Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/230

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
218
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Ch. 9.

a Virginia President and a slave-owning majority of Congress, the old anti-national instinct of Virginia was paralyzed, and the dangers to rise from it were postponed; but the freer play was given to the passions of Boston and New Orleans,—to the respectable seditiousness of Timothy Pickering and the veneered profligacy of Aaron Burr. The time had come when Burr was to bring his conspiracy to the test of action, and to try the strength of a true democracy. During the autumn of 1806 Burr's projects and movements roused a sudden panic, less surprising than the tolerance with which his conspiracy had been so long treated by the President and the press.