Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  What we know of Burr’s personal interactions followed a very different pattern. He seems to have enjoyed more informal, salonlike gatherings, with his close friends, where he could engage in wide-ranging conversations (as he confided to his uncle Pierpont Edwards) about “men and measures, Love, Religion, and politics.” He made a point of befriending James Monroe, his fellow Republican senator. During the Revolution, Monroe had been a great admirer of Theodosia, and his respect for her must have influenced his opinion of her husband. In 1791, Burr encouraged Theodosia to travel from New York to Philadelphia with Monroe, who like Burr, had to commute if he was going to see his wife (Elizabeth Monroe lived there with her family). Burr, in turn, did favors for the Virginian. After Elizabeth’s father died, Burr represented Monroe and his wife in a case before the New York Chancery that concerned her father’s estate.107

  At the same time, Burr cultivated the distinguished legislator and constitutional thinker (and fellow Princetonian) James Madison. In the spring of 1794, he introduced Madison, then a forty-three-year-old bachelor, to Dolley Payne Todd. At one point, probably the year before he played matchmaker, Burr had boarded with Dolley’s mother, Mary, and he remained close to the Payne family. When Dolley’s first husband died during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, Burr agreed to serve as her son’s guardian. Dolley chose Burr to be her son’s sole guardian because, as she expressed it in her will, “the education of my son is to him and to me the most interesting of all earthly concerns.” Burr and the widow shared views on children’s education: his unusual devotion to his daughter’s training reaffirmed Dolley’s trust in his abilities.108

  Whether she knew it or not, in her observations about High Federalism Theodosia had drawn an acute picture of the partisan landscape. Increasingly, Anne Bingham and her London style showcased the cultural values of those in power in the decade of the 1790s. Federalists liked opulent display; Republicans preferred things simpler. Theodosia’s comments to her son suggest how central social performance was becoming to the conduct of politics: the “parties resemble,” as she put it, “a playhouse before the curtain is drawn up.” She meant, of course, social gatherings, but one could as easily be referring to political parties.

  “English” and “French” principles set the emerging political parties apart. Just as the Federalists aped the English aristocracy, the Republicans were drawn to all things French. In 1793, as the French Revolution progressed, 400 members of the New York Republican Tammany Society went on parade carrying the American flag and a French liberty cap. The following year, young Republicans donned French fashions, while one New York woman requested that Republican bachelors wear French cockades “to distinguish between Friends and Enemies of the RIGHTS OF MAN.”109

  Hoping to curb mounting sympathy for America’s “sister” republic, President Washington issued a Proclamation of Neutrality to avoid dragging the United States into the war between England and France. But the new French minister, Citizen Edmond-Charles Genet, came close to provoking an international incident when he appeared to challenge Washington’s will on the streets of America. Touring the nation from Charleston, South Carolina, to New York City in May 1793, Genet was warmly greeted by adoring crowds. Soon, rumors surfaced that he refused to acknowledge Washington’s proclamation and planned to appeal directly to the American people to reject the administration’s policy of neutrality. Prominent Federalist leaders such as Hamilton, John Jay, and Senator Rufus King played key roles in spreading gossip about Genet. After a time, even Jefferson came to feel that the French minister had become a liability for Republicans, and he urged his party’s supporters to distance themselves from him.110

  Sensitive to the growing problem, Burr asked Pennsylvania Republican John Nicholson to confirm the stories about Genet, whether he “goes about Visiting the Mechanics, and the lower orders of people, leaving Cards at their houses when they are not home!” To Burr, it all sounded nonsensical, but his inquiry demonstrates how fears of Genet’s Revolutionary etiquette (leaving cards at the homes of the lower class) put manners at the center of the controversy. Federalist congressman John Steele offered a similar observation, musing, with more than a little irony, that Genet was so affable that he might “laugh us into the war if he can.” L’affaire Genet was not simply a partisan dispute about foreign policy, but the first culture war in America, in which political differences were understood in terms of social etiquette and cultural identification.111

  Burr was already identified with the French Enlightenment. He gave Rousseau’s Confessions as a gift to a friend, and he voiced his admiration for the new French Constitution. He generously agreed to sponsor Madame de Senat, the governess of a young French exile, Nathalie de Lage de Volunde, who was herself the daughter of a French admiral and former maid of honor of Marie Antoinette. Through his patronage, Madame de Senat opened a school in Burr’s Manhattan town house on Partition Street, just blocks from Federal Hall. While his daughter was immersed in the French language and acquiring French manners, he himself established ties to the French refugee community in New York.112

  His close friends were no less enthusiastic in their support of the French Revolution. Melancton Smith helped organize a gala reception for Genet when he arrived in New York City. The New York Democratic Society, modeled on the French Jacobin societies, made its debut in 1793; and Burr’s supporters—Smith, David Gelston, and others in his camp—filled the leadership ranks. As a fraternal club, French salon, and protest group all at once, the democratic societies in New York and elsewhere became an organ of the Republican Party; as ardent defenders of the “rights of man,” they were culturally and politically pro-French. Among New York Republicans, Burr’s overt sympathy for France made him even more attractive as a political manager.113

  As political tensions over France grew, Burr assumed a prominent role in the Senate. Imbued with the Enlightenment’s emphasis on research and discovery, Burr set out to master foreign policy, requesting permission from Secretary of State Jefferson, in 1793, to review the correspondence of America’s ministers abroad. Putting his research to immediate use, Burr led the charge in criticizing Gouverneur Morris, the plenipotentiary in Paris and lately a prominent target of Republicans. Morris had shown little sympathy for the aims of the French Revolution. In April 1794, Burr drafted a Senate resolution congratulating the French Republic on its recent military victories over England. The senator from New York was now under consideration for a possible appointment as the next minister to France. His Republican allies Madison and Monroe proposed him for the job, though Monroe voiced some concern when he learned that Burr’s old Princeton confidant, Federalist William Paterson, had expressed support for Burr in this instance.114

  In the end, Washington selected Monroe. Trying to appease Republicans by selecting one of their own, Washington preferred the Virginian, Monroe, a man whose personality and breeding was much like his own. Appalled by his replacement, Gouverneur Morris called Monroe “a person of mediocrity in every respect.” Two years later, Federalists claimed that “Republican machinations” had kept Burr from the diplomatic assignment. Yet Hamilton’s influence over Washington probably mattered more, and he certainly would not have endorsed Burr’s appointment.115

  “POOR COLN BUR HAS LOST HIS WIFE”

  Foreign policy was a preoccupation during the Genet affair. But then, Burr’s life changed forever. On May 18, 1794, Theodosia died. Learning in Philadelphia of the “fateful event,” he rushed to New York. Though her illness had grown progressively worse over the past two years, Burr was unprepared; more than that, he was disbelieving. “So sudden & unexpected was her death,” he wrote to Pierpont Edwards, “that no immediate Danger was apprehended until the Morning that she was relieved from all earthly cares.” Her death, he recalled years later, “dealt me more pain than all sorrows combined.”116

  Theodosia had been reconciled to her fate. She had even joked about it to her son John Bartow two years before. An
ything was “preferable to dying on the road,” she wrote, and then, with comic timing, “indeed to dying anywhere.” But she did die—and not just anywhere: she died at home without her husband. We do not know what her last moments were like, nor is it possible to predict what might have happened if Theodosia had not been lost so soon after Aaron’s career had begun. She was forty-eight, ten years older than he, and their twelve years of marriage were, by all accounts, loving. Of course, death has momentous consequences for the living, always. Now, Burr would have to go on without his most trusted political aide. She had been a keen observer, adept at judging his peers on the national scene. Had she lived, she might have more quickly unmasked his enemies—a skill Burr certainly was to need during the turbulent years ahead. Federalists and Republicans were stepping up their attacks on one another. “Poor Coln Bur has Lost his Wife,” the soon-to-be Mrs. Madison heard from a relative. He had not only lost his wife; he had lost his best ally in the political wars to come.117

  Satirical print: A Peep into the Antifederal Club (1793)

  Chapter Five

  A CERTAIN LITTLE SENATOR

  Next in the train, the courtly Burr is seen.

  With piercing look, and ever varying mien;

  Tho’ small his stature, yet his well known name,

  Shines with full splendor on the rolls of fame;

  Go search the records of intrigue, and find,

  To what debasement sinks the human mind,

  How far ’tis possible for man to go,

  Where interest sways and passions urge the blow;

  While pride and pleasure; haughtiness and scorn,

  And mad ambition in his bosom burn.

  —Unknown author, The Democratiad (1795)

  The powerful caricature shown at left symbolizes the fears of Federalists as they witnessed the success of the new Republican Party. City- and county-level democratic clubs were the Republicans’ radical auxiliary, hammering out texts and convening public meetings in support of more popular government. In the 1793 cartoon, our eyes move directly to one image in particular, a rabble-rousing speaker who stands before the undistinguished, if not shabby, club members. He disguises his crass private ambition behind his loudly trumpeted democratic ideals. Some have suspected that the fiery radical in this political cartoon is Burr. But, in fact, it is a democrat who has been lost to history. While we cannot know with 100 percent certainty, it appears to be a man named John Swanwick.1

  Swanwick became a Pennsylvania congressman in 1794, serving alongside Burr’s good friend Albert Gallatin (later Jefferson’s secretary of the treasury). He had a lavish lifestyle and pronounced literary tastes (he is quoting a Hamlet soliloquy in the cartoon). As “merchant-poet,” he championed female education and, it was said, vainly sought to impress the ladies at the theater. Like Burr, he had a small build (he was five foot four, Burr five six), and was mockingly designated a “Great Man” as often as he was called “Little Man.” Driven, according to his critics, by his “passion for superiority,” Swanwick was referred to as a “puffing orator,” which is, indeed, how he is portrayed in “A Peep into the Antifederal Club.”2

  There was another striking parallel between the two men. Swanwick was a self-made man, “the son of [a] British Waggon Master,” whose sudden wealth and reputation posed a threat to some among the established Federalist elite in Philadelphia. Though Burr had a proud family heritage, he was attacked for his premature expectation of political honors. As a self-made politician, Burr was rebuked for leaping ahead—stealing the Senate seat from Philip Schuyler in 1791—and for seducing voters.3

  Nothing fed Federalist anxieties quite so much as the democratic clubs. Burr’s friends across New York and Pennsylvania came out of the democratic clubs in those states; he stood up in the U.S. Senate and boldly defended the clubs’ activities, and he was listed as a member of the New York Democratic Society in 1798. Swanwick, in another sense, resembled Burr’s closest supporters—Melancton Smith, Marinus Willett, David Gelston, and John Lamb—all of whom lacked social position but who had thrived economically since the Revolutionary War, and were ambitious merchants and speculators. All such men were satirized in the caricature, as in the telling line at the end of the orator’s speech: “Glorious thought thus to emerge from dirt to Gold.”4

  The political ambitions of the modestly formed Swanwick extended only as far as Congress. But the rising star Aaron Burr was destined for even higher office. This made him a target of Federalist rancor and wild words—fearful accusations that his affiliations brought him in contact with those guilty of sedition and treason, and made him no less guilty of disloyalty. The charge of ambition against Burr represented a smoke screen, hiding a discomfort increasingly common among those in power. As a new style of politician who possessed the talent to court voters outside the ruling elite, Burr was primed to take advantage of electioneering opportunities. This would bring him new enemies.

  THE “PATRIOTIC TEN”

  By 1794, the Federalist mind—and President Washington’s governing principle—centered on maintaining social stability and building credit abroad. As the party in power, the Federalists began to exhibit outlandish fears of conspirators. They associated Senator Burr with the French threat, the larger fear of aliens, and their distaste for democratic “disorganizers.” They linked him to Citizen Genet, whose specter continued to haunt long after he had disappeared from the political scene. Genet, not surprisingly, is a figure in “A Peep into the Antifederal Club.” He is the doll-like puppet (of the French), tossing coins into the hand of the man seated on the floor.5

  Appealing directly to the people to decide foreign policy instead of bowing to the will of the executive, Genet had done more than insult the president; he became a symbol of foreign disorder, of social chaos spilling onto America’s shores. His warm reception at the democratic clubs in Philadelphia and New York gave the Federalists further cause for alarm. Jacobin ideas of sedition appeared to be spreading through “self-created societies,” as Washington called the unelected and unrepresentative political clubs that openly criticized his administration. For proof of their charges, Federalists pointed to the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, an uprising against the federal excise tax on whiskey, centered in western Pennsylvania. While Washington dispatched 15,000 soldiers to suppress the so-called “western conspiracy,” he blamed the “diabolical” Genet and democratic societies for the turmoil.6

  Months before the Whiskey Rebellion came to the public attention, the Senate met to determine whether western Pennsylvania’s Albert Gallatin should retain his newly won seat. Sworn in on December 2, 1793, Gallatin, a Republican, had little time to enjoy his office, for on the same day a petition was submitted challenging his credentials. Federalists, hoping to maintain their slim majority in the upper House, insisted that Gallatin, Swiss by birth, had not been an American citizen long enough to hold such a high office. The exact date of his American naturalization was at issue: he needed nine years of citizenship to serve in the Senate, and the petitioners claimed he was one year shy of meeting that requirement.7

  The French-speaking Gallatin sparked the animosity of Federalists because, in their minds, he threatened political order. As early as 1791, when the excise on whiskey was first passed, Gallatin was its leading critic. As a member of the Pennsylvania state legislature, he drafted resolutions against the tax, calling for his fellow citizens to treat all tax collectors with contempt and to resist paying them. Gallatin himself later admitted that the resolutions were “perhaps too violent, and undoubtedly highly impolitic,” but they were still well within the law. When, in 1793, Gallatin was elected to the Senate, many Federalists were, he said, “exceedingly mortified.”8

  Gallatin’s right to hold his Senate seat came under attack. With his reputation as a talented lawyer, Burr assumed a prominent role in Gallatin’s defense. The Senate proceedings, begun in mid-February 1794, were handled like a trial. For the fi
rst time, the Senate chamber was open to the public; the debates were closely covered in the newspapers, and large crowds were in attendance, giving the Senate forum the atmosphere of a courtroom. Virginia Republican John Taylor of Caroline felt that Burr’s role was crucial. Burr would have to reprise his role in the 1792 election controversy in New York, when he crossed legal swords with Federalist senator Rufus King. During Gallatin’s defense, Taylor dashed off an encouraging note to Burr: “We shall leave you to reply to King: first, because you desired it; second, all depends on it; no one else can do it; and the audience will expect it.” Burr was the only Republican in the Senate with the legal expertise—and oratorical skills—to win this forensic contest.9

  A Philadelphia attorney, ultra-Federalist William Lewis, represented the petitioners—Gallatin’s critics—and several people were brought in to testify. He and Rufus King led the charge against Gallatin. Lewis was particularly driven. He took the case far beyond simply contesting the date of Gallatin’s naturalization: he questioned whether Gallatin was worthy of holding office. The Philadelphia lawyer identified Gallatin as an interfering foreigner who had no business running for the Senate. Though the Senate was weighing whether to invalidate an election, Lewis hinted that failing to remove Gallatin would have “mischievous consequences,” noting that “ancient Republics made it death for an alien to intermeddle in their policies.” More than once he mocked Gallatin’s “novel and absurd” ideas about citizenship, suggesting that this new American was clueless about American legal traditions and, in this sense, would always be an alien.10