He went, for a
time, to Theo in the South, fearing arrest, but as a matter of fact,
verdict or no verdict, the matter of Hamilton's death was never
followed up. Burr came calmly back to the Capitol and finished his
term as Vice-president. In his farewell speech to the Senate he said
he did not remember the names of all the people who had slandered him
and intrigued against him, since "he thanked God he had no memory for
injuries!"
[Illustration: THE BUTTERICK BUILDING. A stone's throw from the site of
the once-glorious house of Richmond Hill.]
The year after the duel he evolved his monstrous and hare-brained plan
of establishing a Southern Republic with New Orleans as Capital and
himself as President. Mexico was in it too. In fact, President
Jefferson himself wrote of the project: "He wanted to overthrow
Congress, corrupt the navy, take the throne of Montezuma and seize New
Orleans.... It is the most extraordinary since the days of Don
Quixote!..."
General Wetmore loyally declares the scheme to have been "a
justifiable enterprise for the conquest of one of the provinces of
Southern America.
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