Aaron Burr, of course, famously killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. What I hadn’t known until a few days ago is that he apparently introduces James Madison to Madison’s future wife, Dolley (though at James Madison’s own request). His relationship with John Jay, the third third of Publius, was less momentous: He merely lost a race for Governor to Jay (unless I’m missing something important).
BABH says:
He didn’t kill him with a pistol?
[Whoops, fixed, thanks! -EV]
December 21, 2009, 7:05 pmChrisTS says:
BABH:
Eh, EV’s goof is not so bad; I have students who think one can wreck havoc.
December 21, 2009, 7:08 pmBABH says:
Don’t they know it takes time to restore choas?
December 21, 2009, 7:26 pmChrisTS says:
Oh lord. Time to count our blessings, I think.
December 21, 2009, 9:54 pmBrent Cooper says:
Eugene, where did you stumble on the Dolley tidbit? I’ve been fascinated by Burr for years, yet learned of this for the first time only a year or two ago in the new biography of Burr written by Nancy Isenberg, which is well researched and well written (though perhaps a bit too forgiving of some of Burr’s flaws). Info here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670063525/thevolocons0d-20/
December 21, 2009, 10:40 pmCupid, With a Bow | Liberal Whoppers says:
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December 21, 2009, 11:41 pmMark V Wilson says:
Also, Burr founded the Manhattan Bank – later Chase Manhattan and Hamilton founded the competing Bank of New York. Both were co-counsel for the defendant in the trial of Levi Weeks for murder – Weeks was acquitted.
December 21, 2009, 11:55 pmtheobromophile says:
I think that Mark V. Wilson is trying to blame Burr and Hamilton for the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
December 22, 2009, 2:01 amPenguins Fan says:
Only tangentially related … from this text comes the following:
My grandmother’s memory was a treasure-house of charming New England legend and history. She had been brought up by her grandmother Mrs. Wormstead, who, I fear, was a Tory, although married to a Revolutionary officer, and delighted in the pictures of stately Boston, when black John carried round the silver salver at five o’clock tea, and when Grandma and her little sister came to curtesy, and perhaps in order to form their manners, to drink a dish of tea. Once as they came in from a walk Madame Wormsted was entertaining a gentleman who made much of the little girls, setting Grandma on his knee, where fascinated, she watched his brilliant eyes. Shortly her mother came in, but as the stranger was not presented she quickly withdrew, and later reproaching her mother, was told, “I could not have you meet Aaron Burr.”
December 22, 2009, 7:33 amRich Rostrom says:
I recently read Affairs of Honor by Joanne Freeman, a history of the political culture of the United States in the Federal period. Burr was of course a major player. He was nearly killed in a duel with Hamilton’s brother-in-law J. B. Church in 1799. (They used Church’s guns, which Church lent for the 1804 duel.) “Honor” was was at the core of many men’s actions at the time which now seem to us inexplicable.
For instance, Burr in 1800-01 followed a strict “code of honor” path: he had pledged not to compete with Jefferson for the Presidency, so he made no effort to get it by negotiating with the Federalists. But he had not pledged to turn down the Presidency, and refused to disclaim any interest in it. In fact he let it be known that he was interested.
This sort of hairsplitting was quite common. Burr was openly ambitious and ruthless, and used political methods others considered improper. (It was his door-to-door precinct workers that carried New York for Jefferson.) And yet at the same time he was particularly scrupulous about keeping his word.
Burr also made an absolute distinction between his political and personal lives. He felt that always keeping his word established his honor as a gentleman. So it shouldn’t matter that he was notoriously extravagant, licentious, and debauched; a continual womanizer.
Which explains the last sentence of the quotation above!
December 22, 2009, 7:35 pmDesiderius says:
ChrisTS,
“Eh, EV’s goof is not so bad; I have students who think one can wreck havoc.”
One could… if it weren’t for the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
December 23, 2009, 1:23 amChrisTS says:
Des: Yeah, that’s definitely what I was thinking. :-)
December 26, 2009, 11:16 pm