Albert Beveridge

The president has undertaken to prejudice my client by declaring, that 'of his guilt there can be no doubt.' He has assumed to himself the knowledge of the Supreme Being himself, and pretended to search the heart of my highly respected…

He has proclaimed him a traitor in the face of that country, which has rewarded him.

He has let slip the dogs of war, the hell-hounds of persecution, to hunt down my friend.

Whoever withholds, wilfully, information that would save the life of a person, charged with a capital offence, is substantially a murderer, and so recorded in the register of heaven." Did Jefferson want Burr convicted?

Do they flatter themselves that this court feel political prejudices which will supply the place of argument and of innocence on the part of the prisoner?

Shall envy, hatred, and all the malignant passions pour their poison into that cabinet against the character and life of a fellow citizen, and yet that cabinet not be examined in vindication of that character and to protect that life?

Is the life of a man, lately in high public esteem ... to be endangered for the sake of punctilio to the president?" Obey illegal orders!

If every order, however arbitrary and unjust, is to be obeyed, we are slaves as much as the inhabitants of Turkey.

Then he delivered that opinion which proved his courage, divided Republicans, stirred all America, and furnished a theme of disputation that remains fresh to the present day.

It was perhaps his duty to exercise that right: "The genius and character of our laws and usages are friendly, not to condemnation at all events, but to a fair and impartial trial.

Neither in the Constitution nor in an act of Congress is there any exception whatever to the right given all persons charged with crime to compel the attendance of witnesses.

The Chief Justice declared that he would not issue the writ if it were apparent that the object of the accused in applying for it was "not really in his own defence, but for purposes which the court ought to discountenance.

I observed, with an indifference which was not assumed, that I had endeavored to do my duty, according to my own judgment and feelings, that I regretted nothing that I had said or done, that I should pursue the same Course throughout, and…

In the fanatical politics of the time there was enough of honest adherence to the American ideal, that all men are equal in the eyes of the law, to justify the calling of a President, even Thomas Jefferson, before a court of justice.

Wilkinson is the only man I ever saw who was from the bark to the very core a villain....

If every trial were to be like that, I am doubtful whether my patience will sustain me while I am wading thro' this abyss of human depravity.

No single act of Jefferson's Administration is more discreditable than this untimely ending of a great career.

That this court dares not usurp power is most true.

If Burr had planned to free Mexico and had succeeded, "he would have merited the applause of the friends of liberty and of posterity; ... but his friends may now pray that he may not meet the fate that Washington himself would have met, if…

This could not be modified by the common law, since the United States, as a Nation, had not adopted it; and the purpose of the Constitution was to destroy, as far as America was concerned, the British theory of treason.

But this was the very doctrine which the Constitution prohibited from ever being applied in America.

When we speak of treason, we must call it treason....

Will any man believe that Burr who is a soldier bold, ardent, restless and aspiring, the great actor whose brain conceived and whose hand brought the plot into operation, should sink down into an accessory and Blennerhassett be elevated…

No lie was too contemptible to be published about him.

Before closing, Marshall answered the threats of Hay and Wirt that, if he decided in favor of Burr, he would be impeached: "That this court dares not usurp power is most true.