Aaron Burr

BURR, AARON

Aaron Burr was a soldier, lawyer, and politician and the third vice president of the United States.

Burr was born February 6, 1756, in Newark, New Jersey. His family traced its ancestry to the Pilgrims and through hundreds of years of English gentry with many members who were prominent in government and politics. Both his parents died when he was young and he and his sister were raised in comfortable circumstances by their maternal uncle. Burr was a bright, charming, handsome, and witty boy who was gifted intellectually but decidedly mischievous and difficult to control. From earliest childhood he showed ambition, determination, and leadership.

Burr entered the College of New Jersey (now
Princeton University) as a sophomore in 1769 at
the age of thirteen and graduated summa cum
laude three years later. He then enrolled in
LITCHFIELD LAW SCHOOL (Connecticut), which
was run by his brother-in-law and former tutor,
Tapping Reeve. However, the Revolutionary War
and his desire to be a part of it interrupted his
studies.
Burr rose swiftly through the ranks of the
revolutionary army, displaying daring, energy,
courage, and imagination. His small stature and
pampered upbringing belied an internal
strength that surprised many who knew him.
Accompanying Colonel Benedict Arnold’s
troops in their expedition to Quebec, he endured cold, hunger, and illness. He was made
an officer in the Continental Army and soon
served with General GEORGE WASHINGTON.
Burr resigned his Army commission in 1779.
He resumed the study of law in 1780 and was
admitted to the bar in 1782. Later in 1782 he
married Theodosia Prevost, a widow ten years
his senior, and the following year their only child,
a daughter also named Theodosia, was born.
In 1789 Burr was appointed attorney general
of the state of New York and in 1791 he was
elected a U.S. senator, defeating General Philip
Schuyler, the father-in-law of ALEXANDER
HAMILTON. This was the beginning of a bitter
rivalry with Hamilton that would come to a
ruinous conclusion years later.
Burr served in the Senate for six years. In
1797, the voters turned against him and elected
his former antagonist, General Schuyler. Burr
attributed his loss to Hamilton’s assiduous
efforts to undermine his support and reputation.
After losing his Senate seat, Burr served a
short time in the New York assembly, before
entering the presidential race of 1800. He and
his opponent, THOMAS JEFFERSON, received the
same number of votes in the ELECTORAL COLLEGE,
and the election went to the House of
Representatives for resolution. Burr and his supporters
were unabashedly ambitious in their zeal
to win the office. Burr’s nemesis Hamilton
stepped into the fray, announcing his support
for Jefferson and criticizing Burr. Finally,
through clever manipulation of the voting
process, Hamilton secured the presidency for
Jefferson and Burr automatically became vice
president. As a result of this peculiar election
Congress passed the TWELFTH AMENDMENT,
which mandated separate balloting for president
and vice president.
Burr’s ruthless and opportunistic ambition
caused many of his colleagues to shun him both
professionally and socially. President Jefferson
held him at arm’s length, and others in the
administration treated him like an outsider.
Burr blamed his failure to secure the top office
largely on Hamilton and he brooded over perceived
injustices. Having lost his beloved wife in
1794, Burr was left with only his daughter,
whom he idolized. He devoted as much time
and energy as possible to her education and her
grooming. However, the young lady was moving
into adulthood and a life of her own. In 1801, against her father’s wishes, she married Joseph
Alston, of South Carolina, and moved to the Palmetto
State, leaving Burr alone in Washington,
D.C.
Toward the end of his term as vice president,
Burr ran for governor of New York but was
defeated. During the campaign Hamilton again
expressed his distrust of Burr and made other
disparaging comments about him. Feeling that
his honor had been impugned, Burr challenged
Hamilton to a duel. Although Hamilton tried to
defuse the conflict, Burr was determined to force
a confrontation. The two men met at 7:00 A.M.
on July 7, 1804. Burr was an excellent marksman,
and he killed Hamilton with the first shot.
In an ensuing public outcry, Burr was indicted
for murder. He escaped to his daughter’s home
in South Carolina until the furor died down and
eventually returned to Washington, D.C., to
complete his term as vice president.
Burr came to realize that his aspirations to
the presidency had been destroyed. His political
career in ruins, he left Washington, D.C., and
traveled west to explore frontier territory. He
also concocted an elaborate conspiracy that was
to be his final political undoing. Though complete
details of the scheme have never been fully
discovered, Burr apparently intended to lead the
western states in an insurrection against the federal
government. After the states seceded, he
planned to install himself as the head of a newly
created republic. He then intended to conquer
Texas and Mexico. In October 1806, President
Jefferson issued a proclamation denouncing
Burr’s venture. On January 14, 1807, Burr was
arrested in Mississippi on a charge of TREASON.
He escaped, but was later apprehended in
Alabama. Burr’s trial began in May 1807, and
lasted six months. He was eventually acquitted
but his political life was over.
Burr spent the next several years in exile in
Europe, where he endured poverty, humiliation,
and degradation. In 1812, he quietly returned to
the United States, slipping into Boston wearing a
disguise and using an assumed name. After a
time he resumed a somewhat normal life and
opened a law office in New York. Burr’s
prospects seemed to be brightening when he was
dealt two crushing personal blows. First, he
learned that his only grandchild, Aaron Burr
Alston, had died before Burr returned to the
United States. A few months later his beloved
daughter perished in a shipwreck while traveling
from South Carolina to New York to visit Burr.
Burr was devastated by these losses. A wave
of sympathy tempered public opinion toward
him, but he was still shunned by those in prominence.
He continued his law practice, enjoyed a
small circle of supportive friends, and even
remarried, though the union was short-lived
and unhappy. He quietly and unobtrusively
engaged in numerous altruistic and philanthropic
ventures, including providing for the
education of young men and women of limited
resources and adopting an orphan who lived
with him until late adolescence.

During the last few years of his life, Burr suffered a series of strokes. At first, he rebounded completely, but each successive episode left him weaker. He died September 14, 1836, and was buried beside his parents and grandfather in Princeton, New Jersey.

FURTHER READINGS
Kennedy, Roger G. 2000. Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character. Oxford; New York: Oxford Univ.
Press.
Lomask, Milton. 1982. Aaron Burr. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Melton, Buckner F., Jr. 2001. Aaron Burr: Conspiracy to Treason. New York:Wiley.
Vail, Philip. 1973. The Great American Rascal. New York: Hawthorn Books.

United States v. Aaron Burr

In 1807 Aaron Burr was prosecuted for TREASON
and high misdemeanor in the federal circuit court
in Richmond, Virginia, with U.S. Supreme Court Chief
Justice JOHN MARSHALL presiding as a trial judge.
Despite evidence that Burr had been plotting to raise
a rebellion and overtake a portion of the western territories
in the United States and other evidence that
Burr was planning to lead an unauthorized invasion
of Mexico, the defendant was acquitted by a jury on
both the treason and high misdemeanor charges.
Aaron Burr served as the nation’s third vice president
from 1801–1805, having lost the 1800 presidential
election after the U.S. House of Representatives
broke an electoral deadlock by naming THOMAS JEFFERSON
president and Burr vice president. Although
Burr contemplated running for president again four
years later, those ambitions came to an end when he
was indicted for murdering ALEXANDER HAMILTON in
a duel on July 11, 1804.

Later that same month, Burr, now disaffected
with American politics, met with Britain’s minister to
the United States, Anthony Merry, who subsequently
reported to his government that Burr “was endeavoring
to effect a separation of the western part of the
United States” via military action. In early 1805 Burr,
while still acting as the vice president of the United
States, contacted Spanish minister, Marques de
Casa Yrujo, to discuss the same subject. The governments
of both Great Britain and Spain declined to
offer Burr any financial or military assistance.
When his term as vice president expired, Burr
headed west to raise a military force that would
either invade Mexico or forcefully sever the southwestern
United States into an independent nation led
by Burr himself. The former vice president first met
with another malcontent, Herman Blennerhassett, on
Blennerhassett Island, located in the Ohio River, then
part of Virginia. A year later Burr joined forces with
General James Wilkinson on Blennerhassett Island,
where they assembled a force of unknown size to
carry out Burr’s plan. Burr left the island before any
actions were taken to implement the plan.
After Burr departed, Wilkinson had second
thoughts about the plan and informed President Jefferson
of their rebellious preparations. Jefferson
issued a proclamation calling for the suppression of
the conspiracy. Federal authorities arrested Burr in
March 1807 while he was trying to flee into Spanish
Florida. The former vice president was brought back
to Virginia where he stood trial before Chief Justice
John Marshall (early Supreme Court justices performed
double duty as appellate judges on the
nation’s high court and as trial judges in their designated
circuit court) and state trial judge Cyrus Griffin.
Bail was set at $5,000.

After hearing testimony from Wilkinson, the
GRAND JURY for the Virginia federal circuit court
indicted Burr on June 24, 1807. The indictment
charged him with one count of treason and one count
of high misdemeanor for “unlawfully, falsely, maliciously,
and traitorously . . . intending to raise and levy
war” against the United States.

The trial began on August 10, 1807, and ended less
than a month later, on September 1, 1807. Jefferson,
motivated in part by personal vindictiveness against
Burr, declared in a special message to Congress during
the trial that Burr’s guilt had been “placed beyond
question.” Jefferson then gave George Hay, the U.S.
attorney in charge of the prosecution, incriminating
evidence to offer against Burr. Jefferson also dangled
pardons as enticements to any co-conspirators who
agreed to turn state’s evidence.

But the prosecution had two major problems.
First, the linchpin of the treason charge was the
alleged OVERT ACT of assembling a military force on
Blennerhassett Island for the purpose of waging war
against the United States. The indictment said this
act occurred on December 10, 1806, a date on which
all defense and prosecution witnesses agreed that
Burr was not on the island, but instead hundreds of
miles away.

Second, Chief Justice Marshall instructed the
jurors that they could still convict Burr of treason for
being a co-conspirator to the crime, so long as at
least two witnesses provided testimony that some
overt act was committed in furtherance of the conspiracy.
But General Wilkinson was the only witness
who testified as to Burr’s involvement in the alleged
crime. The jury returned a verdict of “not guilty” after
deliberating for only 25 minutes.

On September 9, 1807, the trial for the high misdemeanor
began, again with Chief Justice Marshall and Cyrus Griffin presiding. Prosecutor Hay called more than 50 witnesses to testify against the defendant. But
the jury again acquitted Burr. Hay then filed a motion
to prosecute Burr for treason in Ohio, alleging that the
defendant conspired to levy war against the U.S. government
in that jurisdiction as well. Marshall listened
to five weeks of testimony concerning the motion and
then on October 20 ruled that Burr could only be tried
for misdemeanor charges in Ohio. Finally, Hay ceased
efforts at prosecuting Burr any further.

FURTHER READINGS
Beirne, Francis. 1959. Shout Treason: The Trial of Aaron Burr.
New York: Hastings House.
Melton, Bucker F., Jr. 2001. Aaron Burr: Conspiracy to Treason.
New York: Wiley.
Vail, Philip. 1973. The Turbulent Life of Aaron Burr: The Great
American Rascal. New York: Award Books.

CROSS-REFERENCES
Treason.