|
Aaron Burr, Jr. (February 6, 1756 – September 14, 1836) was an American politician and adventurer. He was a formative member of the Democratic-Republican Party in New York and a strong supporter of Governor George Clinton. He is remembered not so much for his tenure as the third Vice President, under Thomas Jefferson, as for his duel with Alexander Hamilton, resulting in Hamilton's death. He is also known for his trial and acquittal on charges of treason.
Burr was born in Newark, New Jersey, to the Rev. Aaron Burr, Sr., who was a Presbyterian minister and the second president of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University; his mother, Esther Edwards, was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, the famous Calvinist theologian. He originally studied theology at Princeton University, but abandoned it two years later and began the study of law in the celebrated law school conducted by his brother-in-law, Tapping Reeve, at Litchfield, Connecticut. His studies were put on hold while he served during the Revolutionary War, under Gens. Benedict Arnold, George Washington, and Israel Putnam.
During the American War of Independence (or American Revolutionary War), Aaron Burr accompanied General Benedict Arnold's expedition into Canada in 1775, an arduous trek of over 500 miles in winter. Upon arriving before the Battle of Quebec, Burr was sent up the St. Lawrence River to make contact with General Richard Montgomery, who had taken Montreal, and escort him to Quebec.
Montgomery liked the lad, and promoted Burr to Captain and added him to his staff as an aide-de-camp. According to the Reverend Samuel Spring, a classmate of Burr's at Princeton University who was present at the battle reported that, after Montgomery was killed and the advance party thrown into confusion, Burr single-handedly gathered some of the soldiers and began an attack on the British lines. Overwhelmed by cannon fire, Burr and his men were forced to retreat. Burr carried the body of Montgomery a short distance before retreating from the field.
His courage made him a national hero and earned him a place on Washington's staff in Manhattan, but he quit after two weeks because he wanted to return to the field. Never hesitant to voice his opinions, Burr may have set Washington against him (however, rumors that Washington distrusted Burr have never been substantiated). General Israel Putnam took Burr under his wing, and by his vigilance in the retreat from lower Manhattan to Harlem, Burr saved an entire brigade from capture.
Alexander Hamilton was an officer of this group. In a stark departure from common practice, Washington failed to commend Burr's actions in the next day's General Orders (virtually the only way to obtain a promotion in rank in those days). Although Burr was already a nationally-known hero, he never received a commendation. According to Burr's stepbrother Matthew Ogden, Burr was infuriated by the incident, which may have led to the eventual estrangement between him and Washington. (Source: "Burr," Lomask, '82 and Shachner, "Aaron Burr," '37).
On becoming Lieutenant Colonel in July 1777, Burr assumed the command of a regiment called the "Malcoms". During the harsh winter encampment at Valley Forge, he guarded the "Gulph," a pass commanding the approach to the camp, and necessarily the first point that would be attacked.
On June 28, 1778 at the Battle of Monmouth, his regiment was decimated by British artillery, and Burr suffered a stroke in the terrible heat from which he would never quite recover. In January 1779, Burr was assigned to the command of the lines of Westchester County, a region between the British post at Kingsbridge and that of the Americans about 15 miles to the north. In this district there was much turbulence and plundering by the lawless elements of both Whigs and Tories, and by bands of ill-disciplined soldiers from both armies. Burr established a thorough patrol system, rigorously enforced martial law, and quickly restored order.
He resigned from the Continental Army in March 1779 on account of ill health, renewing his study of law. Burr did continue to perform occasional intelligence missions for Continental generals such as Arthur St. Clair and on July 5, 1779 he rallied a group of Yale students at New Haven along with Capt. James Hillhouse and the Second Connecticut Governors Foot Guard in a skirmish with the British at the West River. The British advance was repulsed, having to enter New Haven from Hamden.
Despite this brief interlude, Burr was able to finish his studies and was admitted to the bar at Albany in 1782. He began to practice in New York City after its evacuation by the British in the following year.
Marriage
That same year, Burr married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, the widow of a British army officer who had died in the West Indies during the Revolutionary War. They had one child, a daughter, Theodosia Burr Alston. Born in 1783, she became widely known for her education and accomplishments. She married Joseph Alston of South Carolina in 1801, and died either due to piracy or in a shipwreck off the Carolinas in the winter of 1812 or early 1813. Aaron Burr and his first wife were married for twelve years, until her death from cancer.
In 1833, at age 77, Burr married again, this time to Eliza Bowen Jumel, the extremely wealthy widow of Stephen Jumel. When she realized her fortune was dwindling from her husband's land speculation, they separated after only four months. During the month of their first anniversary, she sued for divorce, citing infidelity, and it was granted on the day of Burr's death. Those papers were served to Burr on his deathbed by Alexander Hamilton's elder son, whose father was killed by Burr in a famous duel, an irony which was surely not lost on the younger Hamilton.
Legal and early political career
Burr served in the New York State Assembly from 1784 to 1785, but became seriously involved in politics in 1789, when George Clinton appointed him New York State Attorney General. He was commissioner of Revolutionary War claims in 1791, and that same year he defeated a favored candidate, General Philip Schuyler -- for a seat in the United States Senate, and served in the upper house until 1797.
While Burr and Jefferson served during the Washington administration, the Federal Government was resident in Philadelphia. They both roomed for a time at the boarding house of a Mrs. Payne. Her daughter Dolley, an attractive young widow, was introduced by Burr to James Madison, whom she subsequently married.
Although Hamilton and Burr had long been on good personal terms, often dining with one another, Burr's defeat of General Schuyler, Hamilton's father-in-law, marks the beginning of their personal quarrel. Nevertheless, their relationship took a decade to reach a status of enmity.
As a U.S. Senator, Burr was not a favorite in President George Washington's eyes. He sought to write an official Revolutionary history, but Washington blocked his access to the archives, possibly because the former colonel had been a noted critic of his leadership, and because he regarded Burr as a schemer. Washington also passed over Burr for the ministry to France. After being appointed commanding general of American forces by President John Adams in 1798, Washington turned down Burr's application for a brigadier general's commission during the Quasi-War with France. Washington wrote, "By all that I have known and heard, Colonel Burr is a brave and able officer, but the question is whether he has not equal talents at intrigue." It is significant to remember that, Hamilton, who by then despised Burr, still had Washington's ear. At an earlier point in time, Burr had told Hamilton that "he despised Washington as a man of no talents and one who could not spell a sentence of common English." However, Washington's wartime strategies may have colored Burr's opinion of the General. (Sources:Schachner; Lomask.)
Bored with the inactivity of the new U.S. Senate, Burr ran for and was elected to the New York state legislature, serving from 1798 through 1801. During John Adams's term as President, national parties became clearly defined. Burr loosely associated himself with the Democratic-Republicans, though he had moderate Federalist allies, such as Sen. Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey. Burr quickly became a key player in New York politics, more powerful in time than Hamilton, largely because of the Tammany Society, later to become the infamous Tammany Hall, which Burr converted from a social club into a political machine to help Jefferson reach the Presidency. In 1796, Jefferson chose Burr as his vice-presidential running mate, but they lost to John Adams. In 1799 Jefferson and Madison requested Burr's help for a second run for the Presidency in 1800. Of the 16 states' electoral votes, only seven states were for the Jeffersonians, but Federalist New York had an electoral vote coming up before the election. Burr fielded a slate for Jefferson (Hamilton fielded the other for the Federalists) and won. This led to ultimate victory for Jefferson and drove another wedge between Hamilton and Burr. Burr became Vice President.
During the French Revolution, French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, in need of sanctuary to escape the Terror, stayed in Burr's home in New York City. Talleyrand, a cunning and devious master of political intrique, had survived King Louis XVI's reign and execution, the Reign Of Terror, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the next government in France. When Burr, after the Hamilton duel and treason trial, traveled Europe in an attempt to recoup his fortunes, Talleyrand refused him entrance into France. This is because Talleyrand had spent much more time at Hamilton's than he had at Burr's and had been an ardent admirer of Alexander Hamilton. He had even once written: "I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton, the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton. He had divined Europe."
Vice Presidency
Because of his influence in New York city and the New York legislature, Burr was asked by Jefferson and Madison to help the Jeffersonians in the election of 1800. Burr sponsored a bill creating the "Manhattan Water Company" through the New York Assembly, creating the money needed for Jefferson's campaign. Burr had cleverly added a paragraph to the Water Company amendment giving it the right to buy and sell stock, and waited until the afternoon of the last day of the Assembly's session to present the bill. Oblivious of the implications of the paragraph, and anxious to get home for the break, many Federalists helped pass it-a credit to Burr's ingenuity. Another crucial move was Burr's success in getting his slate of New York City and nearby Electors to win over the Federalist slate, which was chosen and backed by Alexander Hamilton, who lost. A good strategist, Burr chose a slate of respected and well-known citizens - like lawyers, judges, doctors--some former officers of the Revolutionary War. Hamilton, evidently misreading the commoner's mind, choose a slate of mostly working-class people. Burr figured (evidently correctly) that an ordinary man would more likely vote for an admirable, well-known figure, rather than a "plain" person like himself. This event drove a further wedge between the former friends. Burr is known as the Father of modern political campaigning. He enlisted the help of members of Tammany Hall, a social club, and sent people into every ward in the city, petitioning votes. On election day, he provided transportation to the polls for many voters, and won the day. Burr was then placed on the Democratic-Republican presidential ticket in the 1800 election with Jefferson. At the time, state legislatures chose the members of the U.S. Electoral College, and New York was crucial to Jefferson. Though Jefferson did win New York, he and Burr tied for the presidency with 73 electoral votes each.
It was well understood that the party intended that Jefferson should be President and Burr Vice President but the responsibility for the final choice was that of the House of Representatives. The attempts of a powerful faction among the Federalists to secure the election of Burr failed, partly because of the opposition of Alexander Hamilton and partly because Burr himself did little to obtain votes in his own favor. He wrote to Jefferson underscoring his promise to be Vice-President, and during the voting stalemate in the Congress wrote again that he would give it up entirely if Jefferson so demanded. Ultimately, the election devolved to the point where it took thirty-six ballots before James A. Bayard, a Delaware Federalist, submitted a blank vote. Federalist abstentions in the Vermont and Maryland delegations led to Jefferson's election as President, and Burr’s moderate Federalist supporters conceded his defeat.
Upon confirmation of Jefferson’s election, Burr became Vice President of the United States , but despite his letters and his shunning of any political activity during the balloting (he never left Albany) he lost the trust of Jefferson after that, and was effectively shut out of party matters. Some Historians conjecture that the reason for this was Burr's casual regard for politics (He has been quoted as saying that politics were "... for fun, honor, and profit.") They also think that he didn't act aggressively enough during the election tie. Jefferson was tight-lipped in private about Burr, so his reasons are still not entirely clear. However, Burr's even-handed fairness and his judicial manner as President of the Senate was praised even by his bitterest enemies, and he fostered some time-honored traditions in regard to that office. His final address in the Senate led several of the members to weep, and some who disliked him to change their views.
[edit]
The Duel
Alexander Hamilton fights his fatal duel with Vice President Aaron Burr.
Main article: Hamilton-Burr duel
When it became clear that Jefferson would drop Burr from his ticket in the 1804 election, the Vice President ran for the governorship of New York instead. Burr lost the election, and blamed his loss on a personal smear campaign believed to have been orchestrated by his own party rivals, including New York political boss George Clinton. Hamilton also opposed Burr, due to his belief (still controversial) that Burr had entertained a Federalist secession movement in New York. But Hamilton exceeded himself at one political dinner, where he said that he could express a "still more despicable opinion" of Burr. (That Burr and his daughter "might" have had an incestuous relationship is attributed to the modern novelist, Gore Vidal.) After a letter regarding the incident written by Dr. Charles D. Cooper circulated in a local newspaper, Burr sought an explanation from Hamilton.
Hamilton had written so many letters, and made so many private tirades against Burr, that he could not reliably comment on Cooper's vaguely-worded statement. Burr demanded that Hamilton recant or deny everything he had ever said regarding Burr’s character, but Hamilton, having already been disgraced by the Maria Reynolds scandal and forever mindful of his own reputation and honor, did not. Burr responded by challenging Hamilton to personal combat under the code duello, the formalized but largely antiquated rules of dueling. Both men had been involved in duels in the past (for Hamilton 21, for Burr 1), but Hamilton had particular qualms because his beloved son, Philip, had rashly entered into a fatal duel in 1802. The two would use the same pistols owned by Hamilton's brother-in-law, which are now preserved by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Although still quite common, dueling had been outlawed in New York and also New Jersey, but Hamilton and Burr were not citizens of those states so on July 11, 1804, the enemies met outside of Weehawken, New Jersey. Van Ness and Pendleton, Burr and Hamilton's Seconds, agreed that the men shot almost simultaneously - so who shot first was never known. Hamilton's shot missed Burr, hitting a tree branch above his head; but Burr's shot was fatal. The bullet entered Hamilton's abdomen above his right hip, piercing Hamilton's liver and spine. Hamilton was evacuated to Manhattan where he lay in the house of a friend, receiving visitors until he died the following day. Years later, told that Hamilton secretly intended to avert his fire during the duel, Burr, the man of few words responded: "Contemptible, if true." This because the dueling code included explicit instructions for throwing away one's fire. Burr was later charged with multiple crimes, including murder, in New York and New Jersey, but was never tried in either jurisdiction. He escaped to South Carolina, where his daughter lived with her family, but soon returned to Washington, D.C. to complete his term of service as Vice President. As leader of the Senate, he presided over the Samuel Chase impeachment trial with the "impartiality of an angel and the rigor of a devil." Burr's heartfelt farewell speech [1] in March 1805 moved some of his harshest critics in the Senate to tears.
Conspiracy and trial
Main article: Burr conspiracy
After the expiration of his term as Vice President on March 4, 1805, broken in fortune and virtually an exile from New York and New Jersey, Burr fled to Philadelphia. There he met Jonathan Dayton, a friend and classmate of Princeton, with whom he is alleged to have formed a conspiracy, the goal of which is still somewhat unclear. His detractors said (and some still do) that the plan may have been for Burr to make a massive new nation in the west, forged from conquered provinces of Mexico and territory west of the Appalachian Mountains. Burr was to have been the leader of this Southwestern republic. Burr's detractors claim that it was his dream to create a Latin American empire that could control much of the farms and commerce of North America, and that had he succeeded, the United States could have fallen into a full-scale civil war.
This was a crucial time in American expansion westward. Spain held the Mexican territories, including the Southwest and California. Mexico was agitating for rebellion, and, if war broke out, the U.S. Government was anticipating seizing some or all of the land for itself.
Burr and his friends always fiercely denied any treasonable plans to overthrow the U.S. Government by force. The Louisiana Purchase (which, according to the conspirators, was never included in their plans) at the time was up for the taking, legally, because it was not yet declared a Territory of or in the United States by Congress. Many French, Spanish, Indians and Americans who were unhappy with taxes and the government lived there. (A short time later Jefferson, who realized that if the territory turned into industrialized States his idea of an agrarian Democracy would be threatened, suggested that maybe the territory's separation wouldn't be a bad idea.) Burr had leased 40,000 acres of land in the Texas part of Mexico, in the "Bastrop" lands from the Spanish government. His "conspiracy," he always avowed, was that if he settled there with a large group of (armed) "farmers" and war broke out, he would have an army with which to fight and claim land for himself, thus recouping his fortunes. The war, however didn't occur until 1836, the year of Burr's death.
In 1805, General James Wilkinson, who was secretly in the pay of the Kingdom of Spain, had his own reasons for aiding the so-called Burr conspiracy. As territorial governor of Louisiana, he could have seized power for himself, as he had attempted in earlier plots in Kentucky. Burr enlisted Wilkinson and others to his plan in a reconnaissance mission to the West in April 1805.
Another member of the Burr conspiracy was the Anglo-Irish aristocrat Harman Blennerhassett. After marrying his niece, Blennerhassett had been forced out of Ireland. He came to live as a quasi-feudal lord, owning an island now bearing his name on the Ohio River. Highly educated, Blennerhassett maintained a scientific laboratory and an impressive villa on the island. It was there that he met Burr and agreed to help finance the ambitions of Burr's group.
Burr anticipated a war with Spain, a distinct possibility had someone other than Wilkinson commanded U.S. troops on the Louisiana border. In case of a war declaration, Andrew Jackson stood ready to help Colonel Burr, who had already purchased the land shares in Texas. His expedition of perhaps eighty men carried modest arms for hunting, and no war materiel ever came to light, even when Blennerhassett Island was seized by Ohio militia.
After a near-incident with Spanish forces at Natchitoches, Wilkinson decided he could best serve his conflicting interests by betraying Burr's plans to President Jefferson — and his Spanish paymasters. Jefferson's passivity throughout most of 1806 remains baffling to this day, but he finally issued a proclamation for Burr's arrest. Burr read this in a newspaper in the Orleans Territory on January 10, 1807. Jefferson's warrant put Federal agents on his trail. He turned himself in to the Federal authorities, but soon jumped bail and fled for Spanish Florida; he was intercepted in Alabama on February 19, 1807 and confined to Fort Stoddart.
Burr was treated well at Fort Stoddart. For example, in the evening of February 20, 1807, Burr appeared at the dinner table, and was introduced to the wife of the commandant, who was the daughter of the man responsible for the legal arrest of Burr, Judge Harry Toulmin.[2] In the evening, Burr played chess with her and, during his confinement at the fort, was often her competitor in that intricate game.[3]
Burr's secret correspondence with Anthony Merry and the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, the British and Spanish ministers at Washington, was eventually revealed. It had been, it would seem, to secure money and to conceal his real designs, which were probably to overthrow Spanish power in the Southwest, and perhaps to found an imperial dynasty in Mexico. This seems to have been a misdemeanor, based on the Neutrality Act passed to block filibuster expeditions like those questionable enterprises of George Rogers Clark and William Blount. But Jefferson sought the highest charges against his former lieutenant, even though his informant Wilkinson was notoriously corrupt. It seems that both Jefferson and Burr gravely misjudged Wilkinson's character - Jefferson had personally put him in charge of the Army at New Orleans.
In 1807, on a charge of treason, Burr was brought to trial before the United States circuit court at Richmond, Virginia. His defense lawyers were John Wickham and Luther Martin. Burr was arraigned four times for treason before a grand jury; the fourth time, on May 22, sufficient evidence was found to indict him. This is surprising, because the only physical evidence presented to the Grand Jury was Wilkinson's so-called letter from Burr, proposing stealing U.S. territory. During the Jury's examination, it was discovered that the letter was in Wilkinson's own handwriting - a "copy," he said, because he had "lost" the original. The Grand Jury threw the letter out, and the news made a laughingstock of the General for the rest of the proceedings. The trial, presided over by Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall, began on August 3.
Article 3, Section 3 of the United States Constitution requires that treason either be admitted in open court, or proved by an overt act witnessed by two people. Since no two witnesses came forward, Burr was acquitted on September 1, in spite of the fact that the full force of the political influence of the Jefferson administration had been thrown against him. Immediately afterward, he was tried on a more appropriate misdemeanor charge, but was again acquitted on a technicality.
Later life
By this point all of Burr's hopes for a political comeback had been dashed, and he fled America and his creditors for Europe, where he tried to regain his fortunes. He lived abroad from 1808 to 1812, passing most of his time in England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden and France. Ever hopeful, he solicited funding for renewing his plans for Mexico, but was rebuffed. He was ordered out of England and Napoleon Bonaparte refused to receive him -- although one of his ministers held an interview concerning Burr's aims for Spanish Florida or British possessions in the Caribbean.pp
Death
Burr returned quietly to New York in 1812, broke and in disguise to avoid creditors. His 10-year old grandson, Aaron Burr III, died of fever in South Carolina, and Burr invited his daughter to visit him in the city. The ship she had been traveling on from South Carolina was lost at sea (either due to piracy or shipwreck), along with all of Burr's important papers, including a work on the Revolutionary War. Burr lived in New York as a moderately successful attorney, where young law students clamored to clerk for him. His reputation as a successful trial lawyer is still quite substantial. He died in a Port Richmond, Staten Island, New York hotel in 1836, at age 80. He had maintained an interest in Western expansion until his death, and lived to see the Texas Revolution. He noted with pleasure: "What was treason in me thirty years ago, is patriotism now." Burr was buried in Princeton Cemetery.
Character and miscellany
According to his detractors, Burr could be unscrupulous, insincere, devious and amoral. In fact, towards his friends, he was pleasing in his manners and generous to a fault. Although he proved irresistible to many women, few historians doubt Burr's devotion to his first wife and daughter, while they lived. He was profligate in his personal finances, and gave lip service to abolitionism even though he owned slaves. John Quincy Adams said after the former Vice President's death, "Burr's life, take it all together, was such as in any country of sound morals his friends would be desirous of burying in quiet oblivion." This was his own opinion: his father, (President) John Adams, was an admirer and frequent defender of Burr, as were many other prominent Americans of the time, despite the duel and the treason trial.
A two-volume biography, Burr, Milton Lomask, (1980-82) uses recently uncovered documents and letters (including some European evidence) that go a long way to rehabilitating Burr and demolishing many of the stories that have been spun concerning his life.
Burr founded the Bank of the Manhattan Company in 1799, which in later years evolved into the Hanover Trust Bank.
After returning from Europe, Burr used the surname "Edwards" for a while to avoid creditors. It was his mother's maiden name.
Edward Everett Hale's 1863 story The Man Without a Country is about a fictional coconspirator of Burr's, who is exiled for his crimes.
Burr by Gore Vidal is his biographical take on the man.
In the magazine The National Review, it is written that the U.S. Senator Richard Burr is Burr's brother's direct descendant. This is not possible as Aaron Burr had no brother. He did have a sister, Sally, who married a scholar named Tapping Reeve. They did have a son together, named Aaron Burr Reeve.[4]
One of Burr's homes, the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Manhattan, is now open to the public.
References
Full text of Memoirs of Aaron Burr from Project Gutenberg: Vol. 1, Vol. 2
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Milton Lomask"s two-volume biography, "Burr," 1979, Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Further reading
Adams, Henry, History of the United States, vol. iii. New York, 1890. (For the traditional view of Burr's conspiracy.)
Chaitkin, Anton, "Treason in America: From Aaron Burr to Averell Harriman", Washington DC, 1998.
Harris, Thomas, "Duel: Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and The Future of America". 1999. (An in depth look at these two original American personalities and politics that ultimately led to the infamous duel.)
Jenkinson, I. Aaron Burr, Richmond, Indiana, 1902.
Lomask, Milton, "Aaron Burr," 2 Vols. New York, 1979, 1983.
McCaleb, W.F., The Aaron Burr Conspiracy, New York, 1903.
Parton, James, The Life and Times of Aaron Burr, Boston and New York, 1898. (2 vols.)
Schachner, Nathan, "Aaron Burr, A Biography," New York, 1937.
Vidal, Gore, "Burr". New York. (For a slightly fictionalized view of Burr's life during and after the American Revolution)
Courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Burr
|
