One is always cautious about recommending fictional treatments of major historical figures. The fictional words assigned to the historical figure may make a lasting and incorrect impression on the reader. More than a few novels have been written about Jefferson, Burr, and even members of the Blennerhassett family. One that can be recommended with some enthusiasm is Gore Vidal's novel Burr (1973). This fiction, while not completely faithful to the facts, is well written, compelling, and apparently faithful to Aaron Burr's real spirit. Since it takes Burr's point of view, students will get a perspective quite different from that of their other readings: dislike of Washington and hostility toward Jefferson. As always, the instructor must caution students that it is fiction.

The American Heritage Media Collection has available in video format its series The Making of the Nation. Parts 2 and 3 of the series, Adams and Jefferson and New Wars, New Frontiers,carry the story up through the Monroe Doctrine. The videos are well made and designed to hold the viewer's attention. The elements treated are well selected. To what extent students can be led to analyze the issues and judge the validity of the historical explanation offered will remain for the instructor and the class to resolve. The American Heritage Media Collection is available from Westport Media, Inc., of Westport, Connecticut, and from a number of the sources listed in the Educational Film & Video Locator.

Ken Burns has produced for PBS an extended study of the third president and of one of his important accomplishments. Thomas Jefferson (180 minutes) studies the career and accomplishments of its subject, giving full consideration to his complexity. Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, running for over 200 minutes, also uses archival materials, including maps and drawings from the pages of the Corps' journals. An "illustrated history" is also available by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery.

PBS Video also offers a thirty-minute presentation of The Failure of Diplomacy. It deals with Jefferson's efforts to implement his Republican ideas after 1801 as well as the series of foreign problems that led to the War of 1812. Another thirty-minute video from PBS, Good Feelings and Bad, treats the period from the end of the war to the Jackson presidency.

Films for the Humanities and Sciences has a series of thirty-minute videos titled Equal Justice Under Law. Three of them, Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch v. Maryland, and Gibbons v. Ogden, deal with landmark Supreme Court cases. A fourth, United States v. Aaron Burr, not decided by the Supreme Court, is offered in dramatic form in three 30-minute segments. Films for the Humanities and Sciences also has Thomas Jefferson: The Pursuit of Liberty, a thirty-eight-minute celebration of Jefferson's public life.

A twenty-three-minute NBC film, The Journals of Lewis and Clark, traces the journey from St. Louis, emphasizing relations with the Indians, hunting buffalo, and the encounter with the Rocky Mountains.
Document Set 8-1

Aaron Burr's Imperial Dream: A Test for The Young Republic

1. Jefferson Exposes the Conspiracy, 1807
2. Prosecutor George Hay States the Government's Case, 1807
3. The Indictment, 1807
4. Harmon Blennerhassett Accepts Burr's Invitation, 1805
5. Blennerhassett's Defense, 1807Focusing on the Jefferson administration's view of Aaron Burr's domestic and foreign intrigues, these documents allow the instructor to concentrate student attention on some of the critical problems that emerged in the early national period. In doing so, it will be possible to link the text's emphasis on western separatism with the political, economic, and diplomatic developments of the early nineteenth century.One useful approach to classroom discussion would stress the imperial aspect of early American foreign policy. While students are likely to associate the concept of empire with a later period in American national development, instructors may wish to emphasize continuity between the imperial thought of the revolutionary generation and the traditions inherited from the colonial era. Classroom discussion could begin with the definition and implications of the term empire, followed by an exploration of the exploitation of the West. Letting Jefferson's interest in Louisiana serve as a basis for discussion, instructors may ask students to explain popular attention to the frontier's potential. Once students understand the exploitation of the West, the significance of Burr's challenge becomes clearer.This problem leads logically toward discussion of the critical foreign-policy challenges of the Jeffersonian era, which are treated extensively in the text. The issues may be introduced by asking students to list the objectives set forth by Burr in his intrigues with General James Wilkinson and Harmon Blennerhassett; they reveal much about the dangers confronted by a young nation with aggressive neighbors. This question should also force students to inquire into Wilkinson's motives in cooperating with Burr. The problem of domestic politics is particularly significant in any exploration of the Burr conspiracy. The text provides excellent background for an understanding of Burr's sometimes erratic behavior. Students should discuss Republican factionalism as background for the vice president's adventurism from 1804 on. The political factor will be an essential element in student efforts to dissect Jefferson's and Hay's statements on the plot and its perpetrators.In some ways a minor player in the grand scheme, Harmon Blennerhassett did leave an exhaustive record of his own involvement; his comments also shed light on the early origins of the conspiracy. Especially interesting is his brief for defense counsel in the Richmond treason trial. Students should be made aware of Blennerhassett's personal agenda before interpreting the brief as evidence of Burr's initiative or Blennerhassett's complicity. The validity of Blennerhassett's remarks as evidence of the conspiracy's goals could be successfully explored through a mock trial conducted by student prosecutors and defense attorneys, speaking for legal research teams composed of other students who have assisted in preparing the respective cases.Instructors should also encourage students to look beyond the question of Burr's guilt or innocence to the broader implications of the case. It may be helpful to encourage students to explore similarities and differences between the southwestern intrigue and the goals of the Hartford Convention of 1815. Summary discussion should again focus on the conspiracy's importance in our understanding of foreign challenges, political disruption, and frontier separatism.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 8-1

1. Thomas Perkins Abernathy. The Burr Conspiracy (1954; rep. 1968).
2. Lance Banning. The Jeffersonian Persuasion (1978).
3. Milton Lomask. Aaron Burr 2 vols.; 1979, 1982).
4. Drew McCoy. The Elusive Republic (1980).
5. Herbert S. Parmet and Marie B. Hecht. Aaron Burr (1967).
6. Bradford Perkins. The Creation of a Republican Empire, 1776-1865 (1993).
7. Malcolm J. Rohrbough. The Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1776-1850 (1978; rep. 1990).
8. Nathan Schachner. Aaron Burr (1984).
9. Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson. Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (1990).
10. Richard Van Alstyne. The Rising American Empire (1960).

Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 8-1


Louisiana Purchase: Key to a Continent (film--16 min.). Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation, 425 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60611.

The Trial of Aaron Burr (videotape--76 min.). Equal Justice Under the Law Series. Public Broadcasting System, 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, D.C. 20024.
Document Set 8-2

A Second War for Independence: Understanding The Role of The West

1. Congressional Voting on the Declaration of War, by States, 1812
2. Geographic Support for the Declaration of War, 1812
3. State Populations, 1790-1870
4. The Kentucky Legislature Calls for Action, 1811
5. Henry Clay Endorses War, 1811
6. John C. Calhoun Insists on Free Trade, 1811
7. A Southerner Urges Continental Expansion, 1811
8. President Madison States the Case for War, 1812The War of 1812 offers historians and students a variety of interpretive options, many of which can be explored through the documents. Instructors may use the evidence to interpret the war as a second declaration of independence, a struggle for Republican political survival, a fight for economic survival, or an expression of sectional interests. While all issues are approachable through the documents, the unit is designed to permit an evaluation of western influence on the onset of war.Instructors may begin with a historiographic introduction to the debate over the causes of the war. Student examination of the West as an influence in the war decision might begin with an analysis of data presented in statistical, tabular, and graphic form. Student review of population statistics, congressional voting figures, and cartographic portrayal of the war vote of 1812 should produce discussion of the West's place in American political life at that time. The result will be an awareness of critical support in nonfrontier areas for a belligerent foreign policy.Given this insight, students can assess the role played by westerners and western factors in mobilizing support for war. At this point instructors might introduce data from Ronald Hatzenbuehler's quantitative analysis of the war-hawkwar hawk Congress, with the intention of clarifying the qualities of leadership. When, how, and by whom was strong leadership exercised?This line of inquiry will reveal that certain positions, such as support for neutral rights and concern over national honor, transcended sectional lines. Instructors may suggest that the war was the completion of independence, emphasizing the importance of national pride to a developing country. Students should also explore the meaning of "honor" and develop a concrete understanding of the economic and political bases for the contemporary emphasis on that abstraction.No discussion of the war's origins can fail to note the sharp disagreement among Americans over the wisdom of a war policy. One approach to deeper understanding of this internal division would be to assign position papers to individual students asking them to advocate or oppose the war from a western, southern, or northeastern viewpoint. Insights and arguments from these papers will produce lively classroom discussion of the deep differences among Americans before and during the War of 1812.Critical analysis of these documents can test the war-hawk thesis and clarify the origins of the war. By sifting the evidence, students will gain insight into the web of historical causation. The chapter can also help students see continuity between the Revolutionary experience, the Revolution of 1800, and the War of 1812 as a second war for national independence.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 8-2


Doron S. Ben-Atar. The Origins of Jeffersonian Commercial Policy and Diplomacy (1993).

Roger H. Brown. The Republic in Peril, 1812 (1964). See also Brown, "The War Hawks of 1812: An Historical Myth." Indiana Magazine of History 60 (1964): 138-151.

Clifford L. Egan. "The Origins of the War of 1812: Three Decades of Historical Writing." Military Affairs 38 (1974): 72-75.

Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler and Robert L. Ivie. Congress Declares War (1983).

Donald R. Hickey. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (1989).

Reginald Horsman. The Causes of the War of 1812 (1962). See also Horsman, "Who Were the War Hawks?" Indiana Magazine of History 60 (1964): 121-136.

Julius W. Pratt. Expansionists of 1812 (1925).

Norman K. Risjord. "1812: Conservatives, War Hawks, and the Nation's Honor." William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 18 (1961): 196-210.

J. C. A. Stagg. Mr. Madison's War (1983).

Steven Watts. The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790-1820 (1987).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 8-2


John Quincy Adams (film--50 min.). Profiles in Courage Series. IQ Films, 689 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

John Quincy Adams: Diplomat (1809-1815). From The Adams Chronicles Series (videotape--59 min.). Audio-Visual Center, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. 47405-5901.

War of 1812 (film--14 min.). Coronet Instructional Films, 65 E. South Water Street, Chicago, Ill. 60601.

The War of 1812: The Second War for Independence (audiotape--30 min.). Audiotape Program 7, Annenberg/CPB Project American History Series. Annenberg/CPB Project, 1111 16th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036.
Document Set 8-3

Virgin Land: The Trans-Mississippi West Through The Eyes of Lewis and Clark

1. Jefferson Seeks Congressional Funding for Exploration of the Louisiana Territory, 1803
2. The President's Instructions to Meriwether Lewis, 1803
3. The Expedition Pursues Its Interest in the Native American Population, 1805
4. Lewis and Clark as Pioneer Naturalists, 1805-1806
5. Charting the Columbia River, 1805-1806
6. Specimens and Artifacts Sent to Jefferson, 1805
7. Clark's Sketch of the Heathcock, 1805
8. The Scientific Observation of Climate, 1805
9. Lewis's Initial Report to the President, 1806This unit reaches back to the previous examination of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment to explore the continuing impact of rationalism and scientific inquiry on private thought and public policy. The document set builds on the already-noted intellectual curiosity of President Thomas Jefferson, whose continuing interest in natural phenomena was one important factor in his decision to commission Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the vast expanse of territory in the Missouri Valley and the Pacific Northwest.To set the stage for discussion, Jefferson's request for congressional funding and his instructions to Meriwether Lewis in 1803 have been included. The conflicting emphases in these two documents will encourage students to frame their own hypotheses with reference to the predominant motives behind the president's decision. The textbook's references to Jefferson's dream of an "empire for liberty" and his strong interest in science will provide students with the necessary background for their own exercise in historical thinking.The students' familiarity with Enlightenment science (see Document Set 4-3) will provide the necessary background for an extended discussion of Jefferson's intellectual curiosity as a factor in his encouragement of the expedition. The scientific dimension of Lewis and Clark's activities will become obvious as students review the journal excerpts, which stress their initial reactions to the wild and unspoiled character of the Missouri Valley, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest. Instructors may wish to advance discussion with questions about the explorers' responses to their discoveries and their first perceptions of the natural phenomena they encountered.Although they reacted instinctively to nature's power, Lewis and Clark also attempted to apply scientific method as they carried out their task. Instructors might encourage students to search the documents for evidence that reason, observation, and experimentation were being employed as the expedition uncovered new knowledge of the natural world. To what extent were Lewis and Clark products of the Enlightenment, and how rigorously did they adhere to scientific principles?Another aspect of the expedition that could be explored is the way in which Lewis and Clark thought about the various components of the ecological balance. Especially interesting is the place occupied by the Native Americans in their analytic framework. Students might be asked to examine the sources for hints of the expedition's perspective on the Indians as the human component in the West's ecology. Students could consider the evidence that humans were viewed as simply one aspect of the environment then under observation. At the same time, an examination of Sacajawea's role in the expedition might illuminate the role of Native Americans in the ultimate success of Lewis and Clark's explorations.While knowledge of the natural resources and physical characteristics of the Northwest were clearly an important priority for Jefferson, it would be naive to assume that more pragmatic considerations were not operating in the effort to explore the limits of the continent. The report of Meriwether Lewis will return students to the world of economic, political, and diplomatic competition in the context of an explosive international struggle for power. Students might be encouraged to compare the Lewis report with Jefferson's instructions and his message to Congress in order to extract the practical political meaning of the expedition from the documents.The exercise might conclude with an analysis of the expedition's significance for the future. Students should be able to see how the new data and knowledge at the disposal of the government would affect economic and political developments in years to come. Students might think about the choices Lewis made in drafting this first brief report to the president and the long-term implications of the points he stressed.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 8-3


John L. Allen. Passage Through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest (1975).

Paul Russell Cutright. History of the Lewis and Clark Journals (1976).

------. Lewis and Clark: Pioneer Naturalists (1969).

David Freeman Hawke. Those Tremendous Mountains: The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1980).

Donald Jackson. Thomas Jefferson and the Stony Mountains: Exploring the West from Monticello (1979).

Gary Moulton. Lewis and Clark and the Route to the Pacific (1991).

James Ronda. Astoria and Empire (1990).

------. Lewis and Clark Among the Indians (1984).

Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson. Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson 1990).

William F. Willingham and Leonoor Swets Ingraham, eds. Enlightenment Science in the Pacific Northwest: The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1984).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 8-3


The Journals of Lewis and Clark (videotape--20 min.). NBC, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10020.

Lewis and Clark (film--50 min.). IQ Films, P.O. Box 326, Wappingers Falls, N.Y. 12590.

Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery (videotape, two parts--240 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

The Romantic Horizon (videotape--52 min.). Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box 2053, Princeton, N.J. 08543-2053.

Sacajawea (videotape--24 min.). Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box 2053, Princeton, N.J. 08543-2053.