard that the attorney for the district of Kentucky was preparing another prosecution against him; that he immediately returned to Frankfort, presented himself before the court, and again was honorably discharged; that what happened in the Mississippi Territory was equally well known; that there he was acquitted by the grand jury, but they went farther, and censured the conduct of the government; and if there had really been any cause of alarm, it must have been felt by the people of that part of the country;

[Burr claims his objects were peaceful and beneficial]
that the manner of his descent down the river was a fact which put at defiance all rumors about treason and misdemeanor; that the nature of his equipments clearly evinced that his object was purely peaceable and agricultural; that this fact alone ought to overthrow the testimony against him; that his designs were honorable, and would have been useful to the United States.

His flight, as it was termed, had been mentioned as evidence of guilt. He asked, at what time did he fly? In Kentucky, he invited inquiry, and that inquiry terminated in a firm conviction of his innocence; that the alarms were first great in the Mississippi Territory, and orders had been issued to seize and destroy the persons and property of himself and party; that he endeavored to undeceive the people, and convince them that he had no designs hostile to the United States, but that twelve hundred men were in arms for a purpose not yet developed; the people could not be deceived; and he was acquitted, and promised the protection of government; but the promise could not be performed; the arm of military power could not be resisted; that he knew there were military orders to seize his person and property, and transport him to a distance from that place; that he was assured by the officer of an armed boat, that it was lying in the river ready to recieve him on board. Was it his duty to remain there thus situated? That he took the advice of his best friends, pursued the dictates of his own judgment, and abandoned a country where the laws ceased to be the sovereign power; that the charge stated in a handbill, that he had forfeited hi recognizance, was false; that he had forfeited no recognizance; if he had forfeited any recognizance, he asked why no proceedings had taken place for the breach of it?

[Burr complains about treatment by military authorities]

If he was to be prosecuted for such breach, he wished to know why he was brought to this place? Why not carry him to the place where the breach happened? That more than three months had elapsed since the order of the government had issued to seize and bring him to that place; yet it was pretended that sufficient time had not been allowed to adduce testimony in support of the prosecution. He asked why the guard who conducted him to that place avoided every magistrate along the way, unless from a conviction that they were acting without lawful authority? Why had he been debarred the use of pen, ink, and paper, and not even permitted to write to his daughter? That in the state of South Carolina, where he had happened to see three men together, he demaned the interposition of the civil authority; that it was from military despotism, from the tyranny of a military escort, that he wished to be delivered, not from an investigation into his conduct, or from the operation of the laws of his country.

[Burr says the prosecution has no case]
He concluded that there were three courses that might be pursued,–an acquittal; or a commitment for treason, or for a misdemeanor; that no proof existed in support of either but what was contained in the affidavits of Eaton and Wilkinson, abounding in crudities and absudities.”

After the Trial

Burr, despite his acquittal, stood disgraced. Although he would live another twenty-nine years, he would never again be a significant player in American public life. In 1808, he sailed for Europe, where he would remain for four years. The death of his beloved daughter Theodosia, lost at sea while sailing to meet her father in New York upon his return, seemed to end whatever spark remained within him. Years later, when he heard news of the Texas Revolution, Burr exclaimed to a friend with satisfaction: “There! You see? I was right! I was only thirty years too soon. What was treason in me thirty years ago, is patriotism now.”

Aaron Burr in the U.S. Legal History

Summary

Thomas Jefferson’s first vice president, who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804.

Resources

Further Reading

  • Abernathy, Thomas P., The Burr Conspiracy (1954)
  • Burr, Aaron. Reports of the Trials of Colonel Aaron Burr. De Capo, 1969 (reprint of 1808 edition).
  • Report of the Trial of Aaron Burr for Treason (Causes Celebres, Vol. V), printed from the report taken in short hand by David Robertson. Frederick Linn & Co., 1879.
  • Coombs, J. J. The Trial of Aaron Burr for High Treason. Morrison, 1864 (reprinted in 1992 as part of the Notable Trials Library, with an introduction by Alan Dershowitz).
  • Elliott,, John and Hammett, Ellen. Charged with Treason. McClain Printing, 1986.
  • Kennedy, Roger. Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character. Oxford, 1999.
  • McCaleb, Walter. The Aaron Burr Conspiracy. (1903, republished with new materials by Argosy, 1966.)
  • Melton, Buckner. Aaron Burr: Conspiracy to Treason. Wiley, 2001.
  • Rogow, Arnold A., A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (1998).
  • Vidal, Gore, Burr: A Novel (1973).

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