The political career of Burr was now closed. When he again met the Senate face to face, he had been dropped by his own party in favor of George Clinton, to whom he surrendered the Vice-Presidency on March 5, 1805. His farewell address is described as one of the most affecting ever spoken in the Senate. Describing the scene to his daughter, Burr said that tears flowed abundantly, but Burr must have described what he wished to see. American politicians are not Homeric heroes, who weep on slight provocation; and any inclination to pity Burr must have been inhibited by the knowledge that he had made himself the rallying-point of every dubious intrigue at the capital.
The list of Burr's intimates included Jonathan Dayton, whose term as Senator had just ended, and who, like Burr, sought means of promoting his fortunes, John Smith, Senator from Ohio, the notorious Swartwouts of New York who were attached to Burr as gangsters to their chief, and General James Wilkinson, governor of the northern territory carved out of Louisiana and commander of the western army with headquarters at St. Louis.
Wilkinson had a long record of duplicity, which was suspected but never proved by his contemporaries. There was hardly a dubious episode from the Revolution to this date with which he had not been connected. He was implicated in the Conway cabal against Washington; he was active in the separatist movement in Kentucky during the Confederation; he entered into an irregular commercial agreement with the Spanish authorities at New Orleans; he was suspected--and rightly, as documents recently unearthed in Spain prove--of having taken an oath of allegiance to Spain and of being in the pay of Spain; he was also suspected--and justly--of using his influence to bring about a separation of the Western States from the Union; yet in 1791 he was given a lieutenant-colonel's commission in the regular army and served under St. Clair in the Northwest, and again as a brigadier-general under Wayne. Even here the atmosphere of intrigue enveloped him, and he was accused of inciting discontent among the Kentucky troops and of trying to supplant Wayne. When commissioners were trying to run the Southern boundary in accordance with the treaty of 1795 with Spain, Wilkinson--still a pensioner of Spain, as documents prove--attempted to delay the survey. In the light of these revelations, Wilkinson appears as an unscrupulous adventurer whose thirst for lucre made him willing to betray either master--the Spaniard who pensioned him or the American who gave him his command.