What is the significance of the burr conspiracy

Burr was said to have enticed some people with plans to liberate Spanish Mexico, others with promises of land in the Orleans Territory, still others with talk of building a new empire beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Rather than trying to discover the real intentions of Burr or his accusers—Thomas Jefferson foremost among them—James E. He also traces the enduring legacy of the stories that were told and accepted during this moment of uncertainty. The Burr Conspiracy offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of the United States at a time when it was far from clear to its people how long it would last.

Gray, Times Literary Supplement. A meticulously researched, comprehensive analysis essential to early American scholarship. It also serves as a cautionary tale for our times. The wisdom of the measures sanctioned by Congress at its last session has placed us in the paths of peace and justice with the only powers with whom we had any differences, and nothing has happened since which makes it either their interest or ours to pursue another course.

No change of measures has taken place on our part; none ought to take place at this time. With the one, friendly arrangement was then proposed, and the law deemed necessary on the failure of that was suspended to give time for a fair trial of the issue. With the same power friendly arrangement is now proceeding under good expectations, and the same law deemed necessary on failure of that is still suspended, to give time for a fair trial of the issue.

With the other, negotiation was in like manner then preferred, and provisional measures only taken to meet the event of rupture.

With the same power negotiation is still preferred, and provisional measures only are necessary to meet the event of rupture. While, therefore, we do not deflect in the slightest degree from the course we then assumed and are still pursuing with mutual consent to restore a good understanding, we are not to impute to them practices as irreconcilable to interest as to good faith, and changing necessarily the relations of peace and justice between us to those of war.

These surmises are therefore to be imputed to the vauntings of the author of this enterprise to multiply his partisans by magnifying the belief of his prospects and support. By letters from General Wilkinson of the 14th and 18th of December, which came to hand two days after the date of the resolution of the House of Representatives--that is to say, on the morning of the 18th instant--I received the important affidavit a copy of which I now communicate, with extracts of so much of the letters as comes within the scope of the resolution.

By these it will be seen that of three of the principal emissaries of Mr. Burr whom the General had caused to be apprehended, one had been liberated by habeas corpus, and two others, being those particularly employed in the endeavor to corrupt the general and army of the United States, have been embarked by him for ports in the Atlantic States, probably on the consideration that an impartial trial could not be expected during the present agitations of New Orleans, and that that city was not as yet a safe place of confinement.

As soon as these persons shall arrive they will be delivered to the custody of the law and left to such course of trial, both as to place and process, as its functionaries may direct. The presence of the highest judicial authorities, to be assembled at this place within a few days, the means of pursuing a sounder course of proceedings here than elsewhere, and the aid of the Executive means, should the judges have occasion to use them, render it equally desirable for the criminals as for the public that, being already removed from the place where they were first apprehended, the first regular arrest should take place here, and the course of proceedings receive here its proper direction.

Skip to main content. The American Presidency Project. Toggle navigation. Thomas Jefferson. January 22, To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: Agreeably to the request of the House of Representatives communicated in their resolution of the 16th instant, I proceed to state, under the reserve therein expressed, information received touching an illegal combination of private individuals against the peace and safety of the Union, and a military expedition planned by them against the territories of a power in amity with the United States, with the measures I have pursued for suppressing the same.

Filed Under. Written Messages. Simple Search of Our Archives. Report a Typo. Despite this reversal, Wilkinson proceeded with several conspiracies. At the same time, he reasoned that an opportunity existed to make money from national resentment toward Spain. He traveled to New Orleans, where he convinced the Spanish authorities he was secretly working for the partition of the United States.

He offered his services to the Spaniards, who identified him as "agent 13" in Spanish messages. Washington and Hamilton both thought that Wilkinson was a spy for the Spanish but felt that his loyalty could be purchased with a promotion. Not satisfied with his intrigues involving Kentucky statehood and working an agent for the Spanish, Wilkinson accepted in a commission as brigadier general of a volunteer army fighting Indians north of the Ohio River.

He then contrived to replace his commander, General "Mad Anthony" Wayne. Wilkinson succeeded only because Wayne died in He then seized Detroit from the British and became its military governor. His administration was short-lived as the citizens protested his greed and he returned to the South.

After arriving in the South, Wilkinson wheeled and dealed in land speculation and lucrative Army contracts and contrived to become governor or surveyor-general of the Mississippi Territory. President George Washington became uneasy about Wilkinson's activities and ordered his surveillance. Wilkinson discovered the surveillance and was able to have the surveillant withdrawn. In fact, in Jefferson fully trusted Wilkinson that he commissioned him to be one of two individuals to take formal possession of the Louisiana Purchase from the French.

In New Orleans, Wilkinson returned to his old ways and acted on Spanish fears concerning Florida, which was Spanish territory until He purchased a boatload of sugar, took it to New York to sell and while there began secret negotiations with Burr, Jefferson's vice-president. Burr, aware that war between the United States and Spain over boundary disputes was a possibility because of various Spanish conspiracies to achieve control of the lower Mississippi Valley, made covert plans with Wilkinson to invade and colonize Spanish territory in the West.

They also schemed to establish an independent "Empire of the West" on a Napoleonic model. The conspirators even considered invading and annexing Mexico to add to their empire with New Orleans as capital. Burr was dropped from the presidential ticket by Jefferson and in April commenced to put his plans into motion.

He again approached the British via Minister Merry. He informed Merry that Louisiana was ready to break with the United States and once it did all the western country would follow suit. To be successful, Burr requested that Britain assure his protection, provide him with a half of million dollar loan, and dispatch a British naval squadron to the mouth of the Mississippi River. Fox considered the Merry-Burr discussions indiscreet, dangerous and damnable and recalled Merry to England on June 1, Having failed to secure British aid in an attempt to separate western states from the United States, Burr then headed west across Pennsylvania.

In Pittsburgh, he procured a riverboat and embarked down the Ohio River. He stopped to visit Harman Blennerhassett, a wealthy, gentleman-scholar and Irish emigrant, who lived with his wife Margaret on an island in the middle of the river. Burr explained his plan to Blennerhassett, who enthusiastically expressed his support by giving Burr money.

Burr used the funds to later purchase the Batrop lands on the Ouachita River, in present-day northern Louisiana, to serve as his base of operations into the Southwest. Burr continued down the river to New Orleans, recruiting frontiersmen, filibusters, adventurers, and others along the way. When he arrived in New Orleans in , he was fervently welcomed because his game plan to colonize or conquer the Spanish possessions touched an appealing cord in many of the people.

As rumors of his plan reached Washington, the political establishment suspected that Burr was talking treason. Wilkinson, who was stationed on the Sabine River on the Spanish border with the United States, learned of Washington's reaction and decided to inform on Burr to avoid being charged with treason himself.

On November 25, a courier arrived in Washington carrying a dispatch for President Jefferson. In the dispatch, Wilkinson warned President Jefferson about Burr's threatening plan. Jefferson ordered Burr arrested and he was apprehended in late near Nachez, Mississippi, while attempting to flee into Spanish territory. In May , Burr was tried for treason in front of U.