CHAPTER VII

AARON BURR

Undoubtedly some readers are already impatient at the delay in dealing with Aaron Burr. There was a time when it was the fashion to refer to Colonel Burr as sufficiently infamous to prove that heredity was of no appreciable value. As a matter of fact it is rather refreshing to have one upon whom the imagination can play. It simply intensifies the white light of the rest of the record.

Colonel Burr was not a saint after the model presented by his father, the Rev. Dr. Aaron Burr, the godly president of Princeton; by his grandfather, Jonathan Edwards; or by at least 1,394 of the other members of the family of Mr. Edwards. There is no purpose to give him saintly enthronement, but it may not be amiss to suggest that the abuse of him has been overdone.

Colonel Aaron Burr died at eighty after thirty years of the worst treatment ever meted out to a man against whom the bitterest enemies and the most brilliant legal talent could bring no charge that would stand in the eyes of the law. I have

no purpose to lessen the verdict of prejudice, for the study of the Edwards family is all the more

fascinating because of one such meteor of error. It must be confessed, however, that a study of the last thirty years of Colonel Burr's life makes one more exasperated with human nature under a political whip than with Colonel Burr's mistake.

At forty-nine Aaron Burr was one of the most brilliant, most admired, and beloved men in the United States. For thirty years his had been a career with few American parallels. He had but one real and intense enemy, and that man had hated him all those years. Alexander Hamilton had never missed an opportunity to vilify Mr. Burr, and his attack had never been resented. Calmly had Aaron Burr pursued his upward and onward course, simply smiling at the vituperation of Hamilton. Could those two men have agreed, they would have been the greatest leaders any nation ever had. Their hatred was as expensive as was that of Blaine and Conklin in after years.

Every age must have a political scapegoat, one upon whose head is placed symbolically the sins of the period, and after he is sent into the wilderness of obscurity it becomes a social and political crime to befriend him. There have been several such in our country's history, and there will be others. Aaron Burr suffered more than any other simply because the glory from which he departed was greater.

On March 2, 1805, Aaron Burr, vice-president of the United States, and president of the senate, retired from the chair two days before his term expired. He made a farewell address, which pro

duced a greater impression upon that body than any other words ever spoken there. Every senator was weeping, and for a long time no one could leave his seat or propose any business. It was a sight for the nation to look upon and wonder. For fourteen years he had been one of the most conspicuous members of that body.

Aaron Burr's ultimate ruin was wrought by his colonization experiment in Louisiana. In popular opinion, there was something traitorous in that unsuccessful venture of his. In 1805 Mr. Burr paid $50,000 for 400,000 acres of land which had been purchased of Spain in 1800, before it passed to France and then to the United States in 1803. Of the motive of Colonel Burr we must always be ignorant; that he was not guilty of any crime in connection therewith we are certain, for the highest tribunal of the land acquitted him. President Jefferson and the entire political force of the administration were bent upon his conviction, but Chief Justice Marshall, as capable, honorable, and incorruptible a jurist as the country has known, would not have it so. Unfortunately, the brilliant arraignment by William Wirt was printed and read for half a century, while the calm rulings of Chief Justice Marshall never went beyond the court room.

Why did a man of his capabilities, upon retirement from the vice-presidency, attempt, at fifty years of age to start life anew under such unpromising conditions? Because he was suddenly politically and professionally ruined. Ruined because

he had killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Why did he do it? It is a long story.

To make it intelligent, his life must be reviewed. After a brilliant military career, which began when he was nineteen and left him an heroic colonel, he studied law and practiced in Albany. At the age of twenty-eight he was a leader in the New York legislature, and was chairman of the most important committees, always with the people, against the aristocracy-an unpardonable mistake in those times. At thirty-four he was attorney-general of the state, and his great decisions were accepted by all other states. At thirty-four he established the Manhattan bank of New York city. He was the only man with the ability or courage to find a way to establish a bank for the people, and the solidity of that institution for a hundred years is an allsufficient vindication of his plan. At thirty-five he was appointed and confirmed as a supreme court judge of New York state, but he declined the honor, and was the same year elected to the United States senate. He was re-elected, serving in all fourteen years.

At the second presidential election Senator Burr received one vote in the electoral college, at the the third he received thirty, and in the fourth received seventy-three. Jefferson also received seventy-three and the election was thrown into the house. This was in 1800 and Mr. Burr was fortyyears of age. The choice lay with New York, which could be carried by no man but Aaron Burr.

Alexander Hamilton was the leader of the Federalists. He also was of New York. It was a battle of the giants. These two men measured swords. The presidency of the United States was the prize both parties-the Federalists and the Democrats were seeking. New York had always been with the Federalists. In this great struggle it went against Hamilton and for Burr. This ended the political career of Hamilton, and would have done so had he lived longer. He was one of America's greatest statesmen, but one of the poorest politicians. No one could get along with him but Washington, and when he died the political end of Hamilton came.

Jefferson and Burr each received seventy-three votes for president, and Adams received sixty-five. New York had twelve votes, so that if she had remained with the Federalist candidate Adams, he would have won, seventy-seven to sixty-one. This defeat angered Hamilton beyond endurance. He and Burr had been deadly rivals for thirty years, first for the love of woman, then for military preferment, and later in the political arena. When Burr established the Manhattan bank, Hamilton's brother-in-law, inspired by Hamilton, attacked Burr's motive, with the result of a duel in which neither was harmed.

Notwithstanding Hamilton's greatness, he was always in trouble with men and women. He never ceased his abuse of Burr, whose election as senator angered him. Later, when Burr was the choice of