Aaron Burr, a former vice president under President Thomas Jefferson, was put on trial for treason on this day in 1807. Three years earlier, he’d killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, completely alienating himself from the entire political scene, while still serving as V.P. After being booted from the White House in 1805, he cut short his new term as a U.S. senator and headed west, like so many Americans seeking new lives. It was there that he started forming an audacious plot to form his own country and possibly take over part of the U.S. in the process.
Now there is some uncertainty about every detail of his plan, but we know the following. Burr had already met with a British agent to talk about carving western portions of the U.S. out of the new republic and invading Mexico during his vice presidential term. Once he went west, he gathered support from various bigwigs to invade the Spanish colony (including then-military man Andrew Jackson). Playing both sides, he also tried to convince a Spanish official to support an effort to split the U.S. into two parts.
Jefferson had dismissed talk of Burr’s plans as rumor until the head of the Army, who had been plotting with Burr, fessed up to the president. Trying to escape arrest, the former veep headed to Spanish Florida. This didn’t work; he was swept up and brought to Virginia. Chief Justice John Marshall, presiding over the treason case, found Burr not guilty because he’d only engaged in conspiracy, not an actual “overt act” of treason. Afterward, Burr would keep trying to plot an invasion of Mexico from Europe before moving back to the U.S. to live out the rest of his life.
You can read more of Burr’s plan and trial on the PBS website.
