After the affair of
the Chesapeake, we thought war a very possible result. Our magazines
were illy provided with some necessary articles, nor had any
appropriations been made for their purchase. We ventured, however, to
provide them, and to place our country in safety; and stating the case
to Congress, they sanctioned the act.
To proceed to the conspiracy of Burr, and particularly to General
Wilkinson's situation in New Orleans. In judging this case, we are bound
to consider the state of the information, correct and incorrect, which
he then possessed. He expected Burr and his band from above, a British
fleet from below, and he knew there was a formidable conspiracy within
the city. Under these circumstances, was he justifiable, 1. In seizing
notorious conspirators? On this there can be but two opinions; one, of
the guilty and their accomplices; the other, that of all honest men.
2. In sending them to the seat of government, when the written law gave
them a right to trial in the territory? The danger of their rescue, of
their continuing their machinations, the tardiness and weakness of
the law, apathy of the judges, active patronage of the whole tribe of
lawyers, unknown disposition of the juries, an hourly expectation of the
enemy, salvation of the city, and of the Union itself, which would have
been convulsed to its centre, had that conspiracy succeeded; all these
constituted a law of necessity and self-preservation, and rendered the
_salus populi_ supreme over the written law.
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