Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr
3rd Vice-President of the United States
Term of office March 4, 1801 - March 4, 1805
Political party	Democratic-Republican
President	Thomas Jefferson
Preceded by	Thomas Jefferson
Succeeded by	George Clinton
Born	February 6, 1756 Newark, New Jersey
Died	September 14, 1836 Staten Island, New York
Spouse	Theodosia Bartow Prevost Eliza Bowen Jemel

Aaron Burr (1756 - 1836) was a leader of the Democratic-Republican Party in New York, and its vice presidential candidate in 1796 and 1800. He was elected in 1800, but ruined his reputation by killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Burr then plotted an elaborate scheme to create a new country around New Orleans (and breaking off the region from the U.S.). Tried for treason, he was acquitted on a technicality.

Career

Burr was born in Neubik, New Jersey to Reverend Aaron Burr Sr. who was a Presbyterian minister and the second President of the College of New Jersey which is now Princeton University. His mother, Esther Edwards, was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, the famous Calvinist theologian. Aaron and his sister, Sally, were left orphans when Aaron was 2 years old and Sally was 4 years old, following the deaths of their parents and both maternal grandparents who died of Yellow Fever. Aaron did not respond well to his austere uncle, Timothy Edwards, several times running away from home and attempting to go to sea. He entered the Sophomore class at Princeton at the age of 13 and graduated with distinction at 16 in 1772. He received BA in theology but changed his career path two years later and began study of law in the celebrated law school conducted by his brother-in-law, Tapping Reeve, at Litchfield, Conn.

1775 he joined the American army that was besieging Boston. Appointed a captain, he served on Benedict Arnold's staff during the Quebec campaign of 1775-1776. In 1776 Burr served briefly on Washington's staff with the rank of major. He saw combat during the Battle of Long Island and, in July 1777, was commissioned lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army and given the command of a regiment. Following the campaign of 1778, which culminated in the Battle of Monmouth, and a winter conducting patrol activity, he resigned his commission because of ill health..

Burr was admitted to the bar in New York in 1782. As a practicing attorney he vied with arch-rival Alexander Hamilton for the status as the city's most prominent lawyer. His income was large, but he was a poor manager of it and repeatedly attempted various speculative schemes to cover his debts.

Politics

Burr became the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party in New York, and built a formidable political machine in opposition to the Federalist Party that Hamilton ran. The party nominated him as Vice president in 1796 and 1800.

In the 1800 election, Burr received the same number of electoral votes as did Jefferson, and refused to concede the presidential race to Jefferson, thus forcing the election into the House of Representatives. While Burr's refusal to concede may have been in part due to the Constitution not clearly saying whether he would become vice president or have to drop out of the race completely (meaning third-placed John Adams would have become vice president instead), Burr's own lust for power and glory has generally been regarded by historians as the reason why he tried to snatch the presidency away from Jefferson. It was due to Alexander Hamilton's opposition that Jefferson became president and Burr vice-president. Burr served as the vice president of Thomas Jefferson from 1801 to 1805.

Duel with Hamilton

Burr lost the 1804 election for governor of New York again due in part to Hamilton's opposition. Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Although still quite common, dueling had been outlawed in New York and also New Jersey, but Hamilton and Burr were not citizens of New Jersey, so on July 11, 1804, the enemies met outside of Weehawken, New Jersey, and Hamilton was fatally shot. There has been some controversy as to the claims of Burr's and Hamilton's seconds; while one party indicated Hamilton never fired, the other claims a 3 to 4 second interval between the first shot and the second shot. Hamilton's shot missed Burr, going over his head. Hamilton's belief was that a Christian gentlemen fires over his target so that honor is served, but no one is hurt. He taught this to his son who had died in a duel not long before when his opponent did not feel the same. Burr didn't feel the same way either. His shot was fatal. The bullet entered Hamilton's abdomen above his right hip, piercing Hamilton's liver and spine. Burr was later charged with multiple crimes, including murder, in New York and New Jersey, but was never tried in either jurisdiction. He fled to South Carolina, where his daughter lived with her family, but soon returned to Washington to complete his term as Vice President.

As presiding officer of the Senate, he presided over the impeachment trial of Samuel Chase. It was written by one Senator that Burr had conducted the proceedings with the "impartiality of an angel and the rigor of a devil" Burr's heartfelt farewell in March 1805 moved some of his harshest critics in the Senate to tears.

Western Conspiracy

In 1804-5 Burr began the conspiracy for which he is most widely known. In company with Army General James Wilkinson, an old-time friend and the commander of U.S. forces in the Southwest and governor of the Louisiana Territory, Burr envisioned the separation of the western part of the United States, the seizure of the Spanish territory in Texas, California, and Mexico, and the uniting of these areas into a new nation with Burr as its head. The plot depended for its success on disaffected elements in the West and particularly in New Orleans where the French were thought to be discontent with the Jefferson administration. Burr sought --but failed to receive--the cooperation of Britain through her ambassador, and of Spanish officials--although he was counting upon the outbreak of war between the United States and Spain to create a situation in which his plans could operate.

Burr's scheme was far too elaborate and underfunded. Burr told too many different versions of his plan to too many people; hence the plot was never fully organized and rumors spread. In August 1806, Burr set out for the Kentucky frontier where a band of 60 men had gathered to sail down the Mississippi River and stir the French Creoles to revolt, the first step in the plan. Wilkinson, in charge of the govenrment at New Orleans, realized that the venture was hopeless. Hence, he turned on Burr in order to keep his own involvement a secret, and reported the plot to Washington. In January 1807 Burr was arrested by Wilkinson, and in May he was put on trial for treason before Chief Justice John Marshall in the U.S. Circuit Court sitting at Richmond, Virginia. Jefferson was determined to hang Burr, but he was found not guilty on the grounds that he had by no overt act levied war upon the United States.

Later life

His position in America ruined but his ambitions still ablaze, Burr in 1808 went to Europe. He still dreamed of a new nation in the Southwest, however, and in Britain , and later in Napoleonic France, he pushed his project. The two nations were at war and neither would deal with with this powerless failure. The French foreign office realized that "he could not be employed without giving great offense to the United States." In May 1812 he returned to New York and slowly rebuilt his law practice.

Burr in 1782 married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, the widow of a former British officer. She died in 1794, and the one child of this union, Theodosia, was Burr's closest companion up to her death at sea in December 1812. Until July 1833, Burr lived alone. Then, at age 77, he remarried, but she sued for divorce a year later.

Values

Burr was an opportunity and gambler. In terms of the duel Hamilton believed he was performing a public service by accepting Burr's challenge. Burr thought the duel would make amends for the humiliation of his defeat in the New York gubernatorial race of 1804. Both men, having faced charges involving personal character, felt the need to prove themselves as men of honor. But Burr had a deeper problem.

Burr's private letters differs markedly from that of other leaders of the American Revolution and reflect Burr's different worldview. Unlike fellow Revolutionary statesmen who endorsed republicanism and celebrated virtue and enlightened values as their claim to natural aristocracy, Burr esteemed traditional aristocratic values and believed it only proper to use his public office to maintain his position in society and to make money. His correspondence is secretive, and deals primarily with schemes to promote his friends and his business interests. He never wrote about constitutionalism or government policy like his contemporaries. After the Revolution, rival politicians such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson united against Burr because his behavior threatened republican ideals and made him a traitor to the new American elite.

Bibliography

• Freeman, Joanne B. "Dueling as Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-Hamilton Duel," William and Mary Quarterly 1996 53(2): 289-318. in Jstor
• Hoffer, Peter Charles. The Treason Trials of Aaron Burr. (2008). 224 pages.
• Kennedy, Roger G. Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character. (2000). 476 pp.
• Lomask, Milton. Burr (2 vol 1979)
• Melton, Buckner F., Jr. Aaron Burr: Conspiracy to Treason. (2002). 278 pp. online edition
• Parmet, Herbert S. and Marie B. Hecht. Aaron Burr; Portrait of an Ambitious Man (1967) online edition

Primary sources

• Burr, Aaron. Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr. ed. by Mary-Jo Kline, 2 vol. (1983). 1311 pp.