October 9, 2023: Vice President Studying: Aaron Burr’s Trial

[50 yearsago this week, VicePresident Spiro Agnew resigned. That striking political moment was not onlypart of the deepeningWatergate scandal, but one of the few times when an American Vice Presidenthas made major news. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Agnew and other noteworthyVeeps, leading up a weekend post on our current VP!]

On twodark sides to expansion that a Vice President’s trial helps us better remember.

In the summer of1807, former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr was tried fortreason and high misdemeanor in a Virginia federal court, one presidedover by none other than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. WhileBurr has become much better known over the last few years due to his centralrole in the life and (especially) death ofAlexander Hamilton, and while he lived a long and influentialAmerican life that included prominent roles in the Revolutionand Founding, this trial focused on by far the most striking and controversialpart of Burr’s story, what came to be known as the BurrConspiracy: his 1805-06 efforts (begun while he was still VP, natch) toraise an independent military force in the Western United States and either useit to establish a separate nation with himself as the leader or to invadeMexico (possibly to enact the same purpose of carving out a distinct territorythat he could rule). The uncertainties revealed by even that brief summary,however, along with other factors like the lack of reliable witnesses (otherthan one shady co-conspirator,James Wilkinson), led to an acquittal on both charges (despite President ThomasJefferson’s ardent and possibly unconstitutional attemptsto influence the outcome).

Thehistories around Burr’s conspiracy and trial, like all those in his incrediblycomplicated and compelling life, deserve their own specific attention andanalysis. But this unique moment nonetheless also reflects a couple broader andquite dark realities of expansion, both in that early 19th centuryperiod and throughout our history. For one thing, we often frame expansion (atleast in how it is presented in our educational texts and conversations)through the official mechanisms by which territory was added, whether treatieslike the one that began this week’s posts or financial transactions like the 1803Louisiana Purchase through which theJefferson Administration (with Burr as VP) acquired these Westernterritories from France. Yet while such measures did formally add new lands tothe expanding nation, the actual expansion of Americans (individually andcollectively) into those territories was far, far more messy and bloody. I’velong argued that the OklahomaLand Run of 1889, in which US settlers invaded that futurestate while it was still all Indian Territory, was a striking and illegalhistorical moment—yet one could just as easily see it as emblematic of thechaotic and brutal way that US expansion always took place on the ground.

Moreover,the seeming dichotomy between (yet clear interconnections of) Founding Fatherand Vice President Burr and treasonous conspirator Burr is also emblematic ofthe unsavory (or at the very least far from idealized) roles performed bycountless prominent Americans in the expansion process. Davy Crockett is aparticularly good example, a folk hero who had his own Walt Disney TV show yet onewho made hisname in wars against Native Americans and then a pre-Civil War rebellionin defense of slavery (all of which were also in service ofeventual US expansions, whether into the Southeast or Texas). But anotherexample is none other than George Washington, whose firstmilitary service (which led directly to all his futuremilitary and political roles) was in the French and Indian War, a conflictprecipitated by (if not at alllimited to) the expansion of English settlements into new territories. Hell,many of the Civil War US Colored Troops (one of my favorite Americancommunities) went on to serve with the post-war BuffaloSoldiers, regiments of all-Black cavalry that fought Native Americansthroughout the late 19th century “Indian Wars.” When it comes toexpansion, to quote my favorite line from my favorite depiction of that USCTcommunity, “ain’tnobody clean.”

NextVeepStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Vice Presidents you’d highlight?