Rival Caesars

by Desmond Dilg

  “That is perfectly true. Four years ago Burr was wounded in the shoulder by Hamilton's brother-in- law, John Church, he who married the other Miss Schuyler. Indeed, there is scarcely a famous public man on either side of the Atlantic who has not killed his man.”

  “Now, doctor, do you think, on your word of honor, that it was a fair fight? I particularly want to know that.”

  “I do. If I am any judge, and I have seen dozens of duels, there never was a fairer fight. Duels are in my line you see.” replied the man of probe and lancet, smiling grimly. “I’ve dug chunks of lead out of many famous statesmen, but of course I must hold my tongue.”

  “When they met what was their demeanor?”

  “It was that of perfect gentlemen. All the arrangements were fair and above board. The two seconds are men of unimpeachable integrity. The combat was conducted in all good faith. No doubt of that.”

  “How did they face one another?”

  “Splendidly. Each man drew himself up to his full height, pistol in hand, and the half suppressed fires of long pent up hate shone from their eyes. Yet they were cool. Ah, it was really a superb drama. I shall never forget it.”

  “They were ceremonious?”

  “Very, but as hard as iron. One could see they meant business. There was death in their glances. They saluted, but their salutes were that of men about to slay. My breath came and went with excitement. I felt it was to be a tragedy.”

  “Aye,” said the Ex-President. “It was the final act in a long adjourned suit.”

  “You are right, Adams. I now begin to perceive the true meaning of this battle and its significance. It was a real trial by combat, and who dares to say (for certainty), that the verdict was wrong? The fates may know more than we. Anyhow, against their decision no appeal can hold. Men may come and men may go, but the commands of Fate are final.”

  “You are right, doctor. There is more in it than our petty present day moralists can conceive. But aside from that it will go down to posterity as one of the most picturesque and romantic events in our history—a history positively bristling with battles and bloody encounters. The epic of those two, properly told some day, will crown our age with a halo of eternal grandeur. It is a theme worthy of the highest Homeric genius.”

  “You say rightly, Mr. Adams. The story (if truthfully related), outshines the wildest Arthurian Romance. Two chiefs warring for a kingdom on the banks of that lordly river—two kings of men in mortal combat fighting for a republic—one destroying the other, while half the people rage and the other half weep. It is a tragic, beautiful tale, full of human nature, and yet so true, so profoundly terrible, and so full of merciless meaning.”

  “But,” replied the doctor, “I am afraid that the in-burning motives of the two combatants can never become properly known. There are too many interested in suppressing the hidden story. I assure you, Adams, there was an Helen in this, as well as in the tale of Troy; nay perhaps half a dozen Helens. It was the 'Eternal Feminine' that embittered the strife. Verily the flash of a woman's eye is deadlier than the flash of steel.”

  “I am assured of that, doctor. What great thing ever happens without a woman being mixed up therein?”

  While man possesses heart and eyes

  Woman's empire never dies.

  “The struggle for the possession of women is the initial impulse that shakes the world. The truth of history is hidden in romance. I’ve not lived all these exciting years without perceiving that,” replied the Ex-President, meditatively.

  “I see you guess what I mean, Adams. One woman can weave more tangles in an hour than seven men can untangle in seven and seventy years.”

  “Yes, the web that women weave is woven with a bloody shuttle. They have slain more men with a flirting smile than all the swords and cannon ever forged. What wars have been waged; what duels fought for love of women?”

  “You have heard how the hatred between Hamilton and Burr first began.”

  “Yes, the story of their early estrangement is known to a few of us in the higher degree of the Iron Cross. Their political disputes but disguise a fierce personal animus originating in love-jealousies. Both men, however, have been somewhat reserved on that point. I suspect they know more of each other's private history than the public is ever likely to hear. They were both famous for their gallantries, and Burr was (without doubt) the most handsome and dashing and successful of the two. Men feared him and women idolized him; aye, many a beauty he turned to poison in the denial.”

  “You know Charlotte?” said Doctor Hosack, inquiringly. “She of the tigress beauty, she who nearly drove little Madison off his head. I understand she brought the Vice President some of those compromising letters that once belonged to Andre. She is now all the rage; a destructive type of beauty; a superb animal; a veritable Circe; a clasping sorceress.”

  “Yes, I’ve often seen her. She is said to be in the employ of Bonaparte. Without doubt she is a lovely, a superb creature.”

  “Well, she set her nets to catch Burr and worm secrets of state out of him, and instead of that he wormed them out of her. Then Hamilton fell frantically in love with her, and she fell as desperately in love with the Vice President. That tells the whole story. But that is only one 'affair' (the latest) in which they have crossed each other. The fact is their loves and hates and ambitions are inextricably woven together into a subtle web of destiny and intrigue, of the most marvelous complications.”

  “What do you think will be the upshot, doctor?”

  “I should rather ask that from you. You know the moves and men on the political chessboard better than I do. What do you think?”

  “It will ruin Burr and the Burrites; it will disintegrate the Hamiltonians and give Jefferson a free hand. Burr's bullet has made Jefferson dictator. Our two greatest men in the North have destroyed each other. That is really what it amounts to,” answered John Adams in a tone of sorrow and regret. “Burr must fly while the worms eat Hamilton.”

  “Which of them do you think the greatest man?”

  “Both were great, each in his own way. In my opinion, however, they obtained success too early and too easy. It is bad for young men to win great power without a hard, a very hard struggle. Early strife and early defeat is the grindstone against which the perfect blade is ground to a lasting edge.”

  “But you have not answered my question, Mr. Adams?”

  “Their greatness is purely a matter of opinion. It depends on the point of view. Sometimes I think Burr is the greatest mind of the two, sometimes Hamilton. Hamilton did not have the wide grasp of things that Burr had. Burr believed in the Man, Hamilton in the State. However, we live too near to the scene of action to be good judges. A century or two hence these two men will be better understood. In my own mind I've compared Hamilton to Cicero, and Burr to Caesar without the Legions. Hamilton was the greatest organist that ever played upon a Caucus; and Burr is one of those strange, all-penetrative beings who, without effort, see into the minds and real motives of men at a glance.

  “Both men were somehow born out of their time. You know, doctor, we are still but a swarm of colonists settled on the shore of a boundless continent. There is little opportunity here as yet for the display of such genius as both Hamilton and Burr possessed in a superlative degree. By and by, however (when this land seethes and roars with an ocean of humanity) the spirits of those combatants shall return to renew their conflict in thought and in deed. Certainly neither of them shall ever be forgotten. It is always the unfortunate heroes whose memory brands itself indelibly on the popular mind.”

  “You believe in the resurrection of the dead?”

  “I do. I believe in the resurrection of some of the dead. The great-of-thought shall be born again.”

  “You are a prophet?”

  “I am.”

  “But if the great are to be born again, their opponents must also be born again. Else without struggle the world would be very tame and dreary. A nation of Perfect Saints would be a sad thing
.”

  “My prophetic instinct cannot presume to enter into details.”

  “How about the Republic?”

  “The Republic is an experiment, but will serve its purpose. It fills up an interlude in the World Drama. Much remains to be solved. When its usefulness and necessity is past it will perish; to be resurrected again in some other age. No human institution is eternal. Even the very gods die.”

  “That is Burr's idea.”

  “I was not aware of it.”

  “What do you think Burr will now do?”

  “I think he will go West. For years I know he has secretly been maturing a scheme for the conquest of Mexico or at least of that part of it known as Texas or the Red River Valley.”

  “That reminds me of what I heard him say when leaving the dueling grounds with his second. The words were, ‘I’m a ruined man, Van Ness. Now for Mexico and a new start.’”

  “Now that you speak of it, I also remember a remark he made once at Richmond Hill. There was a grand dinner party. Talleyrand and Volney were there.

  “‘If I were President,’” said Burr, “‘I would, without hesitation, annex Mexico, Florida, Cuba, and Louisiana by force of arms. Those territories are veritable gold mines, and sooner or later we must have them anyhow. It is unreasonable to permit such valuable properties to remain uselessly in the possession of unproductive half breeds.’”

  “Ha! Ha! What did the famous French visitors say to that?”

  “Talleyrand smiled approval in a complacent, Mephistophelian way; while his small fiery eyes burned with suppressed animation; but Volney, who is as you know, a great Humanitarian, seemed to be utterly shocked at Burr's open avowal of high handed designs.”

  “Tell me what Volney said? That conversation must have been highly diverting. You must have enjoyed it.”

  “So I did. Volney shrugged his shoulders and entered into a voluble argument, which just amounted to this: that wars of conquest were ‘wrong in nature,’ against the ‘principles of the rights of man,’ the ‘con-sent of the governed,’ etc., etc. Also that every people were entitled to hold a share in the land of their birth without fear of invasion or molestation.”[*]

  “What did Burr say to that?”

  “He answered, smilingly, that the strongest people, simply because of their strength, were naturally entitled to act as they thought proper for their own advantage; establishing, as a matter of course, their own conception of right and wrong, wholly without reference to the desires of feeble and inferior human tribes. He also urged that wars were not wrong in nature, but right, necessary, and proper; and that the ‘consent of the governed’ was only a rhetorical fancy, a figure of speech. He finished by stating that the American Nation existed today as the result of successful invasion and conquest.”

  “Then Talleyrand broke into the conversation, saying in his most seductive tones:

  “‘I agree with the Vice President. All nations at all times are open to conquest and re-conquest. There is no possible limit to the action of powerful living men and nothing absolutely eternal in territorial title. You know what has been written:

  The land is the land of the strongest hand

  That can lead its legions through.

  “‘This world is tilting ground for mighty individuals and mighty races of men to strive and triumph, reign and possess—if they can. The 'consent of the governed' theory of Rousseau and Locke and Franklin is naught but a myth of the mind; and there is no finality in anything.’”

  “How did Burr take that? Prince Talleyrand was surpassing him in boldness of thought; and clearly hinting at Napoleon's ability to protect Mexico and New Orleans.”

  Burr replied thus:

  “‘Monsieur. What you say, though somewhat unpopular is perfectly correct. The world and all that's in it, is still to the bravest and best. The fate of society is not in any theory or document, but in the spirit and deeds of its kingliest members. In lack of strength to do things is the whole of evil. Institutions perish on the advent of a man: and that man passes in his turn, when a stronger comes up against him. As you say, my dear prince, there is no finality.’”

  “Ah,” said Dr. Hosack, rubbing his hands together in evident enjoyment. “Talleyrand received a deadly thrust there.”

  “But do you know, doctor, I sometimes think Burr's philosophy true.”

  “It is true, Adams. There is no doubt that it is true. Who can look around upon the world as it is and deny it? The conqueror and the conquered are literally terms of natural history. Conquest goes on today by brain and sword, even as it did when Joshua rode into Cannan, and Cortez seized Mexico. It makes me weep to think so, but the fact itself is undeniable. Vae Victus is God’s law.”

  “Burr is a most extraordinary man,” said John Adams, with decision. “He is not appreciated at his true worth. Such men seldom are. It requires greatness of mind to appreciate greatness of mind. In an Homeric age he would have been in his element. His amours, in my opinion, have been his ruination. It is truly surprising how any individual could become so eminent as a soldier, as a statesman, as a professional man, who devoted so much time to the other sex as is devoted by Colonel Burr. They seem to absorb his whole thoughts. He is far too fond of the 'Eternal Feminine' to become a truly great man.”

  “I doubt your conclusion,” replied Dr. Hosack. “My experience as a physician is that a great man must possess powerful physical motive force. It requires a powerful constitution to nourish a really powerful mind; and a powerful constitution is ever strongly excited by the female.

  Renowned personalities have always been remarkable for their somewhat unconventional love romances. Their overpowering amative instincts find vent somehow. The motor and combative spirit are generally united. Henry the VIII and King Solomon are eternal types.”

  “Perhaps you are right, doctor. I had not thought of it in that light before. Certainly the scandals now being hurled against Burr have been hurled at nearly all the mightiest personalities of ancient and modern times. When a public man cannot be ‘downed’ in any other manner it is usual for his opponents to frantically proclaim his sexual weaknesses, if he has any, or invent them if he has them not. All men who would rise to prominence must expect to be thus assailed. None of us are entirely free from the power of the passions; none, but when a man attains high position, then a million eyes are for ever on the watch to detect his slightest failing. None of us are ‘perfect saints' and the least saintlike of all may be the very man intended to become the leader in tremendous events— like unto David or Peter the Great, or Julius Caesar, or Martin Luther, or Mahomet.”

  “Has Burr ever expressed his religious views in your hearing?”

  “Never. But hold! I heard him once say: 'Honor is the religion of a gentleman.' Do you know what he believes?”

  “No. He is always very reserved on that point. However, he has a profound contempt for the common ruck of mankind and their half informed opinions. Nevertheless, I once heard him say incidentally:

  “‘To make Government effectual there must be a religion.’ The remark struck me very forcibly, and I’ve never forgotten it. It contains volumes.”

  XIX

  O, Tragic Shores of Weehawken

  The clouds. The dark clouds round him sweep

  The dim waves o'er him roll

  His bones are dropped into red earth:

  —Is that his final goal?

  But see the well-plumed hearse comes nodding on

  Stately and Slow and properly attended.

  Ninety degrees in the shade. In the suffocating heat the Great City sweltered. Solid banks of bareheaded men, women and children lined the torrid streets. Perspiration oozed from the pores of eager multitudes. Dust storms whirled. The wind moaned and blew as from the belly of a furnace. A muggy, oppressive haze hung over the Island City, the City of Manhattan.[*]

  Boom!

  It was the roar of a solitary cannon shot.

  A minute passed.

  Boom!


  Another report rolled and reverberated and echoed over the housetops and over the Bay.

  Another minute elapsed.

  Boom!

  The minute-guns were sounding.

  It was a funeral—the artillery salute for a dead general, a founder of Government. A great soldier, a great statesman lay stiff and cold. The breath of life (that mysterious thing) had passed from him, while the nation wrung its hands and wept. Temple bells tolled plaintively. Bugles sounded dolefully. Fifes and muffled drums played the long, slow, sad wail—the wail of the warrior, the soldier's last tattoo.

  Boom!

  The mortal remains of a nation-builder, a mighty chieftain, was passing to the sacred enclosure, the Place of the Dead. Grief burned into every soul. Sorrow and inconsolable desolation was in every heart. A republic sorrowed for its kingliest citizen. Sadly they bore to the sepulchre the bones of the valiant Doer of Things—a hero, a warrior, a conqueror, a man among men, who had fallen.

  Boom!

  Half mast high, above the City and above the Ships, the draped flags, the flags of Soldier and Sea king, drooped and flapped and fluttered. From frigates (streaked with the shot of Aboukir) the cannon of Napoleon saluted. The war ships of the Pirate Islanders joined in the yell of sorrow. The battle ships of the young republic added their angry growl. Across the Bay from Jersey and Brooklyn answered the snarling guns.

  Boom!

  Cavalry! Squadron after squadron sweep by: the horses curvetting proudly under the tightened rein, impatient. Artillery! The regiment of the dead commander followed in uniform of green and gold, on their caps the “skull and crossbones” over that immortal and suggestive motto: “Victory or Death.” The guns of the regiment, covered with black velvet and hidden by flowers, are driven by grizzled men in slouch hats, veterans of battle, well ploughed with scars. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the engines of power and death rumbled over the cobble stones.