Veeps: Aaron Burr
Today is the 176th anniversary of the death of Aaron Burr, the third Vice President of the United States and the man famous for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel (prompting the comedy troop Lonely Island to pen the lyrics quoted in the graphic above.)
Aaron Burr Jr. was born in Newark, New Jersey on February 6, 1756. His parents were the Reverend Aaron Burr, Sr., a Presbyterian minister and second president of the College of New Jersey in Newark (the college which moved to Princeton in 1756 and later became Princeton University) and Esther Edwards the daughter of a famous Calvinist theologian. His father died in 1757, and his mother the following year, leaving Aaron Jr an orphan at the age of two. He and his sister Sally went to live with the William Shippen family in Philadelphia. Two years later in 1759, the children's guardianship was assumed by 21-year-old uncle Timothy Edwards. When he was 13, Burr attend the college that his father had been president of. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1772 and studied theology for an additional year. He changed his career path two years later and began the study of law with his sister's husband. When colonists clashed with British troops at Lexington and Concord, Burr's studies were put on hold while he went to join the Continental Army.
During the Revolutionary War, Burr took part in Colonel Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec. He was promoted to captain and distinguished himself during the Battle of Quebec, earning him a place on General George Washington's staff in Manhattan. However, he left within two weeks, desiring to return to the battlefield. Burr saved an entire brigade (including Alexander Hamilton, who was one of its officers) from capture after the British landed on Manhattan.
He became a lieutenant colonel in July 1777, and assumed command of approximately 300 men. His regiment successfully fought off many nighttime raids into central New Jersey by British troops sailing over from Manhattan. He was with Washington at Valley Forge, where he was put in charge of a small contingent guarding "the Gulf", an isolated pass being one approach to the camp.
On June 28, 1778, at the Battle of Monmouth, Burr's regiment was devastated by British artillery, and in the day's heat, Burr suffered heat stroke. In January 1779 Burr's Regiment was assigned to Westchester County. He resigned from the Continental Army in March 1779 due to his continuing bad health and renewed his study of law. He was called upon by General Washington to perform occasional intelligence missions for Continental generals and on July 5, 1779, he rallied a group of Yale students at New Haven in a skirmish with the British at the West River. The British advance was repulsed. Despite these activities, 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 the British evacuated the city the following year.
In 1782, Aaron Burr married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, the widow of Jacques Marcus Prevost, a British Army officer of Swiss origin, who had died in the West Indies during the Revolutionary War. The Burrs moved to New York City, where Aaron Burr became a successful trial lawyer. Theodosia Burr died from stomach cancer in 1794. The couple had one child who survived birth, a daughter named Theodosia, after her mother.
Burr served in the New York State Assembly from 1784 to 1785. In 1789, he was appointed New York State Attorney General. He was also Commissioner of Revolutionary War Claims in 1791. In 1791, he was elected a U.S. Senator from New York and served until 1797. He ran for Vice President in the 1796 election, coming in fourth with 30 votes behind John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Pinckney. At the time members of the electoral college cast two ballots but did not specify an office. The first place finisher became President and the runner up Vice President.
After being appointed commanding general of U.S. 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. John Adams later wrote in 1815 that Washington's response was startling given his promotion of Hamilton. Burr ran for and was elected to the New York State Assembly, serving from 1798 through 1799. During John Adams' term as President, national parties became clearly defined. Burr loosely associated himself with the Democratic-Republicans, though he some Federalist allies.
In 1799, Burr founded the Bank of the Manhattan Company, which in later years was absorbed into the Chase Manhattan Bank, which in turn became part of JPMorgan Chase. In September, 1799 Burr fought a duel with John Barker Church, whose wife was the sister of Alexander Hamilton's wife, after Church said that Burr had taken a bribe from the Holland Company in exchange for using his political influence on its behalf. Burr and Church fired at each other and missed, and afterwards Church acknowledged that he was wrong to have accused Burr without having proof. Burr accepted this as an apology, and the two men shook hands and ended the dispute.
Burr solicited the help of Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists for a badly-needed water company for Manhattan that he was forming. However, Burr secretly changed the charter to include banking and shortly after approval, Burr dropped any pretense of founding the water company. Hamilton and other supporters believed Burr acted dishonorably in deceiving them. Burr's deception resulted in a delay in constructing a safe water system for Manhattan, which may have contributed to additional deaths during a subsequent malaria epidemic.
In 1800, New York presidential election, Burr and Hamilton were the key campaigners for their respective parties. Burr's Republican slate of assemblymen for New York City was elected, gaining control of the legislature and in due course giving New York's electoral votes to Jefferson and helping to win the 1800 presidential election for him. This drove another wedge between Hamilton and Burr. Burr was elected Vice-President in the election. Burr was a key political strategist and some call him "the father of modern political campaigning." He enlisted the help of members of Tammany Hall, a social club, to win the voting for selection of Electoral College delegates. He was then placed on the Democratic-Republican presidential ticket in the 1800 election with Jefferson. Jefferson won New York, and he and Burr tied for the presidency with 73 electoral votes each.
It was understood that the party intended that Jefferson should be president and Burr vice president, but the responsibility for the final choice belonged to the House of Representatives. The attempts of a powerful faction among the Federalists to thwart Jefferson's ambition by securing the election of Burr failed, partly due to opposition by Alexander Hamilton, who saw Jefferson as the lesser of two evils.
Upon confirmation of Jefferson’s election, Burr became Vice President of the United States, but he was never trusted by Jefferson and was effectively shut out of party matters. However, Burr had a reputation for being fair and even-handed as President of the Senate. Historian Forrest MacDonald credits Burr's judicial manner in presiding over the impeachment trial of Justice Samuel Chase with helping to preserve the principle of judicial independence.
When it became clear that Jefferson would drop Burr from his ticket in the 1804 election, Burr decided to run for the governorship of New York. He lost the election to little known Morgan Lewis. Burr blamed his loss on a personal smear campaign believed to have been orchestrated by his own party rivals. Hamilton also opposed Burr and the Albany Register published a letter from Dr. Charles D. Cooper to Philip Schuyler which relayed Hamilton's judgement that Burr was "a dangerous man, and one who ought not be trusted with the reins of government," and claiming to know of "a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." Up[on reading this Burr sent a letter to Hamilton, seeking an affirmation or disavowal of Cooper's characterization of Hamilton's remarks. Hamilton replied that he couldn't answer for Cooper's interpretation. More letters followed and the exchange escalated with Burr demanding that Hamilton recant or deny any statement disparaging Burr’s honor over the past 15 years. Hamilton would not do so. Burr responded by challenging Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton's eldest son, Philip, had died in a duel in 1801.
Dueling had been outlawed in New York, and the punishment for conviction of dueling was death. It was illegal in New Jersey as well, but the consequences were less severe so on July 11, 1804, the two men met outside of Weehawken, New Jersey, at the same spot where Hamilton's son had died. Both men fired, and Hamilton was mortally wounded by a shot just above the hip. There are different versions of who shot first. What is known is that Hamilton's shot missed Burr, but Burr's shot was fatal. The bullet entered Hamilton's abdomen above his right hip, piercing Hamilton's liver and spine.
Hamilton was taken to Manhattan where he lay in the house of a friend. He died the following day. Burr was charged with 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 Philadelphia and then on to Washington to complete his term as Vice President. He avoided New York and New Jersey for a time, but all the charges against him were eventually dropped. In the case of New Jersey, the indictment was thrown out on the basis that, although Hamilton was shot in New Jersey, he actually died in New York.
After Burr's term as Vice-President ended in 1805, he went west of the Allegheny Mountains and down the Ohio River Valley eventually reaching the lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Starting in Pittsburgh and then proceeding to Beaver, Pennsylvania and Wheeling, Virginia, Burr leased 40,000 acres of land along the Ouachita River, in what is now Louisiana, from the Spanish government. He believed that war with Spain was a distinct possibility and Burr planned to raise an army to fight Spain and claim land for himself. However, the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty secured Florida for the United States without a fight. Burr's plans were reported both to President Jefferson and to his Spanish landlords. Jefferson issued an order for Burr's arrest, declaring him a traitor. Jefferson's warrant put Federal agents on his trail. Burr turned himself in to the Federal authorities twice. Two judges found his actions legal and released him. Jefferson's warrant remained in force and it followed Burr, who headed towards Spanish Florida. He was arrested at Wakefield, in Mississippi Territory (now in the state of Alabama) on February 19, 1807, and confined to Fort Stoddert after being arrested on charges of treason.
Burr's correspondence was discovered, revealing his plans to help Mexico to overthrow Spanish power in the Southwest. This was an offence under the Neutrality Act of 1794. In 1807, Burr was tried on a charge of treason before the United States Circuit Court at Richmond, Virginia. 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 required 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.
After his acquittal, Burr left the United States for Europe in order to avoid his creditors. He lived abroad from 1808 to 1812, mostly in London where he became a good friend of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. He also spent time in Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and France. He solicited funding for renewing his plans for a conquest of Mexico, but was rebuffed and ordered out of England. Napoleon Bonaparte refused to receive him. After returning from Europe, Burr used the surname "Edwards," his mother's maiden name, for a while to avoid creditors. He was able to return to New York and his law practice.
In 1833, at age 77, Burr married again, this time to Eliza Jumel, a wealthy widow. But she soon realized that her fortune was dwindling due to her husband's land speculation losses and she separated from him after only four months. The divorce became final on September 14, 1836, the day of Burr's death. Burr had suffered a debilitating stroke in 1834, which rendered him immobile. On September 14, 1836, Burr died on Staten Island in the village of Port Richmond in a boardinghouse which later became the St. James Hotel. He was buried near his father in Princeton, New Jersey.