(Contains one reference to dysfunctional modern politics, only to the extent of some weird historical parallels.)
If the Senate is to hold a trial, Aaron thinks, it ought to be an appropriately dignified occasion. Then again, Caesar was assassinated on the Senate floor.
Despite the pomp and circumstance, the United States senators are hardly setting a high standard for an august deliberative body, snacking on apples and cake while a frail Samuel Chase defends himself. Both sets of lawyers make longwinded speeches, and Aaron can't help but remember another trial with a pompous, unnecessary opening statement. Our client is innocent. That's all you had to say.
Except, Alexander could never be silent. Maybe not even in death.
"Supporting Adams may have made Chase a fool," says the voice, as sharp and familiar as ever. "But it does not make him a criminal. If partisan activity makes a man unfit for office, what shall we make of your unabashed campaigning?"
Aaron tries not to give a start as he gives a glance to the spectators in the gallery. Several rows of ladies, a throng of gentlemen, and in their midst, Alexander, his eyes brilliant as ever.
No one reacts. Either they see nothing strange about a revenant returning to their midst, or they are not aware of his presence at all. It would be just like Alexander, from the harsh winters of Valley Forge to the sweltering Convention, not to realize that Aaron hangs on his every word.
A few days later, Congress pauses to count the states' votes. It is a formality, of course; Jefferson will be victorious over Pinckney, and the new Twelfth Amendment ensures that the electors will need no plans or pacts to ensure that George Clinton is named vice-president. Clinton, not Aaron. After all he has labored to advance, Jefferson casts him aside like a used rag.
But this process sparks another round of procedural asides-can they open the gallery to the public, even to ladies, for these proceedings? Or will the common people be a danger to their representatives?
"There is danger in the rule of a mob," Alexander warns. "Yes, we may have fought to throw off the yoke of a king, but an anthill with many heads may be just as venomous as the snake with one."
But again, no one seems to take note of his presence. The motion to allow spectators passes-narrowly-and they make surprisingly little disruption for someone in the presence of a ghost.
Aaron prays; perhaps this is one of those infernal visions his grandfather elaborated on so loquaciously. Except that Alexander seems past all fear and all hope, and Aaron is the one who is burning.
When the trial ends, so too does Aaron's time as the president of the Senate. For all that the Vice-Presidency has been a farce, a meaningless job to get him out of Jefferson's hair, some part of him still reveres the chambers where he once represented New York. He has no wish to share his remarks with the world, to have some newspaperman copy them down as if that might make him immortal. Alexander had believed in those kinds of legacies, and where had it gotten him? Instead, Aaron speaks directly to his colleagues. The Senate "is a sanctuary; a citadel of law, of order, and of liberty," and it is their job to defend it. Acquitting Chase was one thing; preserving the fragile republic will take much more work.
Then he leaves, the door swinging shut behind him. He will reinvent himself, he decides; thanks to Jefferson's prodigality, the burgeoning nation has plenty of room to grow. For all that the president's rhapsodies to common men who just happens to own large tracts of farmland border on the absurd, even a tone-deaf man occasionally finds the key.
"Please don't burn the notes," says Alexander. "Your colleagues are quite overcome. It would be a shame for posterity not to know what moved them so."
"What are you?" Aaron blurts. There, in the hallways of the Senate building, is the closest he has come to being alone with Alexander's ghost since the latter had died.
"What I have always been; a man concerned with the welfare of this republic. What are you?"
"A madman who speaks to ghosts," Aaron snaps.
"That is as near as you have come to honesty for some time. Know thyself, and you need not be troubled by other worlds."
Alexander departs, and Aaron burns the manuscript; if he cannot silence the man, even now, he can at least spite him. What he keeps is a newspaper summarizing the debacle. "Formerly it was the practice in courts of justice to arraign the murderer before the Judge, but now we behold the Judge arraigned before the murderer," the eager journalist writes, with the headline The World Upside Down.
Aaron acquires a houseboat to float down the Ohio River, where he can scout the western territories and begin to plan his operation. Far from the cities of the north and the farms of the south, these lands are full of hills covered in wild vines.
As always, he speaks little, letting his new acquaintances guess his intentions. A whisper here, a nudge there, and their minds conjure up images of the Spanish lands to the south; Mexico is blessed with gold, and richer still in fertile lands. Dislodge the empire, and the southern lands would be free. To join the Union? To seek independence? To be Aaron's conquest? By the time their speculation solidifies, he has drifted downstream.
He writes to Wilkinson when he can, though mail is scarce. Carefully, his ark moored on the riverbanks, he encrypts it letter by letter.
"Perhaps the pen is indeed mightier than the sword," says Alexander. "You take more care with it, at least."
Some part of Burr notes that it should be impossible for any uninvited guest to enter; they are on a boat in the middle of a river. Another part contends that gaining access cannot be any more difficult than crossing the veil between life and death.
"Do you have nothing better to be about?" he finally says. "Your widow has remained faithful to your memory. Go comfort her."
"My Eliza is indeed magnificent," Alexander says. "But her grief is only one soul's, and I daresay my current appearance may cause her more harm than good."
"Then are you here to see to my well-being?" Aaron does not mean to speak pungently-they had exchanged more than enough barbs when they both lived-but surely Alexander must realize that their situation is absurd.
"Yours?" The word is laced with scorn. Aaron cannot tell whether Alexander's contempt is deliberate-who is he, to think Alexander has returned only for his sake?-nor which answer would be less painful. "Do you think so highly of yourself? I am here because the republic is in danger from your petty, selfish, small-minded attempt at treason."
Treason. This was one of the Convention's discussions that had, mercifully, not required a day-long soliloquy on Alexander's part. The crime ought to be narrow, and require multiple witnesses, to prevent spurious accusations. Were his fantasies, and Wilkinson's, mere castles in the air? Or were they solid enough that even living men might take him to task?
We fought the war, Burr. What was it all for? Even in memory, Alexander will not address him by first name.
Aaron acts unconcerned. Like with creditors-or women-the best approach is not to let your desperation show. "If you find my actions offensive, take it up with the authorities. Unless you've established another infernal department of ghostly law enforcement."
Alexander flinches. At the offhand reminder of his death? No, he was calm at the mention of Eliza. Is he unable to warn Jefferson, or merely unwilling? "If you cannot see your folly for yourself, I doubt anything the government can do will dissuade you."
This, Aaron immediately thinks, is unfair; he has always been prudent. If prudence occasionally requires walking into situations where people will be shooting at him, well, honor and freedom do not come cheap.
"I should think it would not concern you if my stratagems lead to bloodshed," Aaron finally notes, "seeing as you are remarkably loud for a specter."
But Alexander has gone as suddenly as he arrived, and only the quiet waters of the Ohio surround him.
If the apparition is ineffective in thwarting him, the rest of the world certainly is not. Some upstart named Miranda is doing a far better job at rallying troops to dislodge the Spanish colonies; Jefferson supports the Americans who help him get a ship and a crew, at least until popular sentiment swings against them, and then he decides to enforce the Neutrality Act. And they'd called Aaron an unprincipled opportunist!
Well, so much for Jefferson. If he doesn't start a war-and goodness knows he was hungry enough to get into one when France were in revolt-Aaron will have him killed, and kidnap both the symbolic, do-nothing "president of the Senate" and the actual president pro tempore to boot. Commandeer what navy ships he can hold, and burn the rest. And while he's at it, his men ought to seize money from the central bank.
"So you see the wisdom of having one, do you?" Alexander says. "I'd be flattered, if it weren't for the utter absurdity of everything else you propose."
"You again?" Aaron sighs. "Perhaps I'll spare Jefferson's life, if the alternative is having him drop on me at all hours."
"Don't worry," says Alexander, "I hardly think you'd be able to-"
He breaks off, stricken. The only time Aaron has seen him like that was in the aftermath of the Reynolds affair, when he finally realized that talking faster than thinking was not always a winning move.
"To pull it off?" Aaron concludes. "And yet you've showed up anyway, to scold me in the hope I'll take your opinion seriously."
"By all means reconsider." Alexander's voice is stiff, even for a corpse. "If the fear of Jefferson haunting you is enough to make you repent, it can be no worse than your grandfather's sermons."
"You were never much of a liar, even when you were alive."
"Perhaps not." Alexander spreads his arms wide, in mock largesse. "But I am not too proud to admit my weaknesses in such matters."
"Then what is it you won't admit?"
"What?"
"There's something you're not saying. About Jefferson. Or something. If you're going to harass me, at least have the decency to speak plain." It is ridiculous, lecturing the man he murdered on decency, but the world has been absurd for a long time.
Alexander ponders this, as if deciding where to aim his barb, or whether to delope. "Jefferson would not haunt you," he finally says, "for the same reason he would not haunt anyone else."
"He is a materialist?"
"No one, in his administration or out, truly cares about him-cares about him intensely enough to perceive him even after his death."
Aaron blinks. "I thought he and Madison were close?"
"Very well, then," says Alexander, "perhaps they are! What of it?"
"It does not matter," Aaron supposes. "If this is to succeed, Madison's sentiments will hardly be the greatest casualty."
"No." Alexander sounds half-dismissive, half-amused, as if he's talking to a slow child. "It does not."
Aaron is not like Lafayette, who could piece together rapid-fire retorts in his second language. It takes him time to make sense of anything, especially a force of nature as multifaceted as Alexander. So it is not until after the ghost departs, again, that the impact lands.
Alexander is pulled to wherever the nation's future hangs in the balance, whether that be the chambers of the Senate or an isolated houseboat. Yet while citizens as ordinary as the lady spectators and as mighty as Jefferson cannot hear his incessant rambles, Aaron can. Some part of Aaron longs for Alexander, all the more fervidly despite his death-his murder-because reconciliation or more should be a harmless, impossible fantasy rather than a tantalizing opportunity. And Alexander knows, has known since he died if not before, and has nothing to offer Aaron in return except chiding him about democracy.
Should Aaron persist in the conspiracy, Alexander might deign to appear to him again. But should he give up, he will be spared any further humiliation. And he might-might-be a shred more worthy of Alexander's affection. It is almost enough to make a man believe in the other side.
Francisco de Miranda was a Venezuelan contemporary of Jefferson and the gang. The Chase impeachment trial was stranger than fiction, most of the details I quoted there are real rather than my own invention!