BURR.
BURR.
kQled. As the news spread, it carried a wave
of emotion over the states and roused every-
where sensations strangely mixed. In New York
the CUnton interest, guided by James Cheetham,
editor of the American Citizen, seized the mo-
ment to destroy Burr's influence forever. Cheet-
ham atf ected to tliink the duel a murder, and pro-
cured Burr's indictment, which drove him from
the state. Charges were invented to support
this theory and were even accepted as history.
In the south and west, on the other hand, the
duel was considered a simple affair of honor, in
which Burr appeared to better advantage than
his opponent. Burr spent some time with his
daughter, who was happily and prosperously
married to Mr. Joseph Allston, and was living at
her husband's estate in South Carolina, but later
he returned to Washington and resumed his
duties as vice-president. His re.solution and
fortitude stood him in good stead ; the loss of his
prestige and popularity did not affect him as it
would have done a weaker man, and his active
mind had already formulated new courses of
action. Failing in his effort to procure from the
administration an office suitable to his talents, at
the expiration of his presidential term in 1805,
he made a journey through the southwest, in
the course of which he developed what seems to
have been a scheme of empire dependent partly
on conquest and partly on the secession of the
southwest from the Union. Just before setting
out on this journey, he wrote to his son-in-law:
" In Xew York I am to be disfranchised, and in
New Jersey hanged. Having substantial objec-
tions to both. I shall not for the present hazard
either, but shall seek another country." "With
forty thousand dollars, which Blennerhassett
put into his hands for that purpose, he bought
four liundred thousand acres of Red River land,
with a somewhat doubtful title, as a rendezvous
and base of operations, and then proceeded to
secure co-operators. He did this so successfully
that many men of prominence at Washington,
as well as in the southwest, became implicated
in the enterprise to a greater or less extent.
As nearly as can be judged in the lack of positive
knowledge, this was the scheme: Burr was to
become ruler of Louisiana under British protec-
tion, in which capacity he would give validitj-
to the disputed land-title; the western states
were to secede from the Union, and join the new
government; Spanish possessions to the south-
ward were to be conquered ; then the enfeebled
Union of the seaboard states would fall to pieces.
Burr would get an empire, and Blennerhassett
fabulous wealth in return for his forty thousand
dollar investment. But before this elaborate
programme could be carried out, the American
people became so suspicious and alarmed that
President Jefferson ordered Burr's arrest. He
was indicted for high treason. His trial, which
lasted from March 27 to Sept. 7, 1806, is one of
the most remarkable events in American historv.
Chief Justice Marshall presided. Wirt, Rodney
and Hay took part in the prosecution, and Luther
Martin and Edmund Randolph in the defence.
The presence and devotion of his daughter, then
in the full height of her beauty and intellectual
power, awakened much sympathy and interest,
and doubtless had an influence in procuring his
release. The jury brought in the following
carefully worded verdict : " We of the jury say
that Aaron Burr is not proved to be guilty under
the indictment by a.\ij evidence submitted to us.
We, therefore, find him not guilty." Later Burr
and the principal conspirators were tried for
misdemeanor n fitting out an expedition against
Mexico, but were acquitted on technical grounds.
Burr went to Europe in 1808, hoping to obtain
there the means of making an attack upon
Mexico. It was a bootless mission, however, and
after four years of disappointment and jirivation
he returned to New York, dLsguised and poverty-
stricken, to meet the severest blow fortune had
yet dealt to him. A few faithful friends had
scarcely welcomed him to their midst, when the
death of Theodosia's only child was announced
to him ; the faithful and grief -stricken daughter
hastening to greet her idolized father perished
a few months later in a storm off Cape Hatteras.
Burr, who attained only moderate success in his
practice in New York, after twenty-three years
married, in his seventy -eightli year, Madame
Jumel, a French woman, a widow of means,
but later he separated from her. Burr was the
most fascinating and brilliant man of his time.
Perhaps no better summary of his character has
been made than that of Thomas Jefferson, who
called liim " a great man in little things, a small
man in great things." He is remembered chiefly
for liis adventures and misfortunes. (See Life
and Times of Aaron Burr, by James Parton ;
Life of Burr by M. L. Davis ; Burr's Eu-
7-opean Diary and The Report of the Trial
fur Treason.) He died at Staten Island, N. Y.,
Sep. 14, 1S86.
BURR, Enoch Fitch, lecturer, was born at Green's Farms, Conn., Oct. 21, 1818; a member of the same family as Aaron Burr. He was fitted for college, and was graduated class orator at Yale in 1839. The next three years he .spent in post-graduate stiulies, including theology, science, higlier mathematics and phj'sical as- tronomy. In 1850 he became pastor of a Congre- gational church in Lyme, Conn. He received the degree of LL.D. from London, and in 1868 the degree of D.D. from Amherst college, and he was chosen lecturer on the scientific evidences
