SinghKing
Banned
As in the title- WI the Burr Conspiracy had succeeded in its aims? If anyone's unfamiliar with it, here's a relatively detailed overview:
So, plenty of potential POD's- which would be the most interesting to use? And how large might the repercussions have been?
The Burr Conspiracy
When Vice President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, he also killed his chance to be president. Wanted for murder in New York, he fled the state and went to Philadelphia. Realizing that he had no future on the east coast, Burr, in a frantic effort to salvage his destroyed political power and heavily in debt, conceived a plan to seek political fortunes beyond the Alleghenies. He first contacted the British Minister, Anthony Merry, living in Philadelphia. He offered Merry his services in any efforts by Great Britain to take control over the western part of the United States. Merry, who hated the United States, wrote his Foreign Ministry that while Burr was notoriously profligate, nevertheless, his ambition and spirit of revenge would be useful to the British government. Merry became a strong supporter of Burr's schemes.
One of Burr's schemes was to organize a revolution in the West, take the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys and form them into a separate republic. His other scheme was to establish a republic bordering the United States by seizing Spanish possessions. To gain further support for his plans, Burr approached an old friend, General James Wilkinson; both had served as aides to then Colonel Benedict Arnold during the Quebec expedition. Wilkerson played a crucial role in the conspiracy, for he not only conspired with Burr, but conspired against him.
Wilkinson, after being commissioned a captain in the Continental Army in 1776, rose rapidly in rank and position. Assigned as aide-de-camp to General Horatio Gates, Wilkinson became involved in a plot, called the Conway Cabal, to replace George Washington as commander-in-chief with Gates. Wilkinson, himself, leaked aspects of the plot, probably believing in doing so he could gain some advantage for himself, but his scheme and the original plot failed. Wilkinson lost his job and military honors but kept his rank.
Despite this reversal, Wilkinson proceeded with several conspiracies. Replacing George Rogers Clark as leader in Kentucky, Wilkinson embarked on an attempt to separate Kentucky from Virginia. At the same time, he reasoned that an opportunity existed to make money from national resentment toward Spain. He traveled to New Orleans, where he convinced the Spanish authorities he was secretly working for the partition of the United States. He offered his services to the Spaniards, who identified him as "agent 13" in Spanish messages. Washington and Hamilton both thought that Wilkinson was a spy for the Spanish but felt that his loyalty could be purchased with a promotion.
Not satisfied with his intrigues involving Kentucky statehood and working an agent for the Spanish, Wilkinson accepted in 1792 a commission as brigadier general of a volunteer army fighting Indians north of the Ohio River. He then contrived to replace his commander, General "Mad Anthony" Wayne. Wilkinson succeeded only because Wayne died in 1796. He then seized Detroit from the British and became its military governor. His administration was short-lived as the citizens protested his greed and he returned to the South. After arriving in the South, Wilkinson wheeled and dealed in land speculation and lucrative Army contracts and contrived to become governor or surveyor-general of the Mississippi Territory.
President George Washington became uneasy about Wilkinson's activities and ordered his surveillance. Wilkinson discovered the surveillance and was able to have the surveillant withdrawn. Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson did not share Washington's distrust of Wilkinson. In fact, in 1803 Jefferson fully trusted Wilkinson that he commissioned him to be one of two individuals to take formal possession of the Louisiana Purchase from the French. In New Orleans, Wilkinson returned to his old ways and acted on Spanish fears concerning Florida, which was Spanish territory until 1819. For his ruse he received a $12,000 bribe. He purchased a boatload of sugar, took it to New York to sell and while there began secret negotiations with Burr, Jefferson's vice-president.
Burr, aware that war between the United States and Spain over boundary disputes was a possibility because of various Spanish conspiracies to achieve control of the lower Mississippi Valley, made covert plans with Wilkinson to invade and colonize Spanish territory in the West. They also schemed to establish an independent "Empire of the West" on a Napoleonic model. The conspirators even considered invading and annexing Mexico to add to their empire with New Orleans as capital.
Burr was dropped from the presidential ticket by Jefferson and in April 1805 commenced to put his plans into motion. He again approached the British via Minister Merry. He informed Merry that Louisiana was ready to break with the United States and once it did all the western country would follow suit. To be successful, Burr requested that Britain assure his protection, provide him with a half of million dollar loan, and dispatch a British naval squadron to the mouth of the Mississippi River. The British might have entertained Burr's requests, but Prime Minister Pitt died and was succeeded by Charles James Fox, a life-long friend of the United States. Fox considered the Merry-Burr discussions indiscreet, dangerous and damnable and recalled Merry to England on June 1, 1806.
Having failed to secure British aid in an attempt to separate western states from the United States, Burr then headed west across Pennsylvania. In Pittsburgh, he procured a riverboat and embarked down the Ohio River. He stopped to visit Harman Blennerhassett, a wealthy, gentleman-scholar and Irish emigrant, who lived with his wife Margaret on an island in the middle of the river. Burr explained his plan to Blennerhassett, who enthusiastically expressed his support by giving Burr money. Burr used the funds to later purchase the Batrop lands on the Ouachita River, in present-day northern Louisiana, to serve as his base of operations into the Southwest.
Burr continued down the river to New Orleans, recruiting frontiersmen, filibusters, adventurers, and others along the way. When he arrived in New Orleans in 1806, he was fervently welcomed because his game plan to colonize or conquer the Spanish possessions touched an appealing cord in many of the people. As rumors of his plan reached Washington, the political establishment suspected that Burr was talking treason. Wilkinson, who was stationed on the Sabine River on the Spanish border with the United States, learned of Washington's reaction and decided to inform on Burr to avoid being charged with treason himself.
On November 25, 1806 a courier arrived in Washington carrying a dispatch for President Jefferson. In the dispatch, Wilkinson warned President Jefferson about Burr's threatening plan. Jefferson ordered Burr arrested and he was apprehended in late 1806 near Nachez, Mississippi, while attempting to flee into Spanish territory. In May 1807, Burr was tried for treason in front of U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall in the circuit court at Richmond, Virginia.
Jefferson prepared an account of Burr's criminal activity for Congress and wanted to present it to the court, but Marshall requested President Jefferson appearance instead. The President refused, consequently establishing a precedent for future presidents. Marshall, who was not on amicable terms with Jefferson, found Burr not guilty, explaining that Burr committed no overt act of treason. Although found innocent of the charges against him, Burr was never able to overcome the accusations. He died in New York City in 1836.
So, plenty of potential POD's- which would be the most interesting to use? And how large might the repercussions have been?
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