N. Woodruff, sermon at Scipio, NY, 1804
Doctor! Doctor! help, help!—the people want your bolusses, your panacea’s and your remedies—The Multitude want your skill—they are sorely afflicted, with an itching for Col. Burr—and you have a sovereign remedy that will cure half a million a minute—I will vouch for your pills being genuine, and that one box will cure all the infected—Your skill is more famous than the man, who advertises that secrecy and honor may be depended on, on moderate terms!—And as this famous empiric is famous for curing the ——, I think you may fairly be put in competition with him as the curer of the Burr-itch.
—P.Q., American Citizen, 1804
On Monday evening last, the day preceding the commencement of the election, Mr. Burr had assembled at this house, by special invitation, a considerable number of gentlemen of colour—upwards of twenty. These gentlemen were headed by a celebrated perfumer in Broadway. They were invited by Mr. Burr to a ball and supper, in his own house, and the federal candidate, the rejected Vice-President, did himself the honor of superintending their elegant amusements. This, as the reader will perceive, was to the court the favour of the people of colour in aid of his election.
—American Citizen, 1804
the modern cain.
The last account we have seen of the murderer burr, is a paragraph in a New York paper, stating on the authority of a letter from Mr. Burr himself, that he is now in Spanish America. Who would suffer the goadings of this man’s conscience for the high rank in this democratick administration which he has occupied?
—Repertory, September 21, 1804
To analise his face with physiognomical scrutiny, you may discover many unimportant traits; but upon the first blush, or a superficial view, they are obscured like the spots in the sun, by a radiance that dazzles and fascinates the sight.
—Port Folio, 1805
They would often meet together at sun-down in the woods and caves, and hold kintikoys, where they drank largely of the Burr decoction; stripped themselves star[k] naked, and sung, and fiddled, and capered, and danced, and played the fool all night long. They would mark themselves too in the day time, and dress themselves up like mountebanks, jugglers, and rope dancers. Then they would run along upon the tops of the fences, tumble in the dirt, act pantomimes and make speeches, with many other diverting tricks, to the amusement of the bye-standers. At such times too they had a remarkable fondness for filth, and would lie down in the drains and ditches, and smear and daub themselves all, and throw nasty matter at the travelers.
—American Citizen, 1805
Thus Mr. Burr, for aye intriguing,
With this side, and with that side leaguing,
Has late contriv’d a scheme quite handy,
To make himself, for life, a grandee.
—Thomas Fessenden, “Democracy Unveiled,” 1805
There is a chain of connection through the continent—of which Burr has been and still is the master link.
—Aurora, October, 13, 1806
This is indeed a deep, dark, and widespread conspiracy, embracing the young and the old, the Democrat and the Federalist, the native and the foreigner, the patriot of ’76 and the exotic of yesterday, the opulent and the needy, the “ins” and “outs”; and I fear it will receive strong support in New Orleans from a quarter little suspected.
—General James Wilkinson to President Thomas Jefferson, November 1806
Col. Osmun and Lyman Harding Esq. were bound in the sum of 2500 dols. as sureties of Burr. It is a singular fact that the late Vice President of the United States, is now advertised in all the public places in this Territory, as well as in the Newspapers, as a runaway.
—Trenton Federalist, 1807
The debate on the bill to prohibit the importation of slaves was resumed, but seemed to have lost all its interest.
—memoirs of John Quincy Adams, January 26, 1807
Mr. Burr and his conspiracy have begun to occupy our attention.
—John Quincy Adams to John Adams, January 27, 1807
I never, indeed thought him an honest, frank-dealing man, but considered him as a crooked gun, or other perverted machine, whose aim or stroke you could never be sure of.
—Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1807
A gentleman, the other day, remarked to another, as a singular fact, that the initials of the name of A. Burr, were those of the two greatest conquerors that had ever spread ruin and devastation over the face of the earth, to wit, Alexander and Buonaparte. It is by no means singular, retorted his facetious friend; they will stand for the vilest traitor that ever disgraced humanity, Benedict Arnold, but in fact they will stand for any body.
—Miller’s Weekly (Pendleton, SC), 1807
Colonel Burr (quantum mutates ab illo!) passed by my door the day before yesterday, under a strong guard. So I am told, for I did not see him, and nobody hereabouts is acquainted with his person. . . . To guard against inquiry as much as possible he was accoutered in a shabby suit of homespun, with an old white hat flapped over his face, the dress in which he was apprehended. . . . His very manner of traveling, although under arrest, was characteristic of the man, enveloped in mystery.
—John Randolph to Joseph H. Nicholson, 1807
I am anxious to see the Progress of Burr’s Tryal; not from any Love or hatred I bear to the Man, for I cannot say that I feel either. He is, as you say a Nondescript in natural History. But I think something must come out on the Tryal, which will strengthen or weaken our Confidence in the General Union. I hope something will appear to determine clearly, whether any foreign Power has or has not been tampering with our Union. If it should appear that he is guilty of Treason and in Concert with any foreign Power, you and your twelve thousand Copetitioners might petition as earnestly as you did for Fries, if I was President, and the Gallows should not lose its prey. An ignorant Idiot of a German, is a very different Being from a Vice President of the United States. The one knew not what Treason was; the other knows all about it. The one was instigated by Virginians and Pensilvanians who deserved to be hanged much more than he did. The other could be instigated only by his own ambition, avarice or Revenge. But I hope his Innocence will be made to appear, and that he will be fairly acquitted.
—Benjamin Rush to John Adams, 1807
A stranger presents himself. It is Aaron Burr. Introduced to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts, by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address. . . . Such was the state of Eden, when the serpent entered its bowers!
—William Wirt, for the prosecution against Aaron Burr, 1807
If I were to name this, I would call it the Will o’ wisp treason. For though it is said to be here and there and everywhere, yet it is nowhere. It only exists in the newspapers and in the mouths of the enemies of the
