Aaron Burr arrested for alleged treason

Thank you, my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that February 19, 1807, US Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama for treason.

Interestingly Aaron Burr was the man who brought us Tammany Hall which was the "New York City political organization that endured for nearly two centuries. Formed in 1789 in opposition to the Federalist Party, its leadership often mirrored that of the local Democratic Party's executive committee."

The Burr Conspiracy
A brief lecture on the Burr Conspiracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzxnEy8dufk

Images:
1. 1807 Aaron Burr arrested
2. The courtroom during Burr’s treason trial.
3. 1806-1807 Aaron Burr's followers listen to his plans for adventures in the west


Biographies
1. neh.gov/humanities/2013/mayjune/feature/burr-versus-jefferson-versus-marshall
2. let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/aaron-burr-jr/

1. Background from [https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/mayjune/feature/burr-versus-jefferson-versus-marshall]
"Fiction is obliged to stick to the possibilities; Truth isn’t.” Twain could well have been writing about the trial of Aaron Burr.
The bare-bones facts surrounding the case against the Revolutionary War hero seem inconceivable. But during the long, hot summer of 1807, Burr, a gifted lawyer and charismatic politician—he had delivered New York’s decisive electoral votes to Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and then served as his vice president—was in the dock of Chief Justice John Marshall’s federal circuit court in Richmond, Virginia, accused by the president himself of treason. He was charged with levying war against the nation in attempting to separate the western states from the union.
Spectators flocked to Richmond from the Virginia countryside and from across the nation. They were so numerous that the trial had to be held in the legislative chamber of the State House, which was fitted with sandboxes to catch the flying tobacco juice. Even Richmond’s leading citizens were hard-pressed to get seats; folks who hadn’t gained admission spilled into the streets, where they could hear street-corner orators, like the young Andrew Jackson, hold forth on Burr’s innocence, or perhaps catch a glimpse of Burr’s beautiful daughter Theodosia, who had come to town to vouch for her father and who had been carefully coached by him in the role she was to play. Those left out of the action altogether gossiped with neighbors and friends, had a few drinks at one of the local watering holes, or bet on the ponies. In short, the trial looked every bit like a Virginia court day writ large—very large.
Most of the spectators were familiar with the stars of the drama, or “Melo-drama,” as one newspaper put it, and most had taken sides in the bitter public conflicts between Jefferson and Burr. Despite Burr’s contribution to the electoral victory in 1800, Jefferson and his party hated and distrusted the New Yorker for not having withdrawn his name from the contest over the presidency in the disputed election, where both men had tied for Electoral College votes. After thirty-six ballots and several weeks of backstage politicking, the House of Representatives awarded the presidency to Jefferson. In pre-Twelfth Amendment days, that meant Burr became Jefferson’s vice president. Although he served with distinction in that office, Burr’s future in Jefferson’s party was over.
Then, after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, Burr had become persona non grata with the Federalists and with polite society generally. To recoup his honor and fortune, he had gone west, where his comings and goings in 1805 and 1806 led Jefferson to believe that he was plotting to separate the western states from the union as the first step toward launching a military attack against the Spanish in Mexico. By the time Burr was arrested and sent to Richmond for trial, rumors of his activities had been covered extensively in the national press: Most Americans and surely most Virginians in the jury pool at the trial were certain of Burr’s treachery.
Jefferson himself never doubted that Burr was a traitor. Indeed, on January 22, 1807, he had pronounced Burr guilty of treason to Congress and the entire nation—without a grand jury indictment. In condemning Burr publicly—in usurping the role of the grand jury and the trial jury—Jefferson acted largely on the basis of the testimony of General James Wilkinson, whose character Jefferson and his cabinet knew to be unreliable. Indeed, Wilkinson was widely suspected of being Burr’s coconspirator and also of being in the pay of Spain, allegations that should have made the president question the general’s veracity. Wilkinson’s duplicity came out during his appearance before the Richmond grand jury. Indeed, his testimony against Burr was so full of contradictions and misinformation that Wilkinson himself was nearly indicted.
Wilkinson’s confrontation with Burr in Marshall’s courtroom on June 15 also provided some lively entertainment. Wilkinson, the army’s commanding general, made his grand entrance, dressed ornately in a uniform reputedly of his own design. The young Washington Irving, who traveled from New York to Richmond to report on the trial for his brother’s newspaper, wrote: “Wilkinson strutted into court . . . swelling like a turkey-cock.” Burr “did not take notice of him until the judge directed the clerk to swear in General Wilkinson; at the mention of the name Burr turned his head, looked him full in the face with one of his piercing regards, swept his eye over his whole person from head to foot, as if to scan its dimensions, and then coolly resumed his former position. . . . The whole look was over in an instant; but it was an admirable one. There was no appearance of study or constraint in it; no affectation of disdain or defiance; a slight expression of contempt played over his countenance.”
The general’s account to Jefferson was more self-serving. “My eyes darted a flash of indignation at the little traitor, on whom they continued fixed until I was called to the Book;— here, sir, I found my expectations verified—this lion-hearted, eagle-eyed Hero, jerking under the weight of conscious guilt, with haggard eyes in an effort to meet the indignant salutation of outraged honor; but it was in vain, his audacity failed him. He averted his face, grew pale, and affected passion to conceal his perturbation.”
Jefferson’s reliance on Wilkinson in pronouncing Burr guilty was a serious mistake, one that was compounded by the government’s reliance on the general as its chief witness in the Richmond trial.
A remarkable aspect of the trial—one unique in American history—was the president’s micromanagement of the prosecution from the White House. The reasons for Jefferson’s personal involvement are unclear. Generally speaking, he was reluctant to delegate authority, and he also may have lacked full confidence in the government’s lawyers. And since he had already declared Burr guilty, he may have felt compelled to prove himself right. In any case, Jefferson’s numerous letters to George Hay, the federal attorney who was nominally in charge, contain detailed instructions about trial strategy, evidence, and witness interrogation. Jefferson even forwarded a batch of blank pardons to be used, at Hay’s discretion, to elicit evidence from reluctant witnesses. One such was Erick Bollman, a Burr associate, who pointedly refused in open court to accept a pardon for the crime of treason, a crime that he clearly did not commit. Burr’s lawyers took the occasion to blast the prosecution—and the president.
Jefferson’s involvement, which became common knowledge during the trial, turned out to be one of Burr’s main lines of defense. It also provided some of the trial’s most dramatic moments, notably when Luther Martin, one of Burr’s lawyers, denounced the author of the Declaration of Independence for behaving like “a king of Great Britain” and for unleashing “the dogs of war, the hell hounds of persecution” against an innocent man for personal reasons.
Jefferson responded by suggesting to Hay that Martin himself was connected with Burr’s conspiracy and might be prosecuted “for misprision [concealment] of treason, at least.” Martin was not indicted, but the president’s lawyers accused him of politicizing the case in order to divert attention from Burr. Martin—called “old brandy bottle” for obvious reasons, and “old law ledger” because of his mastery of legal doctrine—refused to back off. With good reason, Jefferson dubbed him the “Federal bulldog.”
Except for Martin and Burr, who was a superb trial lawyer himself and also the key strategist in his own defense, all the lawyers were Virginians. John Wickham, Burr’s go-to lawyer, was the acknowledged leader of the Virginia bar, and he was also one of John Marshall’s oldest friends. The star for the prosecution, who later became one of the country’s most respected lawyers, was William Wirt. His scathing portrait of Burr as the serpent in the garden of republican virtue was the rhetorical high point in the trial. The lawyers’ arguments were key attractions of the trial for spectators then and historians now.
President Jefferson’s personal intrusion in the Richmond proceedings unavoidably brought him into conflict with his old political foe, Chief Justice Marshall, who was sitting as trial judge for the federal circuit court in Richmond due to the requirement of the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789 that Supreme Court justices ride circuit. Blennerhassett’s island in the Ohio River, where the levying of war (treason) allegedly took place, fell within the jurisdiction of the Virginia circuit court.
The president and the chief justice, who were distant cousins, had been ideological opponents since the violent party battles of the 1790s. As leader of the Virginia Federalists who supported the nationalist policies of presidents Washington and John Adams, Marshall abhorred the democratic, states’ rights, pro-French position of the new Democratic-Republican party being created by Jefferson and James Madison. When Jefferson won the presidency, departing President John Adams appointed Marshall chief justice, with the understanding that Marshall would make the Supreme Court a check on Jefferson’s radicalism. This set the stage for a major institutional showdown between Marshall and Jefferson—and thus between the executive and judicial branches of the federal government.
The first battle in the Constitution-defining war between them was Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the case remembered in American history for consolidating the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review. Jefferson, who insulted the Court by prohibiting government lawyers from arguing the case, was convinced that Marshall manipulated the law in order to claim the court’s power of review. In turn, Marshall was convinced that Jefferson was out to destroy the Supreme Court, and, in his opinion, he had berated the president for trying to do just that. Personal hatred had turned into a contest over the separation of powers.
If Marbury was the first constitutional battle between the president and the chief justice, then the Burr trial was the second. Not surprisingly, Jefferson was persuaded, even before the trial began, that Marshall would attempt to embarrass him by bending the law to free Burr. Before the trial was over, Jefferson was as interested in getting Marshall impeached as he was in getting Burr convicted.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Art Resource, NY
With both houses of Congress and the majority of the American people in the president’s camp, Marshall had reason to fear impeachment. He also had reason to believe that the tidal wave of popular prejudice against Burr, opinion set in motion by a popular president, would make a fair trial hard to come by.
On June 24, following prolonged and raucous argument by the lawyers, the grand jury indicted Burr for treason, for levying war against the United States, an act which allegedly took place on December 10, 1806, on Blennerhassett’s island. The grand jury also indicted Burr for high misdemeanor, for organizing a military expedition against Spain in Mexico, in violation of the Neutrality Act of 1794.
Burr was tried separately on both charges and acquitted on both by a jury verdict. Jefferson then instructed Hay to bring Burr before Marshall once again—this time for events that took place following the episode on Blennerhassett’s island. In this trial after the trial, Marshall sat as a committing magistrate, whose sole responsibility was to decide whether there was sufficient evidence to order another trial. In fact, Marshall ordered Burr to appear in the federal district court for Ohio to face another grand jury. In turn, Burr privately denounced Marshall for bending to popular hysteria and instructed his lawyers that Marshall “be put right by strong language” or even “abuse.” One close observer of the trial speculated that Marshall aimed to destroy both Jefferson and Burr. Burr never showed up for trial in Ohio and the government quietly gave up the chase.
So the long ordeal ended with a whimper and without a single conviction. Burr was legally a free man, but most Americans, including the president who said so publicly, still considered him a traitor, and, what is worse, a traitor who had escaped the gallows. After four years of self-imposed exile in Europe, Burr returned to New York, where he remained a social outcast, a man without a country, as in the famous 1863 short story by Edward Everett Hale. Jefferson may have lost his case, but he succeeded in destroying Burr or at least in helping Burr destroy himself.
In all of its phases, the Richmond proceedings lasted seven months and, to the delight and frustration of historians, produced well over a thousand pages of stenographic trial reports. Chaos, exacerbated by party ideology and personal animosities, was never far from the surface. Several of the key lawyers, who had been friends or friendly rivals before the trial, became enemies before it was over. When Burr’s defense lawyer John Wickham accused Hay of being a puppet of the president, Hay took it as an insult to his honor and demanded a public apology, often the first step in the code of the duel. Even Marshall, one of Richmond’s favorite characters, got sucked into the political vortex. By the time the trial ended, counsel on both sides complained about Marshall’s conduct of the trial— good evidence, one might say, that he favored neither side. After the trial was over, a partisan mob in Baltimore hanged the chief justice in effigy and denounced him as a traitor.
Marshall described the case as the most “unpleasant” one “ever brought before a judge in this or perhaps in any country which affected to be governed by laws.” The case was also full of pitfalls. As chief justice presiding over the full Supreme Court in Washington, Marshall could consult his fellow justices about difficult questions of law; his opinions, though issued over his name, were, in fact, collective in nature. Sitting as trial judge in Richmond, he had to clarify complex matters of doctrine and trial practice on the spot and often without clear precedents to guide him. His rulings were his alone, a fact his critics fully appreciated.
Marshall’s enemies had a field day. Some modern historians as well—even those like Edward S. Corwin who greatly admired Marshall—considered the trial a blemish on his record.
In truth, Marshall made some mistakes. Permitting lawyers on both sides to ramble on too long and to play to the prejudices of the spectators were among them. At times, too, he inadvertently let his hostility to Jefferson show.
On one embarrassing occasion early in the proceedings, Marshall attended a dinner that was also attended by Burr, who was out on bail. The party was given by Marshall’s longtime friend John Wickham, which is undoubtedly why Marshall attended in the first place. But Wickham was also Burr’s lead counsel, which is why Marshall should have stayed home, as his wife Polly had advised him to do. Marshall deeply regretted his indiscretion, but the unforgiving partisan press across the nation lumped him with Burr and called Wickham’s party a “feast of treason.” Rumors circulated that Marshall and Wickham met privately and planned the outcome of the trial over a game of chess.
Regardless of his critics’ claims, Marshall’s overall conduct of the trial was a testament to both his character and his legal knowledge. Even with the specter of impeachment looming, with the hectoring press watching his every move, and with the jury pool predisposed against Burr, Marshall succeeded in granting the defendant a fair trial, and that, after all, was the main order of business.
At the most fundamental level, Marshall succeeded as a trial judge by keeping order in his courtroom, so that both sides had a chance to be heard. It was a chore that grew more difficult as the trial wore on and the lawyers’ tempers frayed, and the adversarial combat became passionate and personal. Marshall’s patience, firmness, and his coolness under fire, along with his reputation for integrity, carried him over the rough places. It helped immensely, too, that he was the most respected lawyer in a room full of gifted lawyers. Marshall’s foes denounced him as a political judge who manipulated the law and steamrolled the jury to reach a predetermined verdict, but the trial record tells a different story.
Most important, Marshall’s major doctrinal rulings speak forcefully to his sense of judicial duty and his dedication to due process and the rule of law. First, Marshall insisted that Burr be tried only on the charge as formally stated in the indictment, that is to say, the charge of actually “levying war” as in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution. The government, to clarify, charged Burr with levying war, but in attempting to prove the charge, they persisted in using the more lax and indeterminate standards of proof for conspiring to levy war. Treason and the conspiracy to commit treason, Marshall ruled emphatically—and crucially—were two distinct crimes.
In deciding what evidence the jury could hear, Marshall also defined treason itself (actually levying war) narrowly; at the same time he emphasized the demanding constitutional standards of proof required for conviction (two witnesses to the same overt act). Marshall’s decision all but guaranteed that Burr would not be convicted. It also settled the meaning of levying war in the Constitution in a way that made it difficult for future presidents to use treason as an instrument for suppressing political dissent and
In the largest sense, the conflict between the president and the chief justice was a battle over the meaning of separation of powers in the Constitution. Had Jefferson succeeded in impeaching Marshall, as he clearly aimed to do, the future independence of the federal courts would have been irreparably diminished. And it was a close call: The historian Henry Adams claimed that Jefferson’s impeachment campaign would have succeeded had he not been distracted during the course of the trial by the Chesapeake-Leopard affair, which could well have led to war with England. Much more important, I argue, in explaining Jefferson’s failure to impeach Marshall was Marshall’s impressive performance as trial judge, against the odds, and above all, his powerful defense of due process and the rights of criminal defendants.
In the campaign of history—to borrow a phrase from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes—Marshall appreciated the strategic importance of occupying the high ground, especially if the enemy had all the heavy artillery. The ground doesn’t get higher than due process and the rule of law, and there Marshall chose to take his stand against executive overreach and popular hysteria. Ironically, by seeing that Burr received a fair trial, Marshall also saved Jefferson from having Burr’s blood on his hands.
Marshall’s defense of judicial independence was consistent with the intent of the Framers of the Constitution, and also consonant with the good sense of moderates in both parties, including the party of Jefferson. Perhaps John Adams said it best and most prophetically: “Our parties will perpetually produce such Characters [as Burr] and such revolutions and as our Legislature and Executive will be always under the Influence of the Prevailing Party, I say We have no Security, but in the total and absolute Independence of the Judges.”
While Marshall’s lawmaking accomplishments in the Burr trial deserve praise, it should be remembered, as Marshall himself acknowledged several times during the trial, that he was aided every step of the way by the lawyers in the case. If their impetuosity and even their vanity gave him some grief during the trial, their remarkably brilliant law arguments—about English treason law, about the intent of the Framers, about the nature of constitutional government—also gave him a rich palette from which to paint. However, the final picture—fifteen rulings during the trial, including several major doctrinal holdings—were Marshall’s alone, expressed in his unique style and backed in the sweep of history by his reputation as the “great Chief Justice.”
Marshall’s major decisions in the Burr trial have stood the test of time, and perhaps none more conspicuously than his decision on June 13 to issue a subpoena duces tecum (a judicial writ ordering the recipient to produce evidence in his possession) to the president, ordering him to deliver documents that Burr had requested to prepare his defense. The gauntlet was thrown down. In issuing the subpoena, Marshall not only set forth the relevant principle of criminal law involved, but also elaborated the uniquely legal character and duties of the federal judiciary that justify its place of equality with the other branches of government.
Jefferson, of course, did not buy Marshall’s argument in favor of judicial independence. Jefferson also denied that he was legally obliged to obey the subpoena, but he did so nevertheless.
It was Marshall who had the last word, because his word stood as law in the records of the court, records that could be and were consulted by subsequent courts. And never were Marshall’s words more relevant than in the Watergate tapes case of United States v. Nixon (1974), when Chief Justice Warren Burger ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over the disputed tapes to the federal prosecutor. Burger’s decision, as Professor Paul Freund has shown, rested squarely on Marshall’s subpoena ruling in United States v. Burr.
Of course, there were substantial differences between Nixon in Watergate and Jefferson in the Burr trial, the main one being that in Watergate, Nixon himself was on trial. Nevertheless, the similarities are striking, especially with regard to Nixon’s claim that the president was above the law. In his interview with David Frost, Nixon was asked whether a president “could do something illegal,” if he considered it to be in the nation’s interest. Nixon replied that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Nixon appeared to be saying that the president can, in certain circumstances, make his own law, whereas Jefferson declared that, if necessary, he could knowingly violate the law. Which option is worse is hard to say; both violate the guiding axiom of the Constitution: that ours is “a government of laws, and not of men.”
Jefferson’s decision to take the law into his own hands is one of the enduring mysteries of the trial; equally inexplicable is Burr’s behavior that brought him to Richmond in the first place. Accident, chance, and fortune no doubt explain much, but so does character. It was Burr’s arrogance and his sense of frustrated entitlement—frustrated by fate, by Alexander Hamilton, and by Jefferson—that led him to undertake his improbable western adventures.
To bring Burr down, Jefferson took the law into his own hands, not because Burr’s conspiracy actually threatened to break up the union, which Jefferson knew was never a possibility, but because Burr threatened to corrupt it. Burr’s character was fundamentally at odds with Jefferson’s vision of America’s revolution and his idealistic plans for the new nation. Jefferson famously declared that all men have a natural right to pursue happiness; Burr pursued his own happiness with a single-minded, unapologetic, and, in Jefferson’s mind, ruthlessly un-republican ambition. In Jefferson’s morally dichotomous calculus, Burr was a danger to the republic; in Jefferson’s personalized view of the presidency, it was his responsibility to eliminate the danger, even if it meant breaking the law. Burr brought out the worst in Jefferson, and Jefferson brought out the worst in Burr.
The spectators who witnessed the trial or read about it in the nation’s newspapers clearly understood the symbolic nature of the conflict between Burr and Jefferson. Contemporaries also were aware of the fundamental ideological differences separating the chief justice and the president. Put Marshall, Jefferson, and Burr in the rhetorically over-heated Richmond courtroom, and you have a republican morality play in which the main characters become iconic symbols in the culture wars of a new nation in the throes of defining itself.
About the author
R. Kent Newmyer is Professor of Law and History, University of Connecticut Law School. His article is based on his recent book, The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr: Law, Politics, and the Character Wars of the New Nation (Cambridge University Press, 2012)."




2. Background from [http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/aaron-burr-jr/]
"Aaron Burr Jr. (1756-1836)
Aaron BurrAaron Burr Jr. (1756-1836), was thought to be one of the most brilliant students graduated from Princeton in the eighteenth century. Woodrow Wilson said he had `genius enough to have made him immortal, and unschooled passion enough to have made him infamous.'' His father was Princeton's second president; his maternal grandfather, Jonathan Edwards, was Princeton's third president. The younger Aaron Burr was left an orphan when he was two years old, his father and mother (and both maternal grandparents) having died within a year. He did not respond well to the discipline of his austere uncle, Timothy Edwards, several times running away from home and attempting to go to sea. He entered the sophomore class at Princeton at the age of thirteen and graduated with distinction at sixteen in 1772, a year after James Madison and Philip Freneau. He was a member of the Cliosophic Society and for his Commencement Oration chose the prophetic topic `On Castle Building.''

Burr studied theology for a while and then law. After the Revolutionary War, in which he served with distinction as a field officer, he took up the practice of law in New York City and entered politics, serving as a member of the New York state assembly, attorney general of New York, and United States senator. In the presidential election of 1800, he received the same number of electoral votes as Thomas Jefferson, but the tie was broken in the House of Representatives in Jefferson's favor, and Burr became vice-president.

Four years later, on July 11, 1804, in the historic duel at Weehawken, New Jersey, Burr mortally wounded his professional rival and political enemy, Alexander Hamilton. Thereafter came his errant political adventures in the West, his trial for treason, and his acquittal.

Burr's chief counsel at the trial was Luther Martin, a fellow member and one of the founders of the Cliosophic Society. A few years before his death, the society invited Burr to preside at its commencement meeting, and its members took part in the procession at Burr's funeral in Princeton in 1836. President Carnahan preached the funeral sermon in Nassau Hall (in which he decried the evils of dueling). Escorted to the Princeton Cemetery by members of the faculty, students, alumni, a military band, and the Mercer Guards, Burr was buried with full military honors at the foot of his father's and grandfather's graves.

A brief biography
Aaron Burr was born February 6, 1756, in Newark, New Jersey. When he arrived, a little sister, named Sally, had already preceded him. Their father was the Rev. Aaron Burr; their mother, Esther Edwards Burr, daughter of the famous Jonathan Edwards, a noted divine of the Calvin school. He represented all that was austere and hopeless in Puritanism. But Aaron, Jr. inherited only one tenet out of all the rigorous dogma into which he had been born: belief in predestination! Without such belief, he must early have succumbed to malign and bitter fortune.
Aaron was a sickly baby. Twice, before he was two years old, he narrowly escaped death. A fever seized him and his mother thought of him "as one given to me from the dead." On account of this miraculous recovery, she felt that the child should be brought up "in a peculiar manner for God!" Despite plans, however, the evidence reveals that, when Aaron was left to his own devices, he proved to be a real boy: "a little, dirty, noisy boy sly and mischievous," and required "a good governor to bring him to terms." He was small in stature, active, handsome: very much after the mould of his father, who, at this juncture, was called to be the second president of the College of New Jersey, then located in Newark. Aaron Burr, the father, taught mathematics, ancient languages, and busied himself with raising funds for the college, whidh was shortly (Nov., 1756) to be moved to Princeton, and thither also went the Burr family. Aaron Burr, pere, was unusually successful in all his activities. He even raised money in Scotland for his college. But his career, through his extraordinary exertions, was soon to end. He was seized with a fever and passed away September 24, 1757.

Thus, Esther Burr was left with Sally and Aaron, three and one, respectively. She tried hard to reconcile her desolate state to the harsh Calvinistic philosophy; and, apparently, had succeeded when she came down with the smallpox and soon followed her husband into the grave.

Sally and Aaron, little orphans, then went to live with Timothy Edwards, their uncle, at Elizabethtown. Timothy was a stern Puritan and Aaron got on badly with him; occasionally, he was "beaten like a sack." The boy was so unhappy, he tried on several occasions to run away. His life as a child was made livable only by the fact of the presence in the house of Timothy's young brother-in-law, Matthias Ogden, a lad of Burr's age. These boys ran the woods, fished, hunted, and studied under tutors, one of whom was the celebrated Tapping Reeve, who was later to marry Sally Burr.

Aaron was precocious. At eleven, he applied for admission to Princeton and was rejected on his too apparent youth. Two years later he applied again for admission; this time, to the junior class and was admitted to the sophomore class. One of the two leaders of his class, he was graduated in 1772. He was now sixteen, a lad with unforgettable hazel eyes, handsome features and irresistible charm.

In the tradition of the family, he was foreordained for the ministry. So, in the fall of 1773, he began the study of theology under the Rev. Joseph Bellamy. But it soon developed that Burr's nature did not lend itself to the constricted measure of Calvinistic dogma. He asserted that the road to Heaven was open to all alike, and, in the spring of 1774, he broke away from theology. He went at once to Litchfield, Conn., to the law school of Tapping Reeve, his brother-in-law, which was already becoming famous for its liberalism of thought.

Here Burr studied law and had his introduction to society. He had his flirtations; once a match was made for him with a wealthy young lady, which he spurned; and once he actually eloped, only to be balked by a ferry boat's failure to move on schedule. But law and love affairs were both to be interrupted, for in April, 1775, the thundering news of the battle of Lexington came rolling over the country.

In July, we find Burr, accompanied by Matthias Ogden, at Cambridge, near Boston. But there things were too quiet to suit the adventurous lads, and, when it was learned that Colonel Benedict Arnold was heading an expedition against Quebec, Burr volunteered, over the strenuous objections of his family. This ill-fated expedition across the wilds of Maine was calculated to try the mettle of any man, but courage and fortitude were ever the attributes of "little Burr." Added to the terrors of cold and ice was starvation. So well did the youth conduct himself that, once Arnold's forces were united with General Montgomery's before Quebec, Burr was made a captain on the headquarters' staff.

At length the day came for the assault on Quebec. From four sides the Americans advanced against the snowbound city. Arnold's division had already penetrated the city. The head of the column led by General Montgomery was nearing its goal, when a cannon shot fired from a blockhouse, which the British had abandoned, save for one man and shattered the advancing force. Only Burr and the Indian guide were left alive. Montgomery had fallen mortally wounded and died in Burr's arms, but he was too heavy a man for Burr to bear from the field.
The next day Montgomery was found by a patrol from the garrison dead in the snow. Quebec had been saved, almost by miracle.

From Quebec Burr was sent to Montreal, thence to Camp Sorrel, and later to Fort Chambly. In May, he returned home, where his fame had preceded him. He was offered and accepted a place on the staff of General Washington, then busy with the defences of New York. This association, however, did not prove a happy one. In spite of his youth, Captain Burr was a cultured man, a college graduate, and a student of military tactics. He was, probably, critical of the Commander-in-Chief, who seemed to him only a Virginia planter and slave-owner: an Indian fighter with little military training, who, up to that time, had won no great battle. No two characters could have been at greater extremities in temperament and training. So, through John Hancock's intervention, Burr was transferred to another front. He became an aide-de-camp to General Israel Putnam, who was in command of lower Manhattan. In August, 1716, Major Burr was assigned to General McDougal at Brooklyn, but, after the evacuation of New York, returned to General Putnam's staff, where he remained until July, 1777, when he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of Malcolm's regiment. Under Colonel Burr, this regiment repulsed a raid of 2500 Tories into New York. In every way, Colonel Burr distinguished himself for valor, sound judgment and intelligent devotion to the cause of the Colonies. In spite of being a strict disciplinarian, he endeared himself to his men, never having permitted corporal punishment to be inflicted in his regiment.

In 1777-78, Colonel Burr was at Valley Forge, but never complained of the hardships of that terrible Winter. Perhaps, to a soldier who had marched through the trackless forests of Maine in '75 and who had endured the bitter cold, hunger, and dangers of the Canadian campaign, Valley Forge was not so frightful.

In June, 1778, Colonel Burr led his regiment in the Battle of Monmouth, which proved so unfortunate for the American forces. Burr was most active, and suffered a slight sunstroke. In October, he requested a short leave of absence, which was granted, but which did not restore his much- impaired health.

In January, 1779, Colonel Burr was transferred to Westchester County, New York, under General McDougal, whose lines ran from the Hudson River to the Sound, a district greatly divided in sentiment between Whig and Tory. For many months Burr slept in his clothes, leading his men in surprise attacks on the enemy's lines during the night, clearing out raiders, and setting the district in order. He developed into an inspiring leader, but his health became so bad, he was obliged to resign his post.

March 10, 1779, General Washington accepted Colonel Burr's resignation with regrets, but Burr continued to help in military matters to the very end of the war, frequently carrying verbal orders and secret dispatches from Generals McDougal and St. Clair. For some months, however, while again studying law, he was practically invalid, and suffered from melancholia. Perhaps, as Vandell has suggested in his Life of Aaron Burr, the colonel's mind was further disturbed on account of his love for Mrs. Theodosia Prevost, widow of a former colonel in the British Army. He had met her on occasion and gossip had brought their names together. This fact has been exaggerated, and the loyalty of Mrs. Prevost brought into question. But there is no substantial bit of evidence to prove her untrue to the cause of the Colonies.
After about six months of study, Burr stood his bar examination in Albany and was admitted to practice as a counsellor in April, 1782. He then opened an office in Albany; and in July was married to Mrs. Prevost, ten years his senior and the mother of five children. Burr was but 26 years old. Despite the disparity in their years, they were happily mated.

This choice speaks well for Burr, who has been pictured a profligate, and who certainly was most popular with women. He was attracted to his wife he tells us himself, because of her charm and grace and because she had the truest heart and finest intellect of any woman he had ever met. Theirs was an ideal companionship. Up to the time of her death, "my Aaron," as his wife affectionately called him, was a faithful and exemplary husband.

In June, 1783, perhaps the most important event of Burr's life was recorded: the birth of Theodosia. The love he lavished upon this daughter lends a sublimity to Burr's character which all the detractors in the world cannot blur. His love for his two Theodosias was as nearly perfect as human relations ever can be.

When Theodosia was about six months old, peace with England was achieved and Burr made plans to leave Albany. He removed to New York City, then boasting a population of 22,000. He reached New York in November, 1783, in time to see the British troops depart.

During these years, with his wife practically an invalid, Colonel Burr was continuously embarrassed by debts. His fees were large, but he spent lavishly. There was always dearth of money in the bank, and negotiations for loans and adjustments of debt consumed no small portion of his time. But he was of such tireless energy, he seemed able always to meet every emergency.

He had been in the city but six months when he was elected to the State Assembly, though he had not sought public office. During the second session of the Assembly, he supported a motion for the abolition of slavery in New York, and was made chairman of a committee to revise the laws of the Empire State. But, at the expiration of his term, he returned to the practice of the law.
Colonel Burr soon became one of the leaders of the New York bar. He rose to the head of his profession through sheer ability and knowledge of the law.

His chief rival before the bar was Alexander Hamilton, but, while they often clashed, each respected the other; and socially they were friendly, however much they might differ politically. Burr was a progressive, a liberal, a revolutionist who believed that America was our proper domain and that we should appropriate the whole of it to the Isthmus. He was so far ahead of his times in his thinking that he suffered isolation from the first. And it was this state of things which made him forever misunderstood.

In 1789, Burr was appointed Attorney General of the state of New York by Governor Clinton. In 1791, he necame United States Senator from New York, defeating General Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton's father-in-law. Hamilton never forgave Burr this defeat and, from that moment, the feud between the two began a bitter rivalry which was only to end at Weehawken, though its aftereffects were to dog Burr's life and to prejudice posterity to the present time, so slow is history to revise its verdicts.

Burr was active in the Senate, making himself felt on important occasions. Unhappily, in 1794, his wife died, after a prolonged illness. He had wanted to resign his seat in Congress so as to be with her, but, evidently, she would not hear of it, for we find little Theo writing him that "Ma begs you will omit the thoughts of leaving Congress." After his wife's death, Burr and his daughter were drawn more closely together, so close, in fact, that she was to write in after years: "I had rather not live than not to be the daughter of such a man."

At her mother's death, Theodosia was eleven years old and already versed in philosophy and history. She had read Horace, Lucian and Terence, and was preparing to begin Homer and Virgil. She could speak German and French, and played the harp and pianoforte. Burr at once concentrated on an intensive program for her further education, which he contrived to supervise under all conditions. Whether the grandfather, the Rev. Aaron Burr, first President of Princeton, would have approved of such a course of education for a girl is doubtful, and certainly her great-grandfather, the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, would not have thought it proper for Theodosia to dance, skate and ride a horse. But her father was determined to make a prodigy of her in spite of her sex, for Burr was probably the first feminist in the United States. He applauded Miss Woolstonecraft's book entitled "Vindication of the Rights of Women," wherein it was argued that girls should receive the same kind of mental training as their brothers, women being not only the equal but the superior of men. And Burr was in position to establish the thesis, for, at fourteen, Theodosia had come to be the most cultured and charming woman in America. Burr idolized her and was proud of the encomiums paid her by all who came to know her.

Meantime, popular and clever politician that Burr was, he seemed to make as many powerful enemies as friends. From the beginning of his term in the United States Senate, a bitter conflict sprang up between Jefferson and Burr, a hostility fomented by Hamilton, and furthered by Monroe and Madison. The political situation was rendered more complicated by the rivalry between Jefferson and Hamilton, and then the French Revolution came along further to complicate matters. Obviously, the Federalist party, with Hamilton its ablest exponent, was on the decline, but the Republicans were not united so as to profit by their confusion. Burr's clear French sympathies were in conflict with Jefferson's pacifism, and, though Burr was selected by the Republicans as their candidate for the post of minister to France, Washington appointed Monroe, a fellow Virginian. The President also denied Burr the use of official documents which he wished to consult, preparatory to writing a history of the Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, Burr's abilities were recognized in New York, and Governor Clinton offered him a seat on the Supreme bench of that State. This Burr declined.

In the election for President in the fall of 1796, rather to his surprise, Burr received 30 electoral votes, Jefferson 68, John Adams 71. The Republicans had made great gains. But for the moment Burr was on the side-lines. His term in the Senate had expired, so he returned to his legal practice in New York City. However, he could not cease to be active in politics. Soon he was returned to the New York Assembly and was making plans for the future.

As the Presidential election of 1800 approached, the matter of carrying New York State for the Republicans came to the fore. Burr took the lead and set up a splendid ticket, backed by Tammany. Burr was the first politician to appreciate the importance of party organization, and, when the votes were counted, it was found that New York City and the State had gone for the Republicans, and so had the country. This was a cruel blow to Hamilton, who was furious and proceeded to formulate plans to frustrate the electorate and to secure the defeat of the Republicans, for now it was obvious that either Jefferson or Burr would be President. The Federalists were divided between Adams and Pinckney. It was a hectic time, with conspiracies rife and unmitigated in bitterness.

The Electoral College convened and voted: 1 for Jay; 64 for Pinckney; 65 for Adams; 73 for Jefferson; 73 for Burr. There was no election! The matter had to be determined by the House of Representatives. Here again there developed confusion and cabals. Hamilton flung himself into the midst of the intrigues. He injected personalities, slandered Burr and did all in his power to bring bout his defeat.

On February 11, 1801, the House began to ballot as to whether Burr or Jefferson should be President. Only on the thirty-sixth ballot was Jefferson chosen President. Burr became Vice-President.

At once Cheatham and Duane, hireling pamphleteers, came out with scurrilous attacks on Burr. He was charged with having conspired with certain Federalists to wrest the Presidency from Jefferson, despite the fact that he was in Albany during the heated session. In all of this one detects the fine Italian hand of Alexander Hamilton, continuing to sow the seeds of distrust and hatred between the leaders of the Republican party, Jefferson and Burr. We now know that it was Jefferson who did the trading and made the promises, and that Burr might have won, had he resorted to bargaining. Nevertheless, Jefferson and his Virginia minions, either because they thought Burr guilty or because they feared his influence in politics, began to ignore him and to malign him. They set such hounds as Cheatham on his trail, yelping lies and digging up bones the gossips had buried, rotten bones of defamation and treachery. Burr made no effort to strike back. Never did he answer calumny with calumny, nor slander with slander.

Whilst the excitement in Washington was at its height, on February second, Theodosia was married to Joseph Alston of Charleston, South Carolina, of which State he was soon to become Governor. For Burr this was an event of the gravest moment, his life centering in this daughter. The following year, on May 29, 1802, he was made happy by the birth of her son, Aaron Burr Alston, who came to be called "Gampy," and whom his grandfather expected at two years to be exploring the secrets of natural history!

Burr did not assume the office of Vice President until January 15, 1802. He won at once the esteem of the Senate as a presiding officer. He "states the question clearly and confines the speakers to the point," presiding with "great ease and dignity," wrote one senator. But nothing could save him from the combination of enemies. Jefferson completely ignored him as to patronage. He appointed Burr's rivals in New York to important posts. War was made on the Vice President from all sides. He was charged with having gone over to the Federalists, though such alliances at the time were not infrequent, but in Burr it amounted to betrayal of the President. For two years the war of the pamphleteers continued, Burr caught between the barrage of both sides. And so it came on down to February, 1804, when a Republican caucus in Washington nominated Jefferson for President and George Clinton for Vice President. Burr was ignored, but already his friends had announced him for the governorship of New York. The political cauldron went boiling high, not only in the State but in the Nation at large. The Federalists of New England were talking of seceding from the Union: they could no longer tolerate Republican policies. The last and most horrible thing of all was the purchase of Louisiana! And so, possibly the rankest, most vilifying campaign in history came finally to a close April 25, 1804, when Burr was defeated for governor. None knew better than Burr that this meant his exit from the political stage.

In analyzing the causes for his defeat, he came finally to attribute it to the scurrilous attacks of Hamilton. From many sources it was patent that this prince of Federalists had lied about him endlessly. Burr had already declared that these deliberate defamations would have to cease, that he would call out the first man of any respectability that slandered him. So he wrote Hamilton to retract his charges. A number of letters passed between them, Hamilton ever evading the issue. At last a challenge was issued by Burr and accepted. The principals and seconds met at dawn on July 11, 1804, under the shadow of the Palisades at Weehawken, New Jersey.

Perhaps this duel is the most famous in history. Its results certainly meant the end of both Hamilton and Burr. They carried Hamilton from the field and the next day he died. Burr lived for years, but the shadow of his own doom was ever before him. It is reported that late in life he observed that, had he been wiser, he would have known that there was room enough in the world for both Hamilton and himself. Had Hamilton been equally wise, he would have known that calumnies and lies bring forth but bitter fruit.

When the news of Hamilton's death spread abroad, a thunderous hue and cry went up against Burr. He was a murderer, a criminal, in spite of the fact that all of the rules required under the duelling code had been observed. The Federalists set upon him. He was indicted forthwith for murder, both in New Jersey and New York, and, while he was never brought to trial, he had reason to fear facing a jury, so thoroughly had the public been prejudiced against him.

Presently he returned to Washington and took up his post as Vice President. His utter isolation was now even more apparent. But courageously he went about his duties. He conducted himself before the Senate as though nothing had happened. It is recorded by some of his associates that he never appeared to better advantage. The last matter to come before the Senate was the impeachment of Justice Chase. This attack on the Federal judiciary was instigated by Jefferson and pressed to a conclusion and lost, Burr casting the deciding vote."

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He may not have committed treason but he was not a good man

Things were pretty free-wheeling in the early days of the Republic. People amassed huge fortunes as land and resources became available, and being politically connected was a sure way to secure your interests.
There are echoes of this today.