If you ’ve date the musical " Hamilton , " you love Aaron Burr , who served a term as Thomas Jefferson ’s vice president , as one of American history ’s most ill-famed bad bozo — a haughty , soulless figure who notify a youngAlexander Hamiltonto " talk less … smile more … do n’t lease them know what you ’re against or what you ’re for . " At the end of Act II , after he takes Hamilton ’s life in a duel , Burr laments , " Now I ’m the villain in your chronicle . "
But who was Aaron Burr , really ? In his time , his mercurial loyalties and fraudulence bring in the enmity of establish Father George Washington and Thomas Jefferson . And while he ’s remembered these solar day mostly as a murderous rogue — the only U.S. frailty President of the United States ever to kill a man while in function ( thoughDick Cheneygave it his best shot ) — he also has the ignominious distinction of being the only former frailty president to be put on trial fortreason , due to his role in attempt to carve off part of the U.S. and create his own country ( more on that later ) . Last year , yet another indecorous detail was added to his biography , when it was revealed that he ’d on the Q.T. generate two children by one of his servants , an Indian immigrant named Mary Emmons , as thisWashington military post storydetails .
" Burr was a complicated physique — too complicated for his own political report then and his historical reputation since,“H.W. Brands , a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and author of " The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr , " notes in an email .
" Burr certainly had a lot of promise , " saysWillard Sterne Randall . He ’s a professor emeritus of chronicle at Champlain College and author of " Alexander Hamilton : A Life , " in addition to legion other works on early American story . In some ways , Burr was a modeling of the form of bald-faced , ego - center opportunism take care so often in today ’s politics — and an early practitioner of the sort of conspiratorial suspiciousness that Richard Nixon made famous .
Burr " did n’t trust anybody , and it wrick out that no one desire him , " Randall says . " He insert a paranoid style to American politics . "
Burr was carry in Newark , New Jersey in 1756 , the scion of a distinguished colonial family . His maternal grandfather was the celebrated evangelistJonathan Edwards , and both he and Burr ’s father , Aaron Burr , Sr . ascend to the presidentship of theCollege of New Jersey , the institution that eventually became Princeton University . But even in such an elect family , Aaron Burr ’s intellect stand out . He was bear to the college at eld 13 , and graduate in three days withsumma cum laudedistinction , as hisPrinceton Cemetery biographical sketchnotes .
" Even his depreciator conceded his genius , " author Mark F. Bernstein note in a2012 biographical essayon Burr for Princeton Alumni Weekly .
Burr ’s elite background and brainpower also were part of his ultimate undoing , because they soak him with a haughty sense of favorable position .
" He looked down on people who were n’t so well born , especially Alexander Hamilton , " Randall says . " He could n’t get along with people who were n’t as refined as he was . "
Additionally , for all his news , Burr was n’t necessarily the most sharp justice of the great unwashed and situations . Throughout his aliveness , he repeatedly made the misapprehension of choosing the wrong side to be on and had a lot of difficulty grow along with others , according to Randall .
Burr enrolled in law schoolhouse as a teenager but disrupt his studies to do in the American forces during the Revolutionary War . As hisSenate biographynotes , Burr ’s bravery under fervor make him a coveted job as a top adjutant to the American commandant in chief , General George Washington , who speedily come to abominate his ambitious underling . The intuitive feeling was reciprocal , and Washington finally got rid of Burr by reassigning him to be an assistant toGeneral Israel Putnam . While in that position , Burr probably saved the spirit of Hamilton , the human race he would pour down in a duel decennium by and by , by lead him to base hit during the British assault on New York in 1776 , as Randall inside information in this2003 Smithsonian clause . Burr became asympathizerto theConway Cabal , the ill - fated plot by American police officer to swear Washington in 1777 .
New York State Attorney General and U.S. Senator
After the war , Burr got his law stage and rose apace to prominence . He was elect to the New York state assembly , where he served a unmarried terminus in 1784 - 85 , and help transform a drinking club intoTammany Hall , the hefty New York City political machine , which perpetuate itself by doling out favors in exchange for support . After process for two year as New York land ’s attorney general , in 1791 he won election to the U.S. Senate , unseating Philip Schuyler . The incumbent also happened to be the founder - in - natural law of Alexander Hamilton , by then the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury . That helped fuel the hard feelings between Hamilton and Burr , who already were political contender .
Burr served one six - yr term in the Senate , where he was a irritant in the side of the Washington administration , opposing both Washington ’s diplomatic relocation and Hamilton ’s financial policy . According to Burr ’s Senate life story , he also mounted a " spirited , though unsuccessful " defense ofAlbert Gallatin , the Swiss - born senator from Pennsylvania , a fellow member of Thomas Jefferson’sRepublican Partywho was expelled from the Senate in 1794 by the Federalist majority under the stalking-horse that he did n’t take on the residency necessity of nine years in the country .
Burr was viewed as enough of a power player that when the Republican Party nominated Jefferson to black market against Federalist incumbent John Adams , they blame Burr as Jefferson ’s running game mate , as this2004 Smithsonian articleby John Ferling details . In those days , presidential elections were break away differently than they are now – all of the prospect give way in a bunch to the Electoral College , where the 138 elector each were allot two votes . The idea was that the top vote - getter would serve as president , and the second - office closer would be frailty president .
But when the Electoral College vote , Jefferson and Burr each received 73 vote , while Adams got 65 and his track better half , Charles Pinckney of South Carolina , catch 64 . The election went to the House of Representatives , where the Federalists , after flunk to work out a pile with Jefferson , adjudicate to support Burr — who twice - interbreed Jefferson by making it known that he ’d accept the top job if he had the fortune . It took36 ballotsand days of bitter political infighting to break the stalemate and elect Jefferson .
Burr had adventure brashly and lost , and as you might expect , Jefferson did n’t exactly have affectionate belief for his new VP after that . But the political plenty did lead Congress to set the unwieldy organisation . In 1803 , the fresh electoral marriage proposal pass on and it was ratified by the states , so Burr , unknowingly , helped to improve the American political system .
" One of Burr ’s lasting contributions was that determination to run , " Randall note . It led Congress in 1803 to reenact the 12th Amendment , which mandated separate electoral suffrage enumeration for presidential and vice presidential candidate , as thisarticlefrom the National Constitution Center details . Eventually it was sign by the state as well .
The Duel
Duels often were treat as a sort of ritual dance — one usual exercise was for both military personnel to miss deliberately , so that they could assert their male purity without literal fury . But as Randall explains , Burr took this challenge a big more seriously than Hamilton . " Burr was practicing with targets for two weeks prior , " he says . " I think Burr intended to kill Hamilton . "
Hamilton Dies Along With Burr’s Future
Hamilton was mortally wounded and suffered an torturesome expiry , but the man who ’d kill the Secretary of the Treasury could n’t be prosecute , since they ’d stag the confrontation in New Jersey , which did n’t have a law against duel , according to Randall . Instead , he but went back to Washington , where he became even more of a castaway .
Burr not only murdered Hamilton , but his own political lot as well . At that power point , he just could have slip into obscurity . But Burr , who ’d made some bad investments and lived beyond his means , was heavily in debt . dire , he looked to the West for an chance . As described in his Senate biography , he think up a gonzo scheme to raise a military force play and appropriate Florida and Mexico from Spain , and then persuade a few nearby state to secede from the Union and join into a sort of empire that he would lead . Instead , Burr was arrest on treachery charges , and put on trial in Virginia in 1807 . But after Chief Justice John Marshall instructed the jury that two attestant want to testify to a specific overt enactment of treason to make the charge stick , they assoil Burr .
Though a loose serviceman , Burr left the body politic and spend several eld in self - imposed exile in England and Europe , before returning to the U.S. in 1812 , consort to his Senate life history . He eventually resumed his legal calling in New York , but then suffer another , even more unspeakable personal calamity , when a ship assume his beloved daughter Theodosia Burr Alston from South Carolina to New York disappeared off the North Carolina coast . Though the ship belike fall off in a storm , Burr was tormented by wild stories that his daughter had been pull to walk the plank by buccaneer or was being held prisoner somewhere in the West Indies .
Burr spent the next brace of decades practicing practice of law . In 1833 , Burr – whose first married woman had died in 1794 – wed for a 2d time to a wealthy widow woman . But after discovering that Burr had misconduct her plus , she divorce him just a class later . After that , Burr survived mostly on admirer ' release and his military pension until his death in Staten Island in 1836 . As his Senate biography notes , during Burr ’s final hours , a minister necessitate him if he thought he would go to heaven . " On that topic , I am overmodest , " reportedly was Burr ’s reply .
