I am halfway through a remarkable opportunity, the Hodson Trust/John Carter Brown Library Fellowship.  The grant supported me for two months of research at the library in Providence (where there was a lot less snow than in Maryland!), about Aaron Burr's conspiracy of 1805-07.  The grant also will cover two more months of writing at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, in June and July.  (The living quarters in Chestertown are in the image below -- not bad.)

They are taking applications for next year's fellowship from writers, film directors, playrights, novelists . . . . so long as you are doing a topic from early American history (including South America).  Not to mention the Patrick Henry Fellowship for nine months at Washington College.

If it might fit a project you're working on check out the link -- it's a heck of a deal.

A few factors have combined to make me reflect on race relations in this country, and also to make me hope andwonder if we're entering a post-racial period.

First came Richard Wright's classic Black Boy, about growing up black in Mississippi in the 1910s and 1920s.  If I were better educated, I would have read this book before my current advanced age.  But I haven't, and it has just knocked me out.  Wright provides an incredibly powerful portrayal of the tension of coping with the pandemic white violence of his South.  He makes clear that the constant threat of violence undermined the personalities of black people, and their relatioinships.

It's a terrible story, but then again, thing are actually better now. . . .

Just when I felt that I couldn't stand reading about another ignorant, angry racist white Southerner, I turned back to a book I have slowly been making my way through, Michael Gardner's Harry Truman and Civil Rights. Truman's people in Missouri were slaveowners, and he came of age in the same era that Wright portrays so effectively.  Yet when he became president, Truman tried his best make integration happen and to help black people.  I particularly like this recollection by his Attorney General, later Supreme Court Justice, Tom Clark, who often got together with Truman for an evening of dinner and card-playing.

He would just -- sometimes we'd get to talking and he would tell me about, how when he was growing up -- about the discrimination against the blacks, and how they couldn't get to first base, and everybody used them and things of that kind, you know.  He was going to try to do something about it, that's what he told me.

With a Congress dominated by Southern Democratic racists, Truman could not do as much he wanted, but he integrated the armed forces, established the Fair Employment Practices Commission for federal employees, and made conspicious appointments of black to important offices.  A simple man who saw injustice and resolved to do what he could to stop it.

And I think about, of all things, the interview I saw during the television coverage of the Olympics.  The star athlege being questioned was Shani Davis, men's speedskating star for the United States, and also the first African-American to compete at the top levels of speedskating.  I'll admit it, it's still surprising to me (though great) to see this tall, powerful black man striding around the ice rink, blowing away the competition.

The interviewer finally asked the race question -- something like whether Davis felt like he was blazing trails for others, or that he had knocked down barriers, or something equally trite but totally on the minds of many viewers.  And Davis shrugged and said, sure.  But then he added that, well, once you have an African-American President, all these other barriers don't seem like such a big deal.

I admired Davis' ability to reframe the question, and appreciated that he had refocused me.  Richard Wright's world is gone, thank heavens.  So, too, is Harry Truman's.  We have an African-American president.  Current American citizens and residents have roots in an astonishing number of countries.  It must be exhausting to be a white supremacist these days; there are so many different groups to feel superior to.  Maybe the effort will finally become too great, and too obviously foolish.  Call me pollyanna, but we really are closer to that day than we have ever been.

The Washington Post today carries a terrific review of the new biography of Joseph Pulitzer by my friend, James McGrath Morris, a/k/a Jamie.  That it's a great book should be clear from my own review of it, posted on Amazon:

"Joseph Pulitzer's story is a classic American rags-to-riches-to-sellout saga. A Jewish immigrant from Hungary, Pulitzer made his way in the rough-and-tumble newspaper business of Missouri after the Civil War. Allying his newspapers with the "little man" against the big shots, Pulitzer invented the irreverent, aggressive, sensational daily press of America at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Becoming fabulously wealthy himself, Pulitzer abandoned his allegiance to the little man and his newspapers ossified. Suffering blindness from two detached retinas, Pulitzer descended into eccentricities, depression, and a sharp alienation from his family.

"James McGrath Morris tells this exciting and cautionary story with great judgment and wit. At a time when our own media seem to have lost their way -- gutless broadcast news, shrinking print media, immature Internet vehicles -- the time is ripe for someone to refashion how we learn about the world, and how we think about it, the way Pulitzer did. It's a terrific book -- read it. "

But if you feel the need of reading a review by someone less directly conected to the author, check out the Yardley review.  You can even check out Jamie's interview on the PBS News Hour.

Oh, also, buy the book!

I have been tickled by the recent identification of records of James Wilson at the Historical Society of Pennsvlvania as an early draft of the Constitution prepared during the Constitutional Convention in the Summer of 1787.  I think the find is slightly less electrifying than the initial ballyhoo suggests, but it's still a great thing.  Further study may reveal whether it truly unlocks some secret of the deliberations.

I take particular pleasure that the "find" focuses attention on Wilson, who was one of the three most important Framers during the Convention.  We have him to thank for the Electoral college and the three-fifths rule -- a couple of remarkable innovations, even if you don't care for them (and I don't).

The other two of the top three Framers?

• George Washington (for being there).
• John Rutledge (for having the greatest influence on the final Constitution).

What about James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and Ben Franklin?  I'd put them at 4, 5, and 6.

Nattering on about Aaron Burr's 1807 treason trial this week, I was brought up short by a very simple question:  How many treason trials have there been in the United States?  I resolved to investigate the question, which yielded the following.

The Framers of the Constitution mistrusted treason prosecutions, seeing them as an easily abused tool of political oppression.  Accordingly, they defined treason very specifically in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution:

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. .

At Burr's trial, Chief Justice John Marshall adhered closely to this restrictive defiition of treason -- particularly the "two witness" rule -- which was important to Burr's acquittal.

So, who else has faced treason charges?  Mostly the obscure and the slightly known, with only one name I might have guessed.  But it's not that long a list, not much more than a dozen.  Here are a few of the leading figures.

• Abolitionish John Brown, 1859 -- This is a trick answer to the question, because Brown, who attempted to begin a slave uprising with his raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferr, was actually tried for treason against the state of Virginia(!). 
• Thomas Dorr of Rhode Island, 1844 -- Leader of a movement for universal male suffrage, Dorr headed one of two rival governments of Rhode Island. The previous governor refused to step down after Dorr's election, then arrested Dorr, and tried and convicted him for treason against the state of Rhode Island.  The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene on behalf of Dorr, who was released after serviing a year of his sentence.
• Iva Ikuko Togun ("Tokyo Rose") -- A Japanese-American trapped in Japan when World War II began, Toguri was featured in propaganda broadcasts intended to sap the morale of American GIs.  Convicted of treason, she served only 7 years in prison and was pardoned by President Gerald Ford because of some trial testimony was tainted by misconduct by the government.
• Mildred Gillars ("Axis Sally") -- A propaganda broadcaster for Nazi Germany, Gillars was convicted of treason and served twelve years in prison.
• Whiskey Rebels of 1794 -- Farmers in western Pennsylvania rose in rage over a federal tax on whiskey, only to be suppressed by a federal army led by President Washington.  Two of the leaders were convicted of treason, but Washington pardoned both.
• John Fries, 1799 -- Another Pennsylvania tax rebel, Fries was convicted and then pardoned by President John Adams.
• Tomoya Kawakita, 1952 -- An interpreter for the Japanese during World War II, Kawakita was convicted of assisting the torture of American prisoners of war.  He is the last person convicted in an American treason trial.

It's striking that many of the people often referred to as traitors -- Benedict Arnold, John Walker Lindh, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the leaders of the Southern Confederacy -- never faced treason charges, either for political reasons or because it was easier to convict them of other crimes.

One treason prosecution is still pending.  Adam Yahiye Gadahn (who was born Adam Pearlman in Oregon) has created several propaganda videos for Al-Quaeda.  He was indicted for treason in 2006 in a California federal court, but remains at large. 

The history of Haiti -- which has taken such a terrible turn tis week -- is intertwined with the story of Aaron Burr's western conspiracy.  The slave revolt and war for independence in Haiti in the 1790s and early 1800s intersected with Burr in two important ways.

First, many French refugees from San Domingo (as Haiti was then called) went to New Orleans, where they accentuated the local residents' identification with France and their unhappiness with American rule after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.  Burr counted on the Creoles of New Orleans to declare their independence and join him in establishing a new nation with Spanish lands in the Floridas, Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico.

Second, slaves in the United States, inspired by the stories from Haiti, attempted their own revolts, most notably "Gabriel's Rebellion" in Richmond, Virginia, in 1800.  After being arrested for treason in early 1807, Burr was held for trial in Richmond in the same prison where Gabriel was confined before he and many confederates were hanged.

In response to the tragedy in Haiti, the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, where I am on a fellowship this month and next, has put up an online exhibit of Haiti's early history.

A striking feature of Aaron Burr's life is the paucity of written material he left behind.  For a man who spent 20 years in public life during the nation's founding, the material left is slim indeed.  The Political Correspondence and Papers of Aaron Burr were published in 1983 and constitute only two volumes.  By way of comparison, the projects to publish papers of other founders have produced much more:

• James Madison -- 30 volumes and still working
• Thomas Jefferson -- 35 volumes and still working
• Alexander Hamilton -- 26 volumes (and done!)

The small yield for Burr is partly due to some very bad luck.  After his acquittal on treason charges in 1807, Burr left many of his papers with his daughter, Theodosia Burr Alston, for safekeeping while he traveled in Europe.  She brought those papers with her when she boarded a ship for New York in late 1812 to meet Burr on his return to America.  The ship, Theodosia, and Burr's papers were lost at sea.

Then Burr left his remaining papers in the care of Matthew Livingston Davis, a longtime acolyte.  It was a mistake.  Davis took it upon himself (perhaps at Burr's direction) to burn large chunks of the papers, particularly those relating to Burr's voluminous correspondence with various paramours.   Davis chopped up other letters, printing only fragments, and made a hash of the whole enterprise.

Davis' most astonishing act of literary violence was the publication of The Private Journal of Aaron Burr, which Burr had compiled during almost four years of wandering in Europe.  Davis took it upon himself to change Burr's journal wherever he wished, making thousands of changes, again removing many of the salacious (that is, interesting) bits.

Fortunately, a railroad tycoon at the turn of the last century (William Bixby) financed a scholarly effort at Washington University of St. Louis to print Burr's actual journal, and brought out 250 copies in a private printing.  Through the magic of the Internet, this full version is now available online.   

Yet there is a more basic reason why Burr's literary harvest is so paltry.  As remembered by Charles Burr Todd, presumed to have been Burr's illegitimate son and manager of Burr's law practice in his old age, Burr always "had a special regard for the maxim that 'things written remain,' and was very careful as to what he wrote." 

And so he wrote down rather little, to the frustration of those, such as I, who attempt to account for his actions many years later.

On January 4, 1810, Aaron Burr met with the poet Johan Goethe in Weimar, Germany.   They were rough contemporaries:  Goethe was 60; Burr 53.   But they were at very different stages in their lives. 

Goethe was a literary giant in 1810, renowned for The Sorrows of Young Werther, and still producing great poetry as he worked on his enduring masterpiece, Faust. 

Burr was an impoverished exile.  He won permanent notoriety when he killed Alexander Hamilton in their 1804 duel, while vice president of the United States.  After leaving office in early 1805, Burr attempted to lead an invasion of Mexico, or an insurrection of America's Western territories, or an ambitious settlement of Western lands -- depending on who you believe. 

Tried for treason in 1807 and acquitted, Burr traveled through Europe from 1808 to 1812, vainly trying to find a sponsor to underwrite an invasion and liberation of South America.  While in Europe, he met with many great figures of the time, striking up an intimate friendship with British philosopher Jeremy Bentham. 

During his European peregrinations, Burr took in all the sights.  Two days before his encounter with the great German poet, he viewed the houses where the Emperor Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I of Russia had stayed during 1806 negotiations.

Of his visit with Goethe, Burr wrote excitedly in his private journal, "This day would make two hundred pages if written out."  Alas, he never did write it out.

So this reporter from the Washington Times -- yes, the Moonie newspaper -- makes a connection between the deals made for Senate votes on health care reform and those made for votes in the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial in 1868.

And he cites my book, in an article on Christmas Eve.

What a world!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!