WILLIAM WIRT William Wirt was born at Bladensburg, Maryland, in 1772. He received a good classical education, and began his career as a lawyer at Culpeper Court House, Virginia. He removed to Richmond in 1799, and was made clerk of the House of Delegates. In 1807 he was retained to assist the United States Attorney in the prosecution of Aaron Burr, and his address upon that occasion greatly added to his fame as an orator. In 1808, Wirt became a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, but served only a short time. In 1817 he was appointed Attorney-General of the country, holding this office until 1829. He was a candidate for the Presidency in 1832, but was unsuccessful, and died at Washington in 1834. Wirt was somewhat florid in style, but his sentences were often full of real beauty. As he grew older, he repressed his tendency toward overelaboration, and his reasoning became close and cogent. He was felicitous in quotation, and his fine presence aided him to become the most popular orator of his day. Wirt's best-known works are the Letters of the British Spy and the Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry. His own life has been written by Kennedy (2 vols., Phila., 1849). VOL. 1X.-6. AGAINST AARON BURR [Selection.] Wirt. The trial of Aaron Burr for treason took place at Richmond, Virginia, in 1807. It lasted in all six months, and Wirt's conduct of the case for the prosecution was an admirable example of legal acumen and eloquence. Although the prisoner was enlarged, Wirt was considered to have had the better of the battle, and his speech at the trial was for many years quoted in all discussions upon the merits of oratory. It was undoubtedly a masterly effort, and the selection presented below will show its merits of powerful and glowing imagery and sequent and convincing reasoning. L ET us put the case between Burr and Blennerhassett. Let us compare the two men and settle this question of precedence between them. It may save us a good deal of troublesome ceremony hereafter. Who Aaron Burr is, we have seen in part already. I will add that, beginning his operations in New York, he associates with him men whose wealth is to supply the necessary funds. Possessed of the mainspring, his personal labor contrives all the machinery. Pervading the continent from New York to New Orleans, he draws into his plan, by every allurement which he can contrive, men of all ranks and descriptions. To youthful ardor he presents danger and glory; to ambition, rank and titles and honors; to avarice, the mines of Mexico. To each person whom he addresses he presents the object adapted to his taste. His recruiting officers are appointed. Men are engaged throughout the continent. Civil life is indeed quiet upon its surface, but in its bosom this man has contrived to deposit the materials which, with the slightest touch of his match, produce an explosion to shake the continent. All this his restless ambition has contrived; and in the autumn of 1806 he goes forth for the last time to apply this match. On this occasion he meets with Blennerhassett. Who is Blennerhassett? A native of Ireland, a man of letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. His history shows that war is not the natural element of his mind. If it had been, he never would have exchanged Ireland for America. So far is an army from furnishing the society natural and proper to Mr. Blennerhassett's character that, on his arrival in America, he retired even from the population of the Atlantic States, and sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our western forest. But he carried with him taste and science and wealth; and lo, the desert smiled! Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantic em |