Free A Nation Rising by Kenneth C. Davis Page A

declare an act of Congress unconstitutional.
    Playing a minor supporting role in Richmond, Andrew Jackson, who was never called as a witness, took every opportunity to publicly rail against Jefferson, call Wilkinson a liar, and contend that Burr was an innocent victim. The proceedings, which got under way in the spring of 1807, would involve weeks of pretrial motions and testimony before a grand jury stacked with Jefferson’s allies, preceding the actual trial. It lasted until October 1807. But it still captivated political America. Convinced of Burr’s guilt, eager to destroy the New Yorker who he thought had betrayed him in 1800, and also looking to damage Marshall, Thomas Jefferson gave the prosecutors blanket guarantees of pardons for anyone who testified against Burr.
    Burr would lead his own defense, but his team of lawyers included Luther Martin, a Prince ton classmate whom Burr had watched skillfully defend Samuel Chase in his impeachment trial. Martin hadalso been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, where he had insisted on a resolution that prohibited further importation of slaves, or at least a tax on them if the trade was permitted. Martin said, “It was inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the American character to have such a feature in the Constitution.” 29 Ultimately, Luther Martin was among those delegates at Philadelphia who refused to sign the Constitution.
    Irascible and long-winded, Martin was nevertheless called the best trial lawyer in America. But he had a penchant for bourbon and was often obviously drunk in court, as he had been at the Constitutional Convention. In their history of that convention, Decision in Philadelphia , James and Christopher Collier offer a clear portrait of Martin’s habits. “By the time of the Convention, he drank at times to the point of making a public spectacle of himself. It was, of course, a hard-drinking age, and the world was full of alcoholics. But gentlemen were expected to drink and stay reasonably sober, and Martin clearly went beyond the bounds of propriety.” 30
    Although it took place in the early nineteenth century, the trial was a close equivalent of a modern “media circus.” Richmond was filled with eager spectators, and there were reports that the town’s population had doubled, to 10,000. And most of the journals of the day, almost all of which were aligned with one party or the other, were well represented. Among the “reporters” was a twenty-four-year-old New Yorker who wrote for a New York City newspaper edited by his brother and partly owned by Aaron Burr. An aspiring attorney, this writer had contributed to the Morning Chronicle under the pseudonym “Jonathan Oldstyle.” But his real name, notyet well known in America, was Washington Irving.* He provided readers with a description of one of the most dramatic and eagerly anticipated moments in the courtroom: the arrival of General James Wilkinson, the chief government witness against Burr:
    Wilkinson strutted into court, and took his stand in a parallel line with Burr on his right hand. Here he stood for a moment, swelling like a turkey-cock, and bracing himself up for the encounter of Burr’s eye. The latter did not take any notice of him until the judge directed the clerk to swear General Wilkinson: at the mention of the name Burr turned his head, looked him full in the face with one of his piercing regards, swept his eye over his whole person from head to foot, as if to scan its dimensions and then coolly resumed his former position, and went on conversing with his counsel as tranquilly as ever. The whole look was over in an instant; but it was an admirable one. There was no appearance of study or constraint in it; no affection or disdain or defiance; a slight expression of contempt played over his countenance.
    The grand jury heard Wilkinson’s testimony and saw the crucial piece of evidence: