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Andrew Jackson's Role in Aaron Burr's Conspiracy
Andrew Jackson's Role in Aaron Burr's Conspiracy
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Andrew Jackson's Role in Aaron Burr's Conspiracy

This letter from "Q" (William Slade) to the editors of the Daily National Intelligencer accuses presidential candidate Andrew Jackson of being at least an early participant in former Vice President Aaron Burr's 1805-1806 conspiracy to establish an independent country from portions of the southwestern United States and parts of Mexico.

[ANDREW JACKSON.] William Slade, Autograph Letter Signed with Pseudonym, [August 1828]; published in Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), August 28, 1828, 3:1. 4 pp., 7.75" x 13". Some toning; repaired damage to lower left corner affecting one word; affixed to scrapbook page on left edge.

Complete Transcript
To the Editors of the Intelligencer
The strong doubts expressed by you with respect to the participation of Gen. Jackson in the projects of Burr in 1806, on the occasion of giving a place in your paper to my queries on that subject were far from quieting my suspicions; but on the contrary have stimulated my inquiries after facts which might throw light on a subject until lately involved in much mystery. These facts, you will perceive, are daily developing themselves; and they will, I trust, ere long, relieve you of all doubt.
It struck me, however, on reading your remarks that you were so scrupulously fearful of doing Gen. Jackson injustice, that you leaned a little the other way, and seemed to ask for evidence of a more direct and positive character than the nature of the case admits. It should be remembered that, in all cases of crime the guilty perpetually seeks concealment, and conducts every operation in such a manner as not only to furnish no evidence of its existence, but to seem to furnish evidence of a contrary character. Whoever is at all familiar with the ordinary process of investigation in such cases, need not be told that, in nine cases out of ten—indeed in ninety nine in a hundred, conviction of guilt is produced by combinations of circumstances which, to use a common expression, leak out in the course of the transaction, notwithstanding the unremitted efforts of the guilty to obliteration as he goes along, every trace of his guilt. Yet, there must be something more than mere ground of suspicion. Circumstances must exist that cannot, especially when regarded in their combined character, naturally be accounted for upon the supposition of innocence.
I believe, gentlemen, that you are open to correction and willing to make your valuable paper the instrument of communicating to the public every fact tending to lead the people to a just estimate of those who are candidates for their special confidence. I therefore respectfully ask you to give a place to the following.
Pending the Gubernatorial canvass in Kentucky in 1820, which resulted in the election of Genl Adair, he was charged, among other things, with a participation in Burrs conspiracy. To this charge he published a defence, in which he gives a history of his acquaintance with Burr, which he commences as follows.
"In the summer of 1805, Colol Burr stepped into the Registers office in Frankfurt late in the evening, and handed me a letter of letter of introduction from General Jackson. He remained but a few minutes, and informed me that he would leave town next morning." &c.
Gen. Adair then proceeds to speak of his subsequent knowledge of Burr, and after alluding particularly to his trial at Frankfort, Kentucky, which he says closed on the 5th of December 1806, says—
"On the morning of the 9th of December I left my own house for New Orleans, when [I reached] Nashville, one of my horses became foundered, and I could not travel. I employed a young man to exchange him for one that would suit my journey. I rode out of town that day and did not return till the evening. Colo. Burr was in the Tavern when I returned. We did not lodge in the same room. I, however, saw him, and conversed with him freely. He told me the suspicions were so strong against him there that he believed it would be difficult for him to get hands to row two boats down the river."
From the foregoing it appears—
1st—That, at what was probably the commencement of Burrs operations, when he would naturally be selecting, and associating with, the choice spirits on whom he could rely, there existed between him and Gen. Jackson, an intimacy of no common character. [Quere—When & where did his acquaintance with Jackson commence?]
2d—That Burr's trial at Frankfort, which, of course, attracted the attention and confirmed the suspicions of the whole western country, closed on the 5th of December 1806, nine days before his arrival at the residence of Gen. Jackson, and, of course, allowing ample time for the General to have been availed of all the information touching his designs which that investigation furnished.
3rd—That on his arrival at Nashville, near the residence of Gen. Jackson, suspicion had become very general and very strong against him.
I add but two remarks.
Colo Burr, it will be remembered, reached Nashville on the 14th December, and made the house of Gen. Jackson his home until the 22nd, when he descended the river with the boats which had been constructed by Gen. Jackson and his partner, Hutchins, with funds furnished them by Burr! [See copy of the record of the suit, Blannerhassett vs. Jackson, as Trustee of Burr, in the Sup. Court of Mississippi in 1813, recently published]
Notwithstanding the strong suspicions which in the opinion of Burr, were likely to prevent him from getting hands to row two boats, he was accompanied down the river by Colo Stokely D. Hayes, the favourite nephew of General Jackson!
Now Mr. Editors, I ask, seriously, how the foregoing facts together with the numerous others which recent investigations have disclosed can be accounted for upon the supposition of Gen. Jackson's innocence?
Let a discerning public judge.
Q.

Historical Background
In 1828, supporters of President John Quincy Adams charged Andrew Jackson with being an early participant in Burr's conspiracy. Burr met several times with Jackson in Nashville and even purchased some boats and other supplies from him before sailing down the Mississippi River. The rumors and charges against Jackson reached the newspapers by mid-May, and the controversy continued through the remainder of the presidential campaign.

In a letter to the editors of the Daily National Intelligencer, published in that newspaper on August 8, "Q." (William Slade) quoted Andrew Jackson's letter to Orleans Territorial Governor William C. C. Claiborne of November 14, 1806, warning of "plans on foot inimical to the Union." Q went on to ask, "Why, instead of using the general language of surmise and suspicion, did not General Jackson state explicitly from what source the danger was to be apprehended, and the grounds of his apprehensions? If his purpose was really patriotic, could not that purpose have been better accomplished by direct, explicit, intelligible language, than by this wholesale dealing in hints and innuendoes?"

In their August 25 issue, editors Joseph Gales and William W. Seaton published a letter by Andrew Erwin of Tennessee regarding accusations against Jackson and including two letters by Jackson. The editors prefaced the letter with a brief introduction that included a reprimand of the anonymous "Q": "Col. Andrew Erwin, of Tennessee, has published several papers, (to which he has set the laudable example of putting his own name, thus assuming all responsibility for them) the object of which is to establish against General Jackson, amongst other charges, that of being concerned in the projects of Colonel Burr. The last paper we have seen on the subject, appeared in the Democratic Press, and as it contains some curious matter, we copy it entire. It is undoubtedly established, by this and other testimony, that there was a very close intimacy between Colonel Burr and General Jackson, at the period referred to. The criminality of that intercourse remains to be proved. The friends of Gen. J. allege that in this business the General was overreached or duped by Col. Burr."

Three days later, they published this letter from Slade. He quotes from the writings of former U.S. Senator and Governor of Kentucky John Adair (1757-1840) to raise questions about Jackson's reception of Burr in Nashville. Adair was initially indicted as a co-conspirator with Burr, but the grand jury dismissed the charges against both Adair and Burr. Adair then sued accuser James Wilkinson in federal court and won, requiring Wilkinson to issue a public apology and pay Adair $2,500 in damages, though Adair's political career was stalled for a decade. Though Adair and Jackson quarreled publicly about the details of the Battle of New Orleans, Adair campaigned for Jackson in 1824, 1828, and 1832.

The presidential election campaign of 1828 was noteworthy for the vicious personal attacks on both incumbent John Quincy Adams and challenger Andrew Jackson. Although Jackson had received more popular and electoral votes in 1824, he did not achieve a majority, and the House of Representatives selected John Quincy Adams as president. Jackson's supporters were furious and complained for four years of a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and fellow candidate Henry Clay, who became Adams's Secretary of State. Opponents of Jackson scoured his military and personal record and accused him of a variety of misdeeds regarding the militia, Native Americans, his marriage to Rachel Donelson Robards, and his role in Aaron Burr's conspiracy.

In the election held from October 31 to December 2, 1828, Jackson won a resounding victory with 55.5 percent of the popular vote to Adams's 44 percent. Jackson carried 15 states with 178 electoral votes, while Adams won 9 states with 83 electoral votes. Jackson carried all of the states of the South and West, also carried Pennsylvania, and won a majority of the electoral votes in a divided New York. Adams carried all the states of New England and the mid-Atlantic states of New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.

William Slade (1786-1859) was born in Vermont and graduated from Middlebury College in 1807. He studied law, gained admission to the bar in 1810, and began a practice in Middlebury, Vermont. In 1810, he also married Abigail Foot, with whom he had nine children. In 1814, he founded the Columbian Patriot in Middlebury and edited it until 1816. He served sequentially as Vermont Secretary of State (1815-1822) Judge of the Addison County Court (1816-1822), and clerk in the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. (1823-1829). In April 1829, President Martin Van Buren removed Slade and a few other clerks because they had campaigned against Jackson while holding office. Slade won election as an Anti-Mason to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1831 and served until 1843. As an abolitionist, he attempted to overturn the gag rule, but the House adopted a more extensive gag rule in response. He won election as Governor of Vermont in 1844, and when no candidate won a majority the following year, the legislature elected him to a second term. After leaving office, he co-founded the Board of National Popular Education with Catherine Beecher and served as its corresponding secretary from 1846 to 1859.

National Intelligencer (1800-1870) was a prominent newspaper published in Washington, DC. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson, then vice president and a candidate for the presidency, persuaded Samuel Harrison Smith, the publisher of a Philadelphia newspaper, to open a newspaper in Washington, the new capital. Smith began publishing the National Intelligencer, & Washington Advertiser three times a week on October 31, 1800. In 1809, Joseph Gales (1786-1860) became a partner and took over as sole proprietor a year later. From 1812, Gales and his brother-in-law William Winston Seaton (1785-1866) were the newspaper's publishers for nearly fifty years. From 1813 to 1867, it was published daily as the Daily National Intelligencer and was the dominant newspaper of the capital. Supporters of the administrations of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, Gales and Seaton were the official printers of Congress from 1819 to 1829. From the election of Andrew Jackson to the 1850s, the National Intelligencer was one of the nation's leading Whig newspapers, with conservative, unionist principles.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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