correct, then no overt act of levying war,
either within the jurisdiction of the Court or stated in the indictment,
had been, or could be, shown against Burr. Hence the taking of
evidence--if not the cause itself, indeed--should be discontinued.

The legal question raised by this argument was the comparatively simple
one whether the constitutional provision regarding treason was to be
interpreted in the light of the Common Law doctrine that "in treason
all are principals." For if it were to be so interpreted and if Burr's
connection with the general conspiracy culminating in the assemblage was
demonstrable by any sort of legal evidence, then the assemblage was
his act, his overt act, proved moreover by thrice the two witnesses
constitutionally required! Again it fell to Wirt to represent the
prosecution, and he discharged his task most brilliantly. He showed
beyond peradventure that the Common Law doctrine was grounded upon
unshakable authority; that, considering the fact that the entire
phraseology of the constitutional clause regarding treason comes from
an English statute of Edward III's time, it was reasonable, if not
indispensable, to construe it in the light of the Common Law; and that,
certainly as to a procurer of treason, such as Burr was charged with
being, the Common Law doctrine was the only just doctrine, being merely
a reaffirmation of the even more ancient principle that "what one does
through another, he does himself."

In elaboration of this last point Wirt launched forth upon that famous
passage in which he contrasted Burr and the pathetic victim of his
conspiracy:

"Who [he asked] is Blennerhassett? A native of Ireland, a man of
letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in
ours.... Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio he rears
upon it a palace and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of
fancy. [Then] in the midst of all this peace, this innocent simplicity,
this pure banquet of the heart, the destroyer comes... to change this
paradise into a hell .... By degrees he infuses [into the heart of
Blennerhassett] the poison of his own ambition.... In a short time
the whole man is changed, and every object of his former delight is
relinquished .... His books are abandoned.... His enchanted island is
destined soon to relapse into a wilderness; and in a few months we find
the beautiful and tender partner of his bosom, whom he lately 'permitted
not the winds