EDITORIAL NOTE

On 22 January 1807 Thomas Jefferson sent a message to Congress relating his view of Aaron Burr’s actions in the West and the steps the administration had taken to counter Burr. The public had previously received only vague and contradictory newspaper reports about Burr’s actions, but Jefferson’s message provided a much fuller account of the events from the perspective of the president and his advisers. Jefferson reported that Burr had tried to sever the West from the Union and unlawfully invade Mexico. After failing in Ohio and Kentucky, Burr hoped to plunder military and naval stores in New Orleans and commence an attack on Mexico. Contrary to popular belief, Burr’s plans enjoyed no more than minimal foreign support, while the administration had worked with civil authorities to bolster defenses in the West and in New Orleans, thereby thwarting Burr’s plans (Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 9:14–20; Lewis, The Burr Conspiracy, 92–96).

The message implicated several coconspirators in the alleged plot and criticized some authorities for ineptitude in prosecuting Burr, though Jefferson mentioned none of them by name. Some of those individuals, among them Justus Erick Bollmann, nevertheless sought to correct Jefferson’s narrative by publicizing their own versions of events. James Wilkinson arrested Bollmann as a coconspirator in December 1806 and sent him to Washington, D.C., for trial; Bollmann arrived on 22 January 1807 (Lewis, The Burr Conspiracy, 104–8).

Bollmann requested a private meeting with Jefferson. The president agreed, asking Madison to attend. According to Jefferson’s records, the meeting occurred on 24 January 1807, and that evening, Madison recorded the events from memory. Bollmann refuted some of the main points of Jefferson’s 22 January message to Congress, such as Burr’s ultimate objectives, his level of support in the West, the capacity of the U.S. Army and militias to thwart him, and the scheme’s level of foreign backing. Bollmann insisted that Burr had intended to invade Spanish Mexico and had used disunion only as a cover for that goal. Burr had planned for Bollmann to convince the U.S. government to aid the expedition against Mexico. Madison noted that Bollmann’s “primary object” for the meeting with Jefferson and Madison “seems to have been to explain his own conduct” and “to present Burr’s plans & proceedings in a light as little criminal as possible.” Bollmann, however, may have viewed the meeting as a final attempt to fulfill his objective and garner U.S. government support for Burr’s project (Jefferson to George Hay, 20 May 1807 [DLC: Jefferson Papers]; Lewis, The Burr Conspiracy, 106–8).

Some confusion exists about the date of the meeting. In the heading of his notes, added sometime after he wrote his report, Madison recorded the date as 23 January 1807. However, Jefferson docketed Madison’s notes the following day. Also, Jefferson wrote to Bollmann on 25 January 1807, mentioning Bollmann’s communications from “yesterday,” suggesting that the meeting occurred on 24 January (DLC: Jefferson Papers). Bollmann replied with a letter, also dated 25 January, in which he promised to deliver the next day a written statement summarizing their discussions (ibid.). Bollmann wrote his report and a cover letter, dating them 26 January, but the report referenced the communications he had made “yesterday,” implying that the meeting had taken place on 25 January (ibid.). The confusion likely occurred because Bollmann started writing the report on 25 January but did not finish it until 26 January. The consistency among Jefferson’s communications and dockets indicates that the meeting likely took place on 24 January.