CHAPTER Burr's men, several of whom were afterwards used ΧΙΧ. against him as witnesses, dispersed through the Terri1807. tory, furnishing it, as Poindexter afterward testified, with an abundant supply of schoolmasters, singing-masters, dancing-masters, and doctors. A reward having been offered for his capture, Burr was arrested some time Feb. 19. after in the Eastern Mississippi settlements, on the Tombigbee, through which he was passing on horseback, meanly dressed, attended by a single companion, and whence he was sent, under a guard, to Washington. The arrest was made by the register of the land-office, assisted by Lieutenant Gaines (afterward Major-general Gaines) with a sergeant and four men from Fort Stoddart. Just about the time of Burr's arrival near Natchez, General Adair reached New Orleans by land, but was immediately taken into custody by Wilkinson, and sent round by sea to Baltimore. The alarm did not immediately cease upon the stoppage of Burr's boats. As it was imagined that he had promises of foreign assistance, confederates in various quarters, and numerous partisans in the city itself, it was thought that even yet an attack might be made. There had existed in New Orleans a society called the Mexican Association, formed for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the internal provinces of that viceroyalty, with a view, it was admitted, to some future expedition against them. This society, it was said, had some time before dwindled to nothing, and had discontinued its meetings; yet all those who had once been connected with it were suspected as Burr's partisans. Not willing to risk further arrests, from which the prisoners might be discharged on writs of haFeb. 10. beas corpus, Governor Claiborne applied to the Territo rial Legislature to suspend that writ; but though, in oth er respects, the majority had supported his and Wilkin XIX Dec. 1 son's measures, they refused to grant this request. A CHAPTER considerable party, both in the Assembly and among the citizens, was very bitter against what they called the 1807 high-handed and tyrannical proceedings of Wilkinson and Claiborne. Wortman resigned his office of judge on the ground that the government was usurped by military authority, and Livingston presently came out with a long vindication against the insinuation which had been thrown out by Wilkinson to his disadvantage. In the midst of the excitement occasioned by the issue 1806. of the president's proclamation, the ninth Congress came together for its second session. In the opening message some allusions were made to that proclamation; but it was six weeks before the proceedings against Burr came distinctly before the House. To a call for information, moved by Randolph, and carried against a good deal of opposition from the president's more particular supporters, the president replied by a statement of the steps Jan. 22. taken by his orders. Though it was not yet known what had become of Burr, all occasion for alarm had ceased so the president declared, and yet, as if in spite of this declaration, a bill was at once introduced into the Sen- 1807. ate, and, by a suspension of all the rules by unanimous Jan. 23. consent, was passed in secret session without a division, suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus for three months. This singular movement is best explained by the legal proceedings then pending in the case of Bollman and Swartwout, sent prisoners by sea from New Orleans, and who, having been brought across the country from Annapolis, had arrived at Washington that same evening, and had been committed to the cus- Jan. 24 tody of the marine corps. Being brought before the Circuit Court, the principal court of law of the district, on a charge of treason, the president's message of the XIX. CHAPTER previous week was relied upon by the counsel for the government as conclusive proof of the existence of a trai1807. torous plot-a course of reasoning to which two of the three judges assented. A deposition of Wilkinson, though being objected to as being ex parte, was also introduced, as well as the testimony of Eaton; and the Jan. 30. court, on this evidence, two to one, committed the pris oners for trial. Jan. 26 But if the suspension of the habeas corpus was intend. ed for this case, that intention failed of its effect, for the House rejected the bill from the Senate by the decisive vote of 113 to 16; and a day or two after, all alarm was quieted by the information communicated to Congress by the president that Burr had passed Fort Massac with only ten boats, not strongly manned, and without appearance of military array. Bollman and Swartwout were soon after brought before the Supreme Court of the United States on a writ of habeas corpus, and, after a very elaborate argument (Harper and Martin appearing as their counsel), first, as to the right of the court to issue the writ, and then as to the sufficiency of the cause of commitment, they were Feb. 21. discharged from custody on the ground that they did not appear to have been in any way connected with the commission of any overt act of treason. Alexander, who had also been brought to Washington in custody, was discharged without any opposition on the part of the government. Ogden and Adair were discharged at Baltimore, immediately after which Adair addressed a long letter to the Kentucky delegation in Congress, in which he insisted that he had gone to New Orleans only on a land speculation and commercial business. He af terwards commenced in Mississippi a suit against Wilkinson for false imprisonment. This suit was not XIX. brought to a close till 1818, when Adair recovered judg- CE APTER ment for $2,500, against which Wilkinson was indemnified by Congress. By a common revulsion of feeling, 1807. the exaggerated rumors as to Burr's force, and the alarm thereby excited in New Orleans and elsewhere, speedily became subjects of ridicule. Henry Clay, lately Burr's counsel in Kentucky, having taken his seat in the senate, denounced the arrests made by Wilkinson at New Orleans as illegal and unconstitutional. Smith, of Maryland, of which state Wilkinson was a native, admitted that Wilkinson's proceedings were not technically legal, but he justified them as precautions which the general's position and information had made it necessary for him to take. In the House, toward the end of the session, the same subject was very warmly discussed, on a series of resolutions directing a bill to be brought in more effectually Feb. 18 to secure the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus to persons in custody under the authority of the United States. Both sections of the opposition, the Federalists, and the little party led by Randolph, severely denounced the conduct of Wilkinson; and the resolutions were with difficulty got rid of by a majority of only two votes. The president had recommended in his opening message the giving to the executive, in case of enterprises meditated against the government, the same suppressive pow• ers already possessed in case of enterprises against foreign powers. But the Democrats had not yet entirely forgotten how violently, when in opposition, they had resisted the latter act. A bill, in conformity to the president's recommendations, was brought into the House; but as it could not be so shaped as to suit the majority, it failed to pass. Another bill on the same subject came down from the Senate, but the whole was struck out in XIX. CHAPTER the House except a single section, still in force, author izing the president, in all cases in which he has the right 1807, to call out the militia to suppress insurrection and resistance to the laws, to employ for the same purpose the naval and military forces of the United States. Another subject pressed upon the attention of Con. gress in the president's message, and which occupied a large share of attention from the beginning to the end of the session, was the prohibition of the importation of slaves from and after the 1st of January, 1808. All concurred in expressing the greatest anxiety that this traffic should be prohibited from the first moment that it fell under the cognizance of Congress; but as to the details of the measure, very great differences of opinion arose; principally as to the punishments to be imposed upon those who might persist in carrying on the traffic, and as to the disposal of negroes illegally introduced. As originally reported by a committee, of which Early, of Georgia, was chairman, the bill provided that all negroes, mulattoes, and persons of color illegally intro1806. duced "should be forfeited and sold for life for the benDec. 17. efit of the United States." Sloan moved to substitute "shall be entitled to his or her freedom," an amendment very violently opposed by the Southern members. Early maintained with great earnestness that the persons so illegally introduced must not only be forfeited, but must be sold as slaves and continued as such. "What else can be done with them? We of the South consider slavery a dreadful evil, but the existence of large numbers of free blacks among us as a greater evil; and yet you would by this amendment turn loose all who may be imported! You can not execute such a law, for no man will inform who loves himself or his neighbor." This same view, the impossibility of enforcing the law |