On the Trail of the Treasonous
Chapter 16 - The Treason Begins to Unravel
Having to do something, President Jefferson issued a proclamation (without naming names) that commanded all citizens who were part of the ‘un-named’ movement to stop. Daveiss tried to indict Burr for high misdemeanor, but with no real evidence, failed again. Burr was free to begin his treasonous plot. But would Jefferson’s Proclamation reach New Orleans before Burr?
rough draft of President Jefferson’s Proclamation of November 27th 1806
16. The Treason Begins to Unravel
Back east in Washington City, on November 25th 1806, President Jefferson received the letters from General Wilkinson of October 21st. Before this, the President had said of Burr’s conspiracy that “as yet we have no legal proof of any overt act which the law can laid hold of”, and in Wilkinson’s letters there was still no ‘legal’ proof of Burr’s treason. But at least, despite the rumors about Wilkinson, the President had (what seemed to be) proof that Wilkinson was not (any longer) a part of the plot.
But, the fact that your commander of the United States Army was warning you of a conspiracy against the interests of the nation, meant that you had to act now, or it would seem as if you were a part of the plot. In other words, the shit was about to hit the fan. President Jefferson immediately called a cabinet meeting and showed the despatches to the Secretaries, where it was agreed that the President should issue a proclamation.
The Proclamation of November 27th stated that :
“Whereas information has been received that sundry persons, citizens of the United States, or residents within the same are conspiring and confederating together to begin and set on foot, provide and prepare the means for a military expedition or enterprize against the dominions of Spain, that for this purpose, they are fitting out and arming vessels in the western waters of the United States, collecting provisions, arms, military stores, and other means, are deceiving and seducing honest and well meaning citizens, under various pretences, to engage in their criminal enterprizes, are organizing, officering and arming themselves for the same, contrary to the laws in such cases made and provided: I have therefore thought fit to issue this my PROCLAMATION, warning and enjoining all faithful citizens who have been led without due knowledge or consideration to participate in the said unlawful enterprizes, to withdraw from the same without delay; and commanding all persons whatsoever, engaged or concerned in the same, to cease all further proceedings therein, as they will answer the contrary at their peril; and incur prosecution with all the rigors of the law … and I require all good and faithful citizens, and others within the United States, to be aiding and assisting herein, and especially in the discovery, apprehension and bringing to justice of all such offenders, in preventing the execution of their unlawful designs, and in giving information against them to the proper authorities.”
New orders were sent from the War Department by Dearborn to Wilkinson that :
“you will use every exertion in your power to frustrate and effectually prevent any enterprize, which has for its objects, directly or indirectly, any hostile act on any part of the territories of the United States, or any of the territories of the king of Spain”.
Before news of the proclamation would reach the western states, U.S. Attorney Daveiss had now learned that Davis Floyd, the witness who’d been out of town and who couldn’t be called to answer to the first grand jury, had now returned to Frankfort, and so, as fate would have it, on November 25th – the same day that President Jefferson received Wilkinson’s despatches, Daveiss appeared before the court for a second time to present Judge Innes with a motion “to award a warrant to summon a grand jury … to enquire upon the breach of the laws of the United States … to support the indictments he intends to prefer against the said Aaron Burr, Esquire”.
Daveiss was referring to the 5th Section of the Act of Congress entitled ‘an Act in addition to the Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States’ [December 2nd 1793] that :
“if any person shall within the Territory or jurisdiction of the United States, begin or set on foot, or provide or prepare the means for any military expedition or enterprize to be carried on from thence against the territory or dominions of any foreign prince or State with whom the United States are at peace, every such person so offending, shall, upon conviction, be adjudged guilty of a high Misdemeanor …’
To the grand jury, that began on December 2nd, Daveiss issued charges against both Aaron Burr and John Adair for “willfully and unlawfully and from evil premeditation set on foot and prepare for a military expedition and enterprize … against the dominions of the King of Spain … contrary to the laws of the United States”.
While Burr’s support in the west had still not begun to erode, that of John Adair had begun to erode.
In November 1800, Adair had lost the election for Kentucky’s Senator to John Breckinridge, who on leaving for the capital would turn over a large part of his law practice to Henry Clay. In November 1804, Adair lost the election for Kentucky’s other Senate seat to Buckner Thruston, who was backed by Henry Clay and supporters. When Breckinridge resigned his senate seat in 1805 to become Jefferson’s Attorney General, the Kentucky General Assembly (finally) voted to have Adair complete the remainder of the senate term.
In November 1806, Adair (due to his suspected connections with Burr) lost his re-election as Kentucky Senator to John Pope, and in a huff, he resigned his senate seat effective immediately. The Kentucky General Assembly needed to elect a replacement to serve for the remaining few months until Pope’s new Senate term would begin in March 1807. Henry Clay was elected to be the senator and to be sent to Washington City.
When news of the new grand jury reached Burr, he again asked Clay to represent him at court. But Clay was hesitant at this time, after having heard the rumors of Burr’s treasonous plot to break the Union, and as the newly elected Senator, he asked him about the truth to these rumors. Burr answered Clay in a letter sent December 1st that :
“I have no design, nor have I taken any measures to promote a dissolution of the Union … I have thought these explanations proper and such as to counteract the chimerical tales which malevolent persons have so industriously circulated as to satisfy you that you have not espoused the cause of a man in any way unfriendly to the laws, the government, or the interests of his country”.
At that time, with Burr’s profession of innocence, Clay “believed him both an innocent and persecuted man”.
Daveiss had wanted to go before the grand jury to question the witnesses, but the Judge denied this request, as Clay argued this was a grand jury, and not a trial. When Street and Wood, editors of the Western World, were called as witnesses, they could not produce any factual evidence for the charges, but only that their knowledge of the affair came solely from hearsay. The other witnesses claimed the same.
On December 5th, the Grand Jury reported that :
“no violent disturbance of the Public Tranquility or breach of the laws has come to their knowledge ... that having carefully examined and scrutinized all the testimony which has come before us … that there has been no testimony before us which does in the smallest degree criminate the conduct of either of those persons, nor can we from all the inquiries and investigation of the subject discover that anything proper or injurious to the interest of the Government of the United States or contrary to the laws thereof is designed or contemplated by either of them”.
Aaron Burr had been vindicated of any crime, the grand jury was discharged, and a grand ball was held in Burr’s honor at Taylor’s tavern by his supporters. But while Burr and his friends were celebrating, they were unaware that Jefferson’s Proclamation was sailing westward and had just arrived at Pittsburgh!
Daveiss left Frankfort and travelled to Louisville, where he would uncover more of the conspiracy! Daveiss had known that the real object of Burr’s scheme was the secession of New Orleans and Louisiana from the Union, that were then to be joined by the western states – Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky. And knowing that “no law forbids an attempt to disunite the states”, he instead had tried to stop Burr by charging him with trying to start an expedition against Spain, while Spain was at peace with America – which was a crime.
But, Daveiss had been unable to prove this charge because all of Burr’s preparations and activities could be explained away as part of his so-called plan for settlement of the Bastrop lands.
Also, because there were no longer any plans to invade Mexico – by June 1806 Burr knew that there was to be no British naval support, and with no American naval vessels or captains, Burr had no naval forces to invade Mexico or the Floridas, even if he and Wilkinson had originally wanted to.
On October 25th, Burr had sent De Pestre to return to New York to report on the state of the plot to Dayton and the other co-conspirators, but also to Philadelphia to meet with Yrujo, the Spanish minister to the United States.
Yrujo had written to Cevallos, Spain’s Secretary of State, on November 10th of the results of his investigations into Burr’s plans, that :
“Colonel Burr will go down with them under pretext of establishing them on a great land-purchase he is supposed to have made. In passing Cincinnati, they expect to get possession of five thousand stand of arms which the government deposited there at the time of its differences with us about the navigation of the Mississippi. After thus dropping the mask, this armed troop will follow down the course of the Mississippi. Colonel Burr will stop at Natchez, where he will wait until the Assembly of New Orleans has met, which will happen at once; and in this meeting (Junta) they will declare the independence of the Western States, and will invite Burr meanwhile to place himself at the head of their government. He will accept the offer, will descend to New Orleans, and will set to work, clothed in a character which the people will have given him …”
“When Burr made the project of acting in agreement with England and seizing the Floridas, he expected to master them with troops that should accompany him from Baton Rouge. Although I am assured that this project is abandoned, and that on the contrary he wishes to live on good terms with Spain, I have written to Governor Folch of West Florida to be on his guard …”
Yrujo knew the actual plan of Burr! And Burr was asking Spain not to intervene in his secession plot, that it would prove beneficial to Spain’s interest if he succeeded.
On November 27th, De Pestre arrived at Yrujo’s house in Philadelphia and gave him the letter from Burr. Yrujo wrote to Cevallos on December 4th about his meeting with De Pestre, that :
“he also told me, on the part of the Colonel, that I should soon hear that he meant to attack Mexico, but that I was not to believe such rumors; that on the contrary, his plans were limited to the emancipation of the Western States, and that it was necessary to circulate this rumor in order to hide the true design of his armaments and of the assemblages of men which could no longer be kept secret; that Upper and Lower Louisiana, the States of Tennessee and Ohio, stood ready and ripe for his plans, but that the State of Kentucky was much divided; and as this is the most important in numbers and population, an armed force must be procured strong enough to control the party there which should be disposed to offer resistance. He added, on Burr's part, that as soon as the revolution should be complete, he should treat with Spain in regard to boundaries, and would conclude this affair to the entire satisfaction of Spain; meanwhile he wished me to write to the Governor of West Florida to diminish the burdens on Americans who navigate the Mobile River, and ask him, when the explosion should take place, to stop the courier or couriers who might be despatched by the friends of Government from New Orleans.”
[it is interesting that Yrujo saw Kentucky as the key opposition to Burr’s plot – and Kentucky proved him right!]
Although Wilkinson did have a plan to somehow open up a trade route from New Orleans to the Spanish silver mines in Santa Fe, the whole scheme of an expedition against Mexico or the Floridas had become a deception, couched in the anti-Spanish sentiment that was widespread throughout the western states, in order to deceive any patriotic feelings of the westerners, in case that Burr’s real plot of western secession was found out.
For most of Burr’s western sympathizers, they were attracted to his scheme because of their prior anti-Spanish sentiment resulting from efforts of the Spanish government to control traffic on the Mississippi river. And also their romantic notions of adventure and riches to be won. But only Burr’s inner circle was aware of the secession plot, to form a new empire of the Western States and territories and the newly acquired Louisiana lands.
[ next week - chapter 17 - The Race for New Orleans ]