new and useful. How often, and how truly, | individual, or how insignificant the subject. has the same remark been made of him. Nor With Mr. Jefferson this was a sacred law, and is this wonderful, when we reflect, that that as he always wrote at a polygraphic desk, copies mind of matchless vigor and versatility had have been preserved of every letter. His corbeen, all its life, intensely engaged in conversing respondence travelled far beyond his own counwith the illustrious dead, or following the march try, and embraced within its circle many of the of science in every land, or soaring away, on its most distinguished men of his age in Europe. own steady and powerful wing, into new and What a feast for the mind may we not expect unexplored regions of thought. from the published letters of these excellent men! They were both masters in this way, though somewhat contrasted. Mr. Adams, plain, nervous, and emphatic, the thought couched in the fewest and strongest words, and striking with a kind of epigrammatic force. Mr. Jefferson, flowing with easy and careless melody, the language at the same time pruned of every redundant word, and giving the thought with the happiest precision, the aptest words dropping unbidden and unsought into their places, as if they had fallen from the skies; and so beautiful, so felicitous, as to fill the mind with a succession of delightful surprises, while the judgment is, at the same time, made captive by the closely compacted energy of the argument. Mr. Jefferson's style is so easy and harmonious, as to have led superficial readers to remark that he was deficient in strength; as if ruggedness and abruptness were essential to strength. Mr. Jefferson's strength was inherent in the thoughts and conceptions, though hidden by the light and graceful vestments which he threw over them. The internal divinity existed and was felt, though concealed under the finely harmonized form of a man; and if he did not exhibit himself in his compositions with the insignia of Hercules, the shaggy lion's skin and the knotted club; he bore the full quiver and the silver bow of Apollo; and every polished shaft that he loosened from the string told with unerring and fatal precision : Shall I follow him to the table of his elegant hospitality, and show him to you in the bosom of his enchanting family? Alas! those attic days are gone; that sparkling eye is quenched; that voice of pure and delicate affection, which ran with such brilliancy and effect through the whole compass of colloquial music, now bright with wit, now melting with tenderness, is hushed for ever in the grave! But let me leave a theme on which friendship and gratitude have, I fear, already been tempted to linger too long. There was one solace of the declining years of both these great men, which must not be passed. It is that correspondence which arose between them, after their retirement from public life. That correspondence, it is to be hoped, will be given to the world. If it ever shall, I speak from knowledge when I say it will be found to be one of the most interesting and affecting that the world has ever seen. That "cold cloud" which had hung for a time over their friendship, passed away with the conflict out of which it had grown, and the attachment of their early life returned in all its force. They had both now bid adieu, a final adieu, to all public employments, and were done with all the agitating passions of life. They were dead to the ambitious world; and this correspondence resembles, more than any thing else, one of those conversations in the Elysium of the ancients, which the shades of the departed great were supposed by them to hold, with regard to the affairs of the world they had left. There are the same playful allusions to the points of difference that had divided their parties; the same mutual, and light, and unimpassioned raillery on their own past misconceptions and mistakes; the same mutual and just admiration and respect for their many virtues and services to mankind. That correspondence was, to them both, one of the most genial employments of their old age; and it reads a lesson of wisdom on the bitterness of party spirit, by which the wise and the good will not fail to profit. Besides this affectionate intercourse between them, you are aware of the extensive correspondence which they maintained with others, and of which some idea may be formed by those letters which, since their death, have already broken upon us through, the press, from quarters so entirely unexpected. They were considered as the living historians of the Revolution, and of the past age, as well as oracles of wisdom to all who consulted them. Their habit in this particular seems to have been the same; never to omit answering any respectful letter they received, no matter how obscure the Δείνη δε κλαγγή γενετ' αργυρεοιο βιοιο. These two great men, so eminently distinguished among the patriots of the Revolution, and so illustrious by their subsequent services, became still more so, by having so long survived all that were most highly conspicuous among their coevals. All the stars of first magnitude, in the equatorial and tropical regions, had long since gone down, and still they remained. Still they stood full in view, like those two resplendent constellations near the opposite poles, which never set to the inhabitants of the neighboring zones. But they, too, were doomed at length to set; and such was their setting as no American bosom can ever forget! In the midst of their fast decaying strength, and when it was seen that the approach of death was certain, their country and its glory still occupied their thoughts, and circulated with the last blood that was ebbing to their hearts. Those who surrounded the death-bed of Mr. Jefferson report, that in the few short intervals of deliriuin that occurred, his mind manifestly relapsed to the age of the Revolu- | affairs! Philosophy, recovered of her surprise, tion. He talked, in broken sentences, of the committees of safety, and the rest of that great machinery, which he imagined to be still in action. One of his exclamations was, "Warn the committee to be on their guard;" and he instantly rose in his bed, with the help of his attendants, and went through the act of writing a hurried note. But these intervals were few and short. His reason was almost constantly upon her throne, and the only aspiration he was heard to breathe, was the prayer, that he might live to see the fourth of July. When that day came, all that he was heard to whisper was the repeated ejaculation—“Nunc Domine dimittas"-Now, Lord, let thy servant depart in peace! And the prayer of the patriot was heard and answered. "O save my country-Heaven! he said-and died!" Hitherto, fellow-citizens, the fourth of July had been celebrated among us, only as the anniversary of our independence, and its votaries had been merely human beings. But at its last recurrence the great jubilee of the nation-the anniversary, it may well be termed, of the liberty of man-Heaven, itself, mingled visibly in the celebration, and hallowed the day anew by a double apotheosis. Is there one among us to whom this language seems too strong? Let him recall his own feelings, and the objection will vanish. When the report first reached us, of the death of the great man whose residence was nearest, who among us was not struck with the circumstance that he should have been removed on the day of his own highest glory? And who, after the first shock of the intelligence had passed, did not feel a thrill of mournful delight at the characteristic beauty of the close of such a life. But while our bosoms were yet swelling with admiration at this singularly beautiful coincidence, when the second report immediately followed, of the death of the great sage of Quincy, on the same day-I appeal to yourselves is there a voice that was not hushed, is there a heart that did not quail, at this close manifestation of the hand of Heaven in our may affect to treat the coincidence as fortuitous. But philosophy herself was mute, at the moment, under the pressure of the feeling that these illustrious men had rather been translated, than had died. It is in vain to tell us that men die by thousands every day in the year, all over the world. The wonder is, not that two men have died on the same day, but that two such men, after having performed so many and such splendid services in the cause of liberty-after the multitude of other coincidences which seem to have linked their destinies together-after having lived so long together, the objects of their country's joint veneration-after having been spared to witness the great triumph of their toils at home-and looked together from Pisgah's top, on the sublime effect of that grand impulse which they had given to the same glorious cause throughout the world, should, on this fiftieth anniversary of the day on which they had ushered that cause into light, be both caught up to Heaven, together, in the midst of their raptures! Is there a being, of heart so obdurate and sceptical, as not to feel the hand and hear the voice of Heaven in this wonderful dispensation! And may we not, with reverence, interpret its language? Is it not this? "These are my beloved servants, in whom I am well pleased. They have finished the work for which I sent them into the world; and are now called to their reward. Go ye, and do likewise!" One circumstance, alone, remains to be noticed. In a private memorandum found among some other obituary papers and relics of Mr. Jefferson, is a suggestion, in case a memorial over him should ever be thought of, that a granite obelisk, of small dimensions, should be erected, with the following inscription: HERE LIES BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON, Author of the Declaration of Independence, All the long catalogue of his great, and splendid, and glorious services, reduced to this brief and modest summary! Thus lived and thus died our sainted Patriots! May their spirits still continue to hover over their countrymen, inspire all their counsels, and guide them in the same virtuous and noble path? And may that God, in whose hands are the issues of all things, confirm and perpetuate to us the inestimable boon, which through their agency he has bestowed; and make our Columbia the bright exemplar for all the struggling sons of liberty around the globe! SPEECH IN THE TRIAL OF AARON BURR. In May, 1807, Aaron Burr was arraigned in the Circuit Court of the United States, held at Richmond, Virginia, for treason, in preparing the means of a military expedition against the possessions of the King of Spain, with whom the United States were at peace.* Under the direction of President Jefferson, Mr. Wirt was retained, to assist the United States Attorney in the prosecution, and in the course of the trial, he spoke as follows: MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONORS: It is my duty to proceed, on the part of the United States, in opposing this motion. But I should not deem it my duty to oppose it, if it were founded on correct principles. I stand here with the same independence of action, which belongs to the Attorney of the United States; and as he would certainly relinquish the prosecution the moment he became convinced of its injustice, so also most certainly would I. The humanity and justice of this nation would revolt at the idea of a prosecution, pushed on against a life which stood protected by the laws; but whether they would or not, I would not plant a thorn, to rankle for life in my heart, by opening my lips in support of a prosecution which I felt and believed to be unjust. But believing, as I do, that this motion is not founded in justice, that it is a mere manoeuvre to obstruct the inquiry, to turn it from the proper course, to wrest the trial of the facts from the proper tribunal, the jury, and embarrass the court with a responsibility which it ought not to feel, I hold it my duty to proceed-for the sake of the court, for the sake of vindicating the trial by jury, now sought to be violated, for the sake of full and ample justice in this particular case, for the sake of the future peace, union, and independence of these States, I feel it my bounden duty to proceed. In doing which, I beg that the prisoner and his counsel will recollect the extreme difficulty of clothing my argument in terms which may be congenial with their feelings. The gentlemen appear to me to feel a very extraordinary and unreasonable degree of sensibility on this occasion. They seem to forget the nature of the charge, and that we are the prosecutors. We do not stand here to pronounce a panegyric on the prisoner, but to urge on him the crime of treason against his country. When we speak of treason, we must call it treason. When we speak of a traitor, we must call him a traitor. When we speak of a plot to dismember the Union, to un* A full report of this extraordinary trial was taken in short hand by Mr. T. Carpenter, and published in three volumes, 1807. See note at page 174, in the first volume of this work; also the speech of Mr. Randolph, at the same place. dermine the liberties of a great portion of the people of this country, and subject them to a usurper and a despot, we are obliged to use the terms which convey those ideas. Why then are gentlemen so sensitive? Why on these occasions, so necessary, so unavoidable, do they shrink back with so much agony of nerve, as if, instead of a hall of justice, we were in a drawing-room with Colonel Burr, and were barbarously violating towards him every principle of decorum and humanity? Mr. Wickham has, indeed, invited us to consider the subject abstractedly; and we have been told that it is expected to be so considered; but sir, if this were practicable, would there be no danger in it? Would there be no danger, while we were mooting points, pursuing ingenious hypotheses, chasing elementary principles over the wide extended plains and Alpine heights of abstracted law, that we should lose sight of the great question before the court? This may suit the purposes of the counsel for the prisoner; but it does not, therefore, necessarily suit the purposes of truth and justice. It will be proper, when we have derived a principle from law or argument, that we should bring it to the case before the court, in order to test its application and its practical truth. In doing which, we are driven into the nature of the case, and must speak of it as we find it. But, besides, the gentlemen have themselves rendered this totally abstracted argument completely impossible; for one of their positions is, that there is no overt act proven at all. Now, that an overt act consists of fact and intention, has been so often repeated here, that it has a fair title to Justice Vaughan's epithet of a "decantatum." In speaking then of this overt act, we are compelled to inquire, not merely into the fact of the assemblage, but the intention of it; in doing which, we must examine and develope the whole project of the prisoner. It is obvious, therefore, that an abstract examination of this point cannot be made; and since the gentlemen drive us into the examination, they cannot complain, if, without any softening of lights or deepening of shades, we exhibit the picture in its true and natural state. This motion is a bold and original stroke in the noble science of defence. It marks the genius and hand of a master. For it gives to the prisoner every possible advantage, while it gives him the full benefit of his legal defencethe sole defence which he would be able to make to the jury, if the evidence were all introduced before them. It cuts off from the prosecution all that evidence which goes to connect the prisoner with the assemblage on the island, to explain the destination and objects of the assemblage, and to stamp beyond controversy the character of treason upon it. Connect this motion with that which was made opened it. I will treat that gentleman with the other day, to compel us to begin with the proof of the overt act, in which, from their zeal, gentlemen were equally sanguine, and observe what would have been the effect of success in both motions. We should have been reduced to the single fact, the individual fact, of the assemblage on the island, without any of the evidence which explains the intention and object of that assemblage. Thus gentlemen would have cut off all the evidence, which carries up the plot almost to its conception, which, at all events, describes the first motion which quickened it into life, and follows its progress until it attained such strength and maturity as to throw the whole western country into consternation. Thus, of the world of evidence which we have, we should have been reduced to the speck, the atom which relates to Blannerhassett's Island. General Eaton's deposition, (hitherto so much and so justly revered as to its subject,) standing by itself would have been without the powerful fortification derived from the corroborative evidence of Commodore Truxton, and the still stronger and most extraordinary coincidence of the Morgans. Standing alone, gentlemen would have still proceeded to speak of that affidavit, as they have heretofore done; not declaring that what General Eaton had sworn was not the truth, but that it was a most marvellous story! a most wonderful tale! and thus would they have continued to seek, in the bold and wild extravagance of the project itself, an argument against its existence and a refuge from public indignation. But that refuge is taken away. General Eaton's narration stands confirmed beyond the possibility of rational doubt. But I ask what inference is to be drawn from these repeated attempts to stifle the prosecution and smother the evidence? If the views of the prisoner were, as they have been so often represented by one of his counsel, highly honorable to himself and glorious to his country, why not permit the evidence to disclose these views? Accused as he is of high treason, he would certainly stand acquitted, not only in reason and justice, but by the maxims of the most squeamish modesty, in showing us by evidence all this honor and this glory which his scheme contained. No, sir, it is not squeamish modesty; it is not fastidious delicacy that prompts these repeated efforts to keep back the evidence; it is apprehension; it is alarm; it is fear; or rather it is the certainty that the evidence, whenever it shall come forward, will fix the charge; and if such shall appear to the court to be the motive of this motion, your Honors, I well know, will not be disposed to sacrifice public justice, committed to your charge, by aiding this stratagem to elude the sentence of the law; you will yield to the motion no fur-true point of the case which makes against me; ther than the rigor of legal rules shall imperiously constrain you. I shall proceed now to examine the merits of the motion itself, and to answer the argument of the gentleman, (Mr. Wickham,) who nor, if forced by a direct call to read that part also, will I content myself by running over it as rapidly and inarticulately as I can, throw down the book with a theatrical air, and exclaim, "just as I said," when I know it is just as I had not said. I know that, by adopting | succession, and to give them those answers these arts, I might raise a laugh at the gentle-which to my mind are satisfactory. Let us exman's expense; but I should be very little amine the first: it is because Aaron Burr, not pleased with myself, if I were capable of enjoy-being present on the island at the time of the ing a laugh procured by such means. I know, assemblage, cannot be a principal in the treason, too, that by adopting such arts, there will al- within the constitutional definition or the laws ways be those standing around us, who have of England. not comprehended the whole merits of the legal discussion, with whom I might shake the character of the gentleman's science and judgment as a lawyer. I hope I shall never be capable of such a wish, and I had hoped that the gentleman himself felt so strongly that proud, that high, aspiring and ennobling magnanimity, which I had been told conscious talents rarely fail to inspire, that he would have disdained a poor and fleeting triumph, gained by means like these. In many of the gentleman's general propositions, I perfectly accord with him: as that the constitution was intended to guard against the calamities to which Montesquieu refers, when he speaks of the victims of treason; that the constitution intended to guard against arbitrary and constructive treasons; that the principles of sound reason and liberty require their exclusion; and that the constitution is to be interpreted by the rules of reason and moral right. I fear, however, that I shall find it difficult to accommodate both the gentlemen who have cile some of the positions of Mr. Randolph to the rules of Mr. Wickham; for, while the one tells us to interpret the constitution by sound reason, the other exclaims, "save us from the deductions of common sense. What rule then shall I adopt? A kind of reason which is not common sense might indeed please both the gentlemen; but, as that is a species of reason of which I have no very distinct conception, I hope the gentlemen will excuse me for not employing it. Let us return to Mr. Wickham. I proceed now to answer the several points of his argument, so far as they could be collect-spoken in support of the motion, and to reconed from the general course of his speech. I say, so far as they could be collected; for the gentleman, although requested before he began, refused to reduce his motion to writing. It suited better his partisan style of warfare to be perfectly at large; to change his ground as often as he pleased; on the plains of Monmouth to-day, at the Eutaw Springs to-morrow. He will not censure me, therefore, if I have not been correct in gathering his points from a desultory discourse of four or five hours' length, as it would not have been wonderful if I had misunderstood him. I trust, therefore, that I have been correct; it was my intention to be so; for I can neither see pleasure nor interest in misrepresenting any gentleman; and I now beg the court, and the gentleman, if he will vouchsafe it, to set me right if I have misconceived him. I understood him, then, sir, to resist the introduction of further evidence, under this indictment, by making four propositions. First. Because Aaron Burr, not being on the island, at the time of the assemblage, cannot be a principal in the treason, according to the constitutional definition or the laws of England. Second. Because the indictment must be proved as laid; and as the indictment charges the prisoner with levying war, with an assemblage on the island, no evidence to charge him with that act, by relation, is relevant to this indictment. Third. Because, if he be a principal in the treason at all, he is a principal in the second degree; and his guilt being of that kind which is termed derivative, no parol evidence can be let in to charge him, until we shall show a record of the conviction of the principals in the first degree. Fourth. Because no evidence is relevant to connect the prisoner with others, and thus to make him a traitor by relation, until we shall previously show an act of treason in these others; and the assemblage on the island was not an act of treason. I beg leave to take up these propositions in Having read to us the constitutional definition of treason, and given us the rule by which it was to be interpreted, it was natural to expect that he would have proceeded directly to apply that rule to the definition, and give us the result. But while we were expecting this, even while we have our eyes on the gentleman, he vanishes like a spirit from American ground, and we see him no more until we see him in England, resurging by a kind of intellectual magic in the middle of the sixteenth century, complaining most dolefully of my lord Coke's bowels. Before we follow him in this excursion, it may be well to inquire what it was that induced him to leave the regular track of his argument. I will tell you what it was. It was, sir, the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Bollman and Swartwout. It was the judicial exposition of the constitution by the highest court in the nation, upon the very point which the gentleman was considering, which made him take this flight to England; because it stared him in the face and contradicted his position. Sir, if the gentleman had believed this decision to be favorable to him, we should have heard of it in the beginning of his argument; for the path of inquiry in which he was led him directly to it. Interpreting the American constitution, he would have preferred no authority to that of the Supreme Court of the country. Yes, sir, he would have immediately seized this decision with avidity. He would have set it before you in every possible light. He would have illustrated it. He would have adorned it. You would have seen it under the |