“I fear that Burr will go down the river and give us trouble. The proclamation, it seems, in the Western country is very little attended to. They, no doubt, seeing no exertion making, consider that it has originated from false information. The President has not yet given any kind of information to Congress, and gentlemen (Giles among the number) will not believe that there is any kind of danger.... Burr’s letter to Wilkinson is explicit. (This is secret.) He had passed the Alleghany never, never to return; his object, New Orleans,—open and avowed. And yet not one step taken, except the proclamation! Duane calls on Congress to act. How can Congress act? Would you force from the Executive the information they are unwilling to give? This would be imprudent. I have (with consent of the President) introduced a Resolution proposing an addition to our military establishment. Will it pass? That I can’t tell.... It is curious that the nation should depend on the unauthorized exertions of a man whose honor and fidelity were doubted by all except a very, very few, not five in the United States, for its preservation and character. Had he not disclosed the conspiracy, the President would have folded his arms and let the storm collect its whole strength. Even now, not an energetic measure has been taken except by him [Wilkinson] and Tiffin.”
Another week passed. Then at last, January 16, John Randolph rose in the House and moved a Resolution asking the President what he knew about Burr’s affairs, and what he had done or meant to do in the matter. “The United States are not only threatened with external war,” Randolph said, “but with conspiracies and treasons, the more alarming from their not being defined; and yet we sit and adjourn, adjourn and sit, take things as schoolboys, do as we are bid, and ask no questions!” His Resolution annoyed the democrats; but his sneers were more convincing than his arguments, and after some contradictory and unorganized resistance, a majority supported him. The Resolution was adopted and sent to the President.
Two days afterward, January 18, Wilkinson’s despatches from New Orleans to December 18, embracing his first written version of Burr’s cipher despatch reached Washington. The country learned that Wilkinson had arrested Bollman and other accomplices of Burr, and in defiance of their legal rights had shipped them to Washington for trial. Jefferson was obliged to decide whether he should sustain or repudiate Wilkinson; and in the light of Burr’s revelations and Wilkinson’s quasi confession, he could not deny that a serious conspiracy existed, or affirm that the General had gone beyond the line of duty, even though he had violated the laws. Dearborn’s instructions, indeed, had to some extent authorized the arrests. At that moment if the President had repudiated Wilkinson, he would have only diverted public indignation from Burr, and would have condemned the Executive itself, which after so many warnings had left such power in the hands of a man universally distrusted.
Thus at last Jefferson was obliged to raise his voice against Burr’s crimes. Thenceforward a sense of having been made almost a party to the conspiracy gave a sting of personal bitterness to the zeal with which he strove to defend Wilkinson and to punish Burr. Anxiety to excuse himself was evident in the Message which he sent to Congress January 22, in response to Randolph’s Resolution of January 16.
“Some time in the latter part of September,” he said, “I received intimations that designs were in agitation in the Western country, unlawful and unfriendly to the peace of the Union, and that the prime mover in these was Aaron Burr.”
He had received such intimations many times, and long before the month of September.
“It was not till the latter part of October that the objects of the conspiracy began to be perceived.”
Absolute truth would have required the President to say rather that it was not till the latter part of October that inquiry on his part began to be made.
“In Kentucky a premature attempt to bring Burr to justice, without a sufficient evidence for his conviction, had produced a popular impression in his favor and a general disbelief of his guilt. This gave him an unfortunate opportunity of hastening his equipments.”
Complaint of District-Attorney Daveiss was natural; but the reproof was inexact in every particular. The attempt to indict Burr, if any attempt were to be made, was not premature. The impression in his favor did not give Burr an opportunity to hasten his equipments, since Graham appeared at Marietta the same day with the news of Burr’s first discharge at Frankfort. Finally, if Daveiss’s attempt failed, the fault was chiefly with the Government at Washington, which had taken no measures to direct or to support it, and which was represented on the bench by a judge himself implicated in the charge.