Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII. The Trial at Richmond. MARCH -5, 1807, surrounded by a guard of six men under Nicholas Perkins, who had been instrumental in his interception, Burr set out from Fort Stoddert on the journey of a thousand miles to Washington. Twenty-one days later the prisoner was lodged in the Eagle Tavern, Richmond, whither he had been directed by order of the Executive. The day following he wrote his daughter: "It seems that here the business is to be tried and concluded. I am to be surrendered to the civil authority to-morrow, when the question of bail is to be determined. In the meantime I remain at the Eagle Tavern." March 30th, in a small room of the Tavern, Burr came up for an examination before Chief-Justice Marshall, in whose district the alleged crime, or crimes, had been committed. George Hay, district-attorney for the United States, moved for a commitment on charges of misdemeanor and treason. Two days of argument followed; then the Chief-Justice delivered his opinion: "The fact to be proved in this case is an act of public notoriety. It must exist in the view of the world, or it cannot exist at all. The assembling of forces to levy war is a visible transaction, and numbers must witness it. It is, therefore, capable of proof; and when time to collect this proof has been given, it ought to be adduced, or suspicion becomes ground too weak to stand upon. . . . If in November or December last, a body of troops had been assembled on the Ohio, it is impossible to suppose that affidavits establishing the fact could not have been obtained by the last of March. . . . On the evidence furnished by this very transaction of the attachment felt by our Western for their Eastern brethren, we justly felicitate ourselves. How inconsistent with...
