XVIII. But though the Aurora, smarting, as its enemies alleged, CHAPTER under the loss of its printing and stationery contracts, inclined to support Randolph's views, and assailed the 1806. administration with a good deal of vigor, this joint attack failed, however, to produce the effect which seems to have been expected from it. The local politics of Pennsylvania still continued in a very agitated state. Having secured his re-election by the combined votes of the Constitutionalists and the Federalists, M'Kean had exercised his prerogative by turning out of the offices held at his pleasure all the active Friends of the People-in other words, all the more vehement Democrats. As a reward to the Federalists for their aid, the chief justiceship of the state, on Shippen's resignation, was given to William Tilghman, one May. of the Federal judges whom the repeal of Adams's judiciary act had stripped of their offices. A host of libel suits were also commenced by the governor; and the Aurora exclaimed that the reign of terror had begun! Fortunately, however, for Duane, the new Federal chief justice, while not inferior to M'Kean in legal knowledge, far surpassed that Democratic champion in moderation, calmness, sentiment of equity, and sincere regard for the freedom of the press. Not long after Tilghman's appointment, Duane was bound over by the mayor of Philadelphia on a criminal charge of libel. Following the precedent established by M'Kean in Cobbett's case, the mayor required him to give security to keep the peace in the mean time. Duane had once already been caught in that trap. He refused to give security, went to jail, and was taken thence on habeas corpus before Chief July. justice Tilghman, who, without absolutely declaring M'Kean's conduct in Cobbett's case illegal, yet refused to follow it as a precedent, and discharged Duane with CHAPTER out requiring securities; thus giving a final quietus to XVIII. that formidable contrivance for muzzling the press. 1806. The politics of New York took, in some respects, a course similar to those of Pennsylvania. The Federalists, in those parts of the state where they had no hope of electing their own candidates, united with the Livingstons, or Lewisites, as they began now to be called, against the Clintonians, whose influence, in consequence, was pretty much circumscribed to the city of New York. The sickness of Judge Patterson, by leaving Pierrepont Edwards to sit as sole judge in the Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut, gave occasion to some April. remarkable proceedings. Under his instructions, a grand jury, specially selected by the Democratic marshal, found bills of indictment at common law against Tappan Reeve, one of the judges of the Superior Court of Connecticut, for writing, and against the publisher of a Litchfield paper for printing, an alleged libel against Jefferson. A young candidate for the ministry was also indicted, charged with having spoken disrespectfully of the president in a Thanksgiving sermon. Being arrested thereon, and carried to New Haven, where he had no acquaintances, he was obliged to lie a week in jail before he could obtain bail. Other similar indictments were afterward found, especially one against the publisher of the Connecticut Courant, for having charged Jefferson with sending the two millions to Paris as a bribe to France. years after (1811), this latter case was finally adjudicated in the Supreme Court of the United States, the decision being then first formally made (though the Democratic party had always held to the doctrine) that the courts of the United States have no criminal jurisdiction not expressly conferred upon them by statute. Five In Massachusetts the Democratic party continued to XVIII. gain ground. Governor Strong was re-elected by a very CHAPTER small majority; but the Democrats obtained a majority in both branches of the Legislature, and with it the se- 1806. lection of the governor's council. The defeat of Trafalgar, by alarming the Spaniards, had delayed an intended transfer of troops from the Havana to operate against Louisiana. But the negotiation for which the two millions had been voted came to nothing; and while that negotiation was still pending, the Spaniards again resumed a hostile attitude. On the side of Mexico, the American claim extended to the Rio Grande. The Spaniards, on the other hand, would have limited Louisiana by the Mermentau and a very narrow strip along the west bank of the Mississippi. The Sabine had hitherto been regarded, on both sides, as a sort of provisional boundary; but the Spanish commander in Texas crossed that river with a body of irregular horse, and occupied the settlement at Bayou Pierre, on the Red River, a few miles above Natchitoches, the westernmost American military station. It was deemed necessary to repel this aggression, and orders were sent to General Wilkinson, at St. Louis, at once commander-in-chief of the American army and governor of the Louisiana Territory, to re-enforce, from the posts in Louisiana, the four or five hundred regulars in the Territory of Orleans, and himself to take command there, with the view of driving back the Spaniards. V.-P P CHAPTER CHAPTER XIX. BURR'S MYSTERIOUS ENTERPRISE. AFFAIRS OF KENTUCKY. THE late vice-president, Burr, had descended from office an utterly ruined and a desperate man; his passion 1805. for distinction, power, and wealth undiminished, but all March 5. regular and legitimate paths thereto wholly closed upon. April. him. Already the seconds in his late duel with Hamilton had been found guilty, in New York, of being concerned in arrangements for the duel, and, under a recent statute to that effect, had been sentenced to twenty years' incapacity to hold any civil office. Should Burr return to New York, he could expect for himself no better fate. The New Jersey indictment for murder still hung over him; and though Governor Bloomfield had been his personal friend, in spite of all the urging of Dallas and others, he refused to direct a nolle prosequi to be entered. Burr's pecuniary were in no better state than his political affairs. His acceptance of the vice-presidency had interrupted his business as a lawyer, from which he had derived large profits; his creditors had seized all his property, and he remained overwhelmed with enormous debts. Very shortly after the expiration of his term of office, he departed, with several nominal objects in view, on a name. One was a speculation for a ca- CHAPTER XIX. journey to the West. nal round the Falls of the Ohio, on the Indiana side, which he seems to have projected along with Dayton, 1805. of New Jersey, whose senatorial term had just expired, and whose extensive purchases of military land warrants had given him a large interest in the military bounty lands in that vicinity. Burr had offered a share in this speculation to General Wilkinson, the commander-inchief of the army, and just appointed governor of the new Territory of Louisiana, including all the region west of the Mississippi and north of the present state of that Having known each other in the Revolutionary army, and both remarkable for social qualities and accomplished manners, Burr and Wilkinson had long been on intimate terms, and had carried on a correspondence occasionally in cipher—a military expedient, to the use of which, with others as well as Burr, the general seems to have been partial, even when the occasion for it was but slight. He was a man of ardent ambition and large desires; of a very speculative turn, but without talents for pecuniary business, and with small pecuniary resources; and Burr seems to have reckoned confidently upon securing his co-operation-a thing of the utmost importance, as his official position, both civil and military, would make him a very efficient agent. Another nominal object of Burr's Western tour was to present himself in Tennessee, where no previous residence was required, as a candidate for Congress. This idea, suggested by Matthew Lyon, whose own district bordered upon Tennessee, had been warmly pressed upon Burr by Wilkinson, under the apprehension, as he afterward alleged, that, unless some legitimate position could be found for him, Burr would be driven into desperate. and illegal enterprises. |