A History of the American People

and the only occasion when the Vice-President came into prominence was when he presided, ex
officio, at the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase (1741-1811). It was
Jefferson's greatest grievance against his predecessor that Adams had filled up all the court
vacancies with ardent federalists, some of them being appointed only days before he left office.
Chase was particularly obnoxious to Jefferson's party and his overbearing manner and abusive
remarks while judging cases arising out of the hated Alien and Sedition Acts led to a demand for
his impeachment in 1804, which Jefferson foolishly encouraged. It is the only time Congress has
ever attempted to remove a member of the Supreme Court in this way and the episode
demonstrated painfully that impeachment is not an effective method of trying to curb the Court
for political reasons. Burr did not distinguish himself and the process failed. He was,
accordingly, dropped from the ticket when Jefferson was reelected, George Clinton being chosen
instead.
As it happened, even before the election Burr was secretly engaged in various anti-Union
intrigues, notably a plan by Senator Timothy Pickering and Massachusetts hardliners to take
New England out of the Union. They wanted New York with them too, obviously, and for this
purpose it was necessary to get Burr elected governor of the state. But Hamilton frustrated this
scheme on the grounds that Burr was `a dangerous man and one who ought not to be trusted with
reins of government.' These remarks got into print and Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel at
Weehawken, New Jersey (July 11, 1804). Hamilton strongly disapproved of dueling but felt he
could not in honor decline the challenge. His conscience, however, forbade him to shoot at his
opponent. Burr killed him without compunction, thus removing from the chessboard of
American power one of its most baroque and unpredictable pieces.
Burr went into hiding in Virginia, reemerged, went west, and there embarked on a series of
plots to create a new, independent state from Spanish Mexico. Such schemes seem childish to us.
But they were not uncommon as the Spanish-American empire disintegrated during these years
and romantic adventurers abounded. (Not for nothing did the young Lord Byron consider joining
in the scramble for pieces of Spain's rotting imperial flesh.) Burr went further, however, and
sought to detach parts of Trans-Appalachian America to join his proposed kingdom. This was
treason against the United States, and Jefferson, forewarned, had him arrested and charged. The
trial took place in 1807 under Chief Justice Marshall, who, as we have seen, was no friend of the
President. It was a highly partisan affair. To embarrass the President, Marshall allowed him to be
subpoenaed to appear, and testify under oath. Jefferson refused, invoking, for the first time,
executive privilege. Marshall countered by placing a narrow construction on the constitutional
law of treason and Burr was acquitted. That was the end of him as a political figure, however,
and the episode demonstrated that even a states' rights president like Jefferson was determined to
uphold federal authority as far as it legally stretched.
Indeed as president, Jefferson proved himself more assertive and expansionist than he would
have believed possible in the 1790s. It was another instance of his contradictions. In the Western
Mediterranean, where Barbary pirates from Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripoli preyed on
Western shipping, Jefferson abandoned Adams' policy of following the British example, and
paying tribute, and instead sent the ships Adams had built-and which he had opposed-to
blockade Tripoli (1803-5) and teach it a lesson. He also sent a land expedition (1804) of
American marines and Greek mercenaries across the desert, under the command of William
Eaton, the US consul in Tunis-thus producing one theme of the American Marine Corps'
marching-song. The Arab beys were the largest-scale slave-merchants (of whites as well as
blacks and browns) in the world and hitting them was one way Jefferson could work off his