Aaron Burr

From Philosopedia

Burr, Aaron [Vice President] (6 February 1756 - 14 September 1836)

Jill Lepore, a Harvard professor of history, wrote a brief bio of Burr while reviewing Nancy Isenberg's Fallen Founder, The Life of Aaron Burr:

• Burr was born in Newark in 1756. He could hardly have boasted more eminent forebears. His father, after whom he was named, was the president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton); his mother, the brilliant diarist Esther Edward Burr, was the daughter of the New England theologian Jonathan Edwards. Both died before he was 3. Raised by an uncle, Burr went on to become a precocious student and, beginning in 1775, a valiant soldier. In 1777 the Continental Congress promoted him to lieutenant colonel. By all accounts, he was a man of extraordinary physical courage. His war record and daunting ambition propelled him into politics, where his early career can justifiably be called meteoric. In 1784 he was elected to the New York State Assembly; 12 years later, he was Thomas Jefferson's running mate for president.

Upon killing Hamilton, and it is not clear who fired first and whether he aimed at his opponent - Isenberg says he likely aimed to kill for why else did he put on his spectacles:

• With warrants out for his arrest on murder charges, Burr - who was still vice president - became a fugitive. . . . After 1804, Burr's life as Isenberg observes, became a comedy of errors: "Once he had killed Hamilton, Burr could do nothing right." Newspapers reported that he was trying to start his own country west of the Mississippi, and in 1807, charged with treason, he was brought to trial in Virginia. Acquitted, he went into exile. He spent years in Europe, indulging his insatiable sexual appetite and documenting his exploits in a secret journal, with entries like this: "Vis. inv. pr. U. pa. bi. jo. ma. bi. fa" (decoded: After repeated invitations, I had sex with a Swedish maid who was not very handsome, but well built"). Eventually, he returned to New York to take up, once again, the practice of law. He died in Staten Island in 1836, at the age of 80.

Although Lepore praises Isenberg for her call for a better, less fetishistic history of the founding fathers, he adds,

• It's hard, even after reading Fallen Founder, not to agree with Burr's enemies that he was a bit of a schemer, probably a traitor and at least some kind of fiend. Surely we would understand the founders better if we followed Isenberg and put a little more flesh on their bones. But Aaron Burr has a little too much on his.

Because of his and Alexander Hamilton’s political hostility, for Hamilton had aided Jefferson and later contributed to Burr’s defeat in his race to be Governor of New York, he challenged Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton was mortally wounded (1804) and became the first of two of the Founding Fathers to die in a duel (the other being Button Gwinnett [1735—1777], a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia).

The duel ended Burr’s political career. In 1807, Burr was tried for treason but was found not guilty of plotting with General James Wilkinson to colonize the Southwest.

Biographers Herbert S. Parmet and Marie B. Hecht tell of Dr. P. J. Van Pelt’s attempts to convert Burr to Christianity toward the end of his life. Burr, who had dealt with other well-meaning clergymen, would not be intimidated. But Van Pelt was insistent, staying with Burr through the night on what doctors agreed would probably be the end. In the morning, Van Pelt again asked Burr if he was ready to accept salvation. “On that subject I am coy,” were Burr’s final words, for he fell asleep and died that afternoon.

Burr is buried at the Princeton Cemetery in Princeton, New Jersey, the epitaph reading, “A Colonel in the Army of the Revolution. Vice-President of the United States, from 1801 to 1805.”

{CE; New York Times Book Review, 27 May 2007); PA}