The Life of John Marshall Volume III Part 65

[1334] _Enquirer_, Nov. 24, 1807.

[1335] Marshall's _Life of Was.h.i.+ngton_.

[1336] See vol. II, 395-96, of this work.

[1337] "Letters to John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States,"

in the _Aurora_, reprinted in the _Enquirer_, Dec. 1, 1807.

[1338] _Enquirer_, Dec. 4, 1807.

[1339] _Ib._ Dec. 8, 1807.

[1340] See _supra_, 525-26.

[1341] _Enquirer_, Dec. 12, 1807.

[1342] _Blennerha.s.sett Papers_: Safford, 475.

[1343] _Blennerha.s.sett Papers_: Safford, 477.

[1344] Gathering a few dollars from personal friends, Burr sailed for England, hoping to get from the British Government support for his plans to revolutionize Mexico. At first all went well. Men like Jeremy Bentham and Sir Walter Scott became his friends and admirers. But the hand of Jefferson followed him; and on representations of the American Minister, the British Government ordered him to leave the United Kingdom immediately.

Next he sought the ear of Napoleon; but again he was flouted and insulted by the American diplomatic and consular representatives--he was, they said, "a fugitive from justice." His last sou gone, ragged and often hungry, he managed at last, by the aid of one John Reeves, to secure pa.s.sage for Boston, where he landed May 4, 1812. Then he journeyed to New York, where he arrived June 30 in abject poverty and utterly ruined. But still his spirit did not give way.

Soon, however, fate struck him the only blow that, until now, ever had brought this iron man to his knees. His pa.s.sionately beloved little grandson, Aaron Burr Alston, died in June. In December, another and heavier stroke fell. His daughter sailed from Charleston, South Carolina, to join and comfort her father and be comforted by him. Her s.h.i.+p was lost in a storm, and Theodosia the beautiful, the accomplished, the adored, was drowned. Then, at last, the heart of Aaron Burr was broken.

Of the many ridiculous stories told of Burr and his daughter, one was that her s.h.i.+p was captured by pirates and she, ordered to walk the plank, did so with her child in her arms "without hesitation or visible tremor." This absurdity was given credit and currency by Harriet Martineau. (See Martineau: _Western Travels_, II, 291-92.) Theodosia's child had died six months before she sailed from Charleston to go to her father, and she embarked in a pilot boat, about which no pirate would have troubled himself.

The remainder of Burr's long life was given to the practice of his profession. His industry, legal learning, and ability, once more secured for him a good business. In 1824, Marshall ruled on an application to restore an attorney named Burr to the bar of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia from which he had been suspended for unprofessional conduct. (_Ex parte_ Burr, 9 Wheaton, 529-31.) It has often been erroneously supposed that this applicant was Aaron Burr: he was, however, one Levi Burr, a local pract.i.tioner, and not related to Aaron Burr.

It is characteristic of Burr that he remembered the great lawyer who voluntarily had hastened to defend him at Richmond, and Luther Martin--aged, infirm, and almost deranged--was taken to the home of Aaron Burr and tenderly cared for until he died. Burr's marriage, at the age of seventy-eight, to Madame Jumel was, on his part, inexplicable; it was the only regrettable but not unworthy incident of the latter years of his life. (See Shelton: _Jumel Mansion_, 170-74.)

Burr's New York friends were loyal to him to his very last day. His political genius never grew dim. He early suggested and helped to bring about the nomination of Andrew Jackson for the Presidency. Thus did he pay the debt of grat.i.tude for the loyalty with which the rugged Tennesseean had championed his cause against public opinion and Administration alike.

During the summer of 1836 his last illness came upon him. When his physician said that he could live but a few hours longer, a friend at his bedside asked the supposedly expiring man "whether in the expedition to the Southwest he had designed a separation of the Union." Believing himself to be dying, Burr replied: "No! I would as soon have thought of taking possession of the moon and informing my friends that I intended to divide it among them." To a man, his most intimate friends believed this statement to be true.

Finally, on September 14, 1836, Aaron Burr died and was buried near his father at Princeton, New Jersey, where the parent had presided over, and the son had attended, that Alma Mater of so many patriots, soldiers, and statesmen.

For two years his burial place was unmarked. Then, at night-time, unknown friends erected over his grave a plain marble shaft, bearing this inscription:

AARON BURR

Born Feb. 6, 1756 Died Sept. 14, 1836 Colonel in the Army of the Revolution Vice-President of the United States from 1801 to 1805

(_Gulf States Historical Magazine_, II, 379.)

Parton's _Life of Burr_ is still the best story of this strange life.

But Parton must be read with great care, for he sometimes makes statements which are difficult of verification.

A brief, engaging, and trustworthy account of the Burr episode is _Aaron Burr_, by Isaac Jenkinson. Until the appearance of Professor McCaleb's book, _The Aaron Burr Conspiracy_, Mr. Jenkinson's little volume was the best on that subject. Professor McCaleb's thorough and scholarly study is, however, the only exhaustive and reliable narrative of that ambitious plan and the disastrous outcome of the attempted execution of it.

[1345] _Blennerha.s.sett Papers_: Safford, 480-82; also see _Baltimore American_, Nov. 4, 5, 6, 1807.

[1346] _Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 108-27.

[1347] The bill pa.s.sed the Senate, but foreign affairs, and exciting legislation resulting from these, forced it from the mind of the House.

(See vol. IV, chap. I, of this work.)

[1348] John Quincy Adams of Ma.s.sachusetts, Samuel Maclay of Pennsylvania, Jesse Franklin of North Carolina, Samuel Smith of Maryland, John Pope of Kentucky, Buckner Thruston of Kentucky, and Joseph Anderson of Tennessee. (_Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 42.)

[1349] Smith had been indicted for treason and misdemeanor, but Hay had entered a _nolle prosequi_ on the bills of indictment after the failure of the Burr prosecution. (_Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 481.)

[1350] Adams had been indulging in political maneuvers that indicated a courts.h.i.+p of the Administration and a purpose to join the Republican Party. His course had angered and disgusted most of his former Federalist friends and supporters, who felt that he had deserted his declining party in order to advance his political fortunes. If this were true, his performance in writing the Committee report on the resolution to expel Smith was well calculated to endear him to Jefferson. Adams expressed his own views thus: "On most of the great national questions now under discussion, my sense of duty leads me to support the administration, and I find myself of course in opposition to the federalists in general.... My political prospects are declining."

(_Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 497-98.)

The Federalist Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts grossly insulted Adams by electing his successor before Adams's term in the Senate had expired.

Adams resigned, and in March, 1809, President Madison appointed him Minister to Russia, and later Minister to Great Britain. President Monroe made the former Federalist his Secretary of State. No Republican was more highly honored by these two Republican Presidents than was John Quincy Adams.

[1351] Adams did not, of course, mention Marshall by name. His castigation of the Chief Justice, however, was the more severe because of the unmistakable designation of him. (See _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, 173-84; also _Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 56-63.)

It must be remembered, too, that this attack upon Marshall comes from the son of the man who, on January 20, 1801, appointed Marshall Chief Justice. (See vol. II, 552-53, of this work.) But John Quincy Adams soon came to be one of the stanchest supporters and most ardent admirers that Marshall ever had. It was peculiarly characteristic of Marshall that he did not resent the attack of Adams and, for the only time in his judicial career, actually interested himself in politics in behalf of Adams. (See vol. IV, chap. IX, of this work.)

[1352] Adams's colleague Senator Pickering was, of course, disgusted (see his letter to King, Jan. 2, 1808, King, V, 44), and in a pamphlet ent.i.tled "A Review of the Correspondence Between the Hon. John Adams and the late William Cunningham, Esq." which he published in 1824, Pickering wrote that the resolution "outraged ... every distinguished lawyer in America" (see p. 41 of pamphlet). King thought Adams "indiscreet" (see his letter to Pickering, Jan. 7, 1808, King, V, 50). Plumer declared that the report "had given mortal offence" in New Hamps.h.i.+re (see _Ma.s.s.

Historical Society Proceedings_, XLV, 357). John Lowell a.s.serted that "justice ... was to be dragged from her seat ... and the eager minister of presidential vengeance seemed to sigh after the mild mercies of the star chamber, and the rapid movements of the revolutionary tribunal"

(see his "Remarks" as quoted in _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, footnote to 184).

[1353] Jan. 28, 1808, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 508; see also _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, footnote to 184.

[1354] "He poured himself forth in his two speeches to-day.... It was all a phillipic upon me." (Jan. 7, 1808, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 501.)

[1355] _Ib._

[1356] _Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 324.

[1357] "Mr. Giles, in one of the most animated and eloquent speeches I ever heard him make, declared himself ... against the resolution for expulsion. He argued the case of Mr. Smith with all his eloquence, and returned to the charge with increasing warmth until the last moment."

(April 9, 1808, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 528.)

[1358] _Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 321-24.

CHAPTER X

FRAUD AND CONTRACT

If I were to characterize the United States, it should be by the appellation of the land of speculation. (William Priest.)