Burr was guilty of planning to attack Mexico, which would have been a violation of the Neutrality Act of 1794, but it is highly unlikely he sought to dismember the union. That may have happened as a result of his scheme, but it was not really his aim.A little background on why I know all this before I lay it out. As you know, I've written a book on the 1812-13 Gutierrez Magee filibuster into Texas. It is currently with a publisher who I will not name, but am very excited about working with. I have received my peer reviews, I'm addressing their issues/concerns, and I feel really good that after this draft, it will be accepted for publication.
My book goes VERY MUCH into this topic (the first two chapters). I read through multiple secondary books on this topic in the last 3 years. The one I recommend is the Aaron Burr Conspiracy by McCaleb, which though 100 years old, is actually very good. David Stewart's bio of Burr, "American Emperor" is good, but he, like every other Burr biographer, gets so caught up in Burr that they assume the conspiracy Burr led ends when he leaves the frontier, which it does not. The best recent bio of Wilkinson is Andro Linklatters, "An Artist in Treason." Wilkinson, as noted was a Spanish spy, but he was never loyal to anyone on the planet, excepting (surprisingly) his wife, and her exposure is probably the prime reason he didn't pull the trigger with Burr and betrayed him. And don't believe for a moment the nonsense about Wilkinson manufacturing the cipher letter. It was written by Burr and sent to him by a personal agent, Samuel Swartwout, who Wilkinson later imprisoned.
I also reviewed a lot of primary source data, including the trials not just of Burr (who really is a figurehead), but of the lower level conspirators. These latter actually have a lot more detail and outline the plans, which among other things, include robbing the New Orleans banks, using them to fund the expedition and then (sure, I believe this), paying the money back after they've conquered Mexico and all its gold and silver.
The long and short of it, as I will lay out in my book, is that a cabal of individuals on the frontier, including Wilkinson, Burr and Daniel Clark, Jr. a leading merchant in New Orleans and bitter enemy to Orleans Territory Governor William C.C. Claiborne (and a shadowy group that Clark led called the Mexican Association) had developed plans to invade Spanish Mexico and make common cause with rebellious persons there. The liberated Mexican republic was never truly outlined as to how it would work, if Burr or others would have been a military elite running it, etc. Daniel Clark was having a translator translate the entire New Spain legal code into English for this effort. It was really half-baked, but nonetheless 100 percent serious. It's hard to imagine now, but people in the early 1800s would risk their lives and fortunes on really fanciful schemes with a carelessness that we would not understand today.
Now, the Burr conspirators were a shotgun alliance of a lot of disparate folks. Clark was more Irish than American and had lived in Spanish New Orleans before the purchase had been the first to alert Jefferson about the retrocession of Louisiana to France, created an ad hoc militia to secure the city until American troops could arrive. He wanted the governorship and was bitter that a young upstart nobody named Claiborne had gotten it instead of him. Instead he was elected territorial delegate to congress (non-voting). He and the governor were such bitter rivals they once fought an unsuccessful duel. Much of the fear of the Burrites creating a secessionist country in the MIssissippi Valley was really Claiborne's paranoia, and Wilkinson feeding that. Wilkinson, having betrayed everybody, was a target himself. Clark wrote a book attacking him and exposing the Spanish payments, which he knew about because he was the former secretary to the last Spanish governor. Wilkinson skillfully dodged it by saying, yes, I was paid by the Spanish, but that was for selling them tobacco and cotton, etc. Wilkinson realized that 2/3 of Americans thought the Neutrality Act unconstitutional and conviction of his enemies for that (which was a slam dunk case) was only going to turn them into martyrs. But if he could get them tried for treason by stoking fears of separatism, he could get them hanged, or at least shut up so they couldn't implicate him. In the end, the treason charge couldn't stick because other than send out letters, nobody had done anything. (Well, except for one guy in the army who kind of embezzled funds and supplies and then vanishes. That's an interesting story I cover in my book, because he miraculously appears in Texas in 1813).
One last thing I will add on the secession story. Burr does mention it. And he's quoted saying it. However, McCaleb's history does a good job of tracking where Burr says one version versus the other. Apparently, the Spanish get wind about his goings on and Burr uses the secession story to convince them that New Orleans, not Mexico is the target of his attack. This actually sounds straight out of the Wilkinson playbook, and he probably suggested it to Burr to throw the Spanish on the wrong scent, and then encourage them to pay him (Wilkinson) money to stop the scheme. Which they probably did, since his agent Walter Burling makes a strange trip into Mexico in 1807.
Anyway, what we have is a group of individuals who plan to invade Mexico in 1806 before they get shut down by a heavy-handed government action. Then, in 1812, a group of individuals invade Texas. Coincidence? Not really. That's one of the theses of my book.
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