it's called the bastrop tract. much of american land development in that era was, essentially, a cascading series of frauds. people sold land they didn't own, they sold land they'd never seen, they resold it, they mortgaged it, they sold it without -- it was a scandal that happened over and over. and the bastrop tract is a great example of that. i detail it in the book, i won't do it to you tonight. burr, for a song, acquired a flimsy interest in the bastrop tract and said he would lead a settlement of that. i don't think aaron burr ever meant to live in this particular then-rather-remote part of the country. its only virtue was that it was close to the spanish border which perhaps one could provoke a war. now, all of these different plans that he unspools for his conversational partners occur under the backdrop of this expectation that the west shall secede. and the historians who do express an opinion -- not all of them say, they can't figure it out -- some say burr was a complete traitor, he meant to lead a sece

he was just going to settle the bastrop tract. my view is, that aaron burr meant all of the things that he said. he really wasn't sure exactly what he could get away with. what would be possible. i think he meant to organize this expedition to lead these men down there and just see what could happen. and i found myself trying to piece it together thinking and i end up with cinematic images unfortunately no doubt that many of you will note that marlon brando is a leader at the motorcycle gang that takes over a small california town and they terrorize the town. halfway through this sweet young thing says to brando, what are you rebelling against? and he says, what have you got? and i think that captures a bit bid where burr was at that moment. he was looking to make something happen. it was audacious, it was outrageous. i don't want to dismiss it though as frivolous. i think some people do. he had such a fire of ambition inside of him which was not seen because he was such a research fellow, but his behavior shows it. his career had