Chapter VIII: Administration Versus Court (3)

The case was regarded as a political prosecution, and the refusal of Cabinet officers and department clerks to obey the summons of the court, together with Judge Talmadge's disagreement with Justice Paterson--who in disgust immediately left the bench under plea of ill-health (_ib._ 90)--and the subsequent conduct of the trial judge, were commented upon unfavorably. These facts led to Martin's reference during the Burr trial.

[1104] _Burr Trials_, I, 127-28.

[1105] _Burr Trials_, I, 130-33.

[1106] _Ib._ 134-35.

[1107] _Burr Trials_, I, 137-45.

[1108] _Burr Trials_, I, 147-48.

[1109] _Ib._ 148-52.

[1110] _Burr Trials_, I, 153-64.

[1111] _Burr Trials_, I, 164-67.

[1112] _Ib._ 173-76.

[1113] _Burr Trials_, I, 177.

[1114] See _infra_, 455-56.

[1115] _Burr Trials_, I, 181-83.

[1116] United States _vs._ Smith and Ogden. (See _supra_, 436, foot-note.)

[1117] _Burr Trials_, I, 187-88.

[1118] _Burr Trials_, I, 189.

[1119] Hay to Jefferson, June 14, 1807, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong.

[1120] Ambler: _Thomas Ritchie--A Study in Virginia Politics_, 40-41.

[1121] Jefferson to Hay, June 17, 1807, _Works_: Ford, X, 400-01.

[1122] Jefferson to Hay, June 19, 1807, _Works_: Ford, X, 402-03.

[1123] _Burr Trials_, I, 190.

[1124] _Burr Trials_, I, 191-93.

[1125] _Burr Trials_, I, 193-96.

[1126] Jefferson to Hay, June 20, 1807, _Works_: Ford, X, 403-05.

[1127] Hay to Jefferson, June 11, 1807, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong. This letter announced Wilkinson's landing at Hampton Roads.

Wilkinson reached Richmond by stage on Saturday, June 13. He was accompanied by John Graham and Captain Gaines, the ordinary witnesses having been sent ahead on a pilot boat. (Graham to Madison, May 11, 1807, "Letters in Relation," MSS. Lib. Cong.) Graham incorrectly dated his letter May 11 instead of June 11. He had left New Orleans in May, and in the excitement of landing had evidently forgotten that a new month had come.

Wilkinson was "too much fatigued" to come into court. (_Burr Trials_, I, 196.) By Monday, however, he was sufficiently restored to present himself before Marshall.

[1128] Irving to Paulding, June 22, 1807, Irving, I, 145.

[1129] Wilkinson to Jefferson, June 17, 1807, "Letters in Relation," MSS. Lib. Cong.

The court reporter impartially states that Wilkinson was "calm, dignified, and commanding," and that Burr glanced at him with "haughty contempt." (_Burr Trials_, I, footnote to 197.)

[1130] "Gen: Jackson of Tennessee has been here ever since the 22^{d.} [of May] denouncing Wilkinson in the coarsest terms in every company." (Hay to Jefferson, June 14, 1807, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong.)

Hay had not the courage to tell the President that Jackson had been as savagely unsparing in his attacks on Jefferson as in his thoroughly justified condemnation of Wilkinson.

[1131] Truxtun left the Navy in 1802, and, at the time of the Burr trial, was living on a farm in New Jersey. No officer in any navy ever made a better record for gallantry, seamanship, and whole-hearted devotion to his country. The list of his successful engagements is amazing. He was as high-spirited as he was fearless and honorable.

In 1802, when in command of the squadron that was being equipped for our war with Tripoli, Truxtun most properly asked that a captain be appointed to command the flagship. The Navy was in great disfavor with Jefferson and the whole Republican Party, and naval affairs were sadly mismanaged or neglected. Truxtun's reasonable request was refused by the Administration, and he wrote a letter of indignant protest to the Secretary of the Navy. To the surprise and dismay of the experienced and competent officer, Jefferson and his Cabinet construed his spirited letter as a resignation from the service, and, against Truxtun's wishes, accepted it as such. Thus the American Navy lost one of its ablest officers at the very height of his powers. Truxtun at the time was fifty-two years old. No single act of Jefferson's Administration is more discreditable than this untimely ending of a great career.

[1132] This man was the elder Decatur, father of the more famous officer of the same name. He had had a career in the American Navy as honorable but not so distinguished as that of Truxtun; and his service had been ended by an unhappy circumstance, but one less humiliating than that which severed Truxtun's connection with the Navy.

The unworthiest act of the expiring Federalist Congress of 1801, and one which all Republicans eagerly supported, was that authorizing most of the ships of the Navy to be sold or laid up and most of the naval officers discharged. (Act of March 3, 1801, _Annals_, 6th Cong. 1st and 2d Sess. 1557-59.) Among the men whose life profession was thus cut off, and whose notable services to their country were thus rewarded, was Commodore Stephen Decatur, who thereafter engaged in business in Philadelphia.

[1133] It was under Stoddert's administration of the Navy Department that the American Navy was really created. Both Truxtun and Decatur won their greatest sea battles in our naval war with France, while Stoddert was Secretary. The three men were close friends and all of them warmly resented the demolition of the Navy and highly disapproved of Jefferson, both as an individual and as a statesman. They belonged to the old school of Federalists. Three more upright men did not live.

[1134] See _supra_, 304-05.

[1135] A popular designation of Eaton after his picturesque and heroic Moroccan exploit.

[1136] Truxtun at the time of his conversations with Burr was in the thick of that despair over his cruel and unjustifiable separation from the Navy, which clouded his whole after life. The longing to be once more on the quarter-deck of an American warship never left his heart.

[1137] _Burr Trials_, I, 486-91. This abstract is from the testimony given by Commodore Truxtun before the trial jury, which was substantially the same as that before the grand jury.

[1138] _Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 452-63. See note 1, next page.

[1139] Wilkinson's testimony on the trial for misdemeanor (_Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess, 520-22) was the same as before the grand jury.

"Wilkinson is now before the grand jury, and has such a mighty mass of _words_ to deliver himself of, that he claims at least two days more to discharge the wondrous cargo." (Irving to Paulding, June 22, 1807, Irving, I, 145.)

[1140] See McCaleb, 335. Politics alone saved Wilkinson. The trial was universally considered a party matter, Jefferson's prestige, especially, being at stake. Yet seven out of the sixteen members of the grand jury voted to indict Wilkinson. Fourteen of the jury were Republicans, and two were Federalists.

[1141] Randolph to Nicholson, June 25, 1807, Adams: _Randolph_, 221-22. Speaking of political conditions at that time, Randolph observed: "Politics have usurped the place of law, and the scenes of 1798 [referring to the Alien and Sedition laws] are again revived."

[1142] Testimony of Joseph C. Cabell, one of the grand jury. (_Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 677.)

[1143] "Mr. Swartwout ... discovered the utmost frankness and candor in his evidence.... The very frank and candid manner in which he gave his testimony, I must confess, raised him very high in my estimation, and induced me to form a very different opinion of him from that which I had before entertained." (Testimony of Littleton W. Tazewell, one of the grand jury, _Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 633.)

"The manner of Mr. Swartwout was certainly that of conscious innocence." (Testimony of Joseph C. Cabell, one of the grand jury, _ib._ 677.)

[1144] See _supra_, 426-27.

[1145] Forty-eight witnesses were examined by the grand jury. The names are given in Brady: _Trial of Aaron Burr_, 69-70.

[1146] _Burr Trials_, I, 305-06; also "Bills of Indictment," MSS. Archives of the United States Court, Richmond, Va.

The following day former Senator Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, Senator John Smith of Ohio, Comfort Tyler and Israel Smith of New York, and Davis Floyd of the Territory of Indiana, were presented for treason. How Bollmann, Swartwout, Adair, Brown, and others escaped indictment is only less comprehensible than the presentment of Tyler, Floyd, and the two Smiths for treason.

[1147] _Blennerhassett Papers_: Safford, 314. "Two of the most respectable and influential of that body, since it has been discharged, have declared they mistook the meaning of Chief Justice Marshall's opinion as to what sort of acts amounted to treason in this country, in the case of Swartwout and Ogden [Bollmann]; that it was under the influence of this mistake they concurred in finding such a bill against A. Burr, which otherwise would have probably been ignored."

[1148] _Burr Trials_, I, 327-28.

[1149] Hay to Jefferson, June 25, 1807, Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong.

[1150] _Burr Trials_, I, 197-357.

[1151] This was one of Luther Martin's characteristic outbursts. Every word of it, however, was true.

[1152] _Burr Trials_, I, 197-357.