Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  When not reprimanding Theodosia for her laziness (he called her an “idle slut” for not writing enough), Burr’s letters, by and large, took a literary turn. Most of his accounts of flirtations and failed courtships read (quite intentionally) like the fiction of Henry Fielding. Burr titled one of his autobiographical adventures the “story of Reubon and Celeste.” “Celeste” was “Inamorata”—that is, they were the same person, the same mysterious woman, available (if perhaps a bit unsettled), and living in Philadelphia. In June 1803, the vice president proposed to her, and she rejected him. But the story is not that simple.36

  We get a full picture of Burr’s literary finesse as he relates the story of Reubon and Celeste. Theirs amounts to a step-by-step record of the eighteenth-century courtship ritual: the friendly visit; dinner with the family; anticipation (“I tremble at the success I desire,” he writes); the polite request to “le père” for his daughter’s hand; the father’s assent accompanied by his refusal to “intermeddle”; and then, the “fatal step” of the marriage proposal; rejection, followed by a rapprochement, the clumsy untangling of confused signals; and, at last, the lady’s failed attempt to retract her refusal.37

  Just as in an eighteenth-century comic novel, Burr, as suitor, suffered from a case of mixed signals: he felt he had been turned down, but only after having done his gallant utmost to convince the lady that marriage would place unfair burdens upon her. “Celeste never means to marry,” he narrates to Theodosia, assuming both parts in their dialogue. Celeste says: “‘firmly resolved.’” Burr replies: “I am very sorry to hear it, madam; had promised myself great happiness; but cannot blame your determination.” “No, certainly, sir, you cannot; for I recollect to have heard you express surprise that a woman would marry, &c., and you gave such reasons, and with so much eloquence, as made an indelible impression on my mind.” His own words, which had come to her ear, had planted the seed of their breakup.38

  He had thought the matter was concluded. But a few days after the apparent rejection, a note arrived from Celeste, requesting that he visit her once more. She wished to apologize, she said; her reasons made little sense, though, and Burr found himself in an unusual state—he was speechless. This, in any case, is how he explained it to his daughter:

  Reubon ought in mercy and in politeness to have taken up the conversation; but he, expecting no such thing, was taken by surprise, and remained dumb, with a kind of half grin. The duette, at this moment, would have made a charming subject for the pencil of Vanderlyn. Celeste was profoundly occupied in tearing up some roses which she held in her hand, and Reubon was equally industrious in twirling his hat, and pinching some new corners and angles in the brim.39

  Burr has painted a delicious scene, perfectly capturing the sexual tension and the polite misunderstanding. It was a romantic comedy of the sort to be taken up, at a later date, by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

  Burr’s love life, at least as he described it to Theodosia, was a literary treat, certainly an embellishment, and consistent with his penchant for social satire. Infatuated with his own premeditated self-mockery, he gently chided Theodosia not to “laugh at me so much,” and yet that is precisely the effect his comic romantic tales were meant to achieve. His letters to Theodosia reveal the cultural nuances in Burr’s romantic pursuits, while he wrapped the women he knew in mystery. After Celeste, he gave his daughter hints of a “serious” courtship with the equally elusive “Madame G.” Claiming to have been “coquetted by a wealthy widow,” he described “La G.” as a mature woman in her forties (his age), whom he admired for her “independence of mind.”40

  Though it is impossible to accurately identify the mysterious women above, there are two others who are clearly flesh and blood—not merely literary fancy. Susan Binney and Madame Leonora Sansay represent Burr’s widely divergent relationships with women. Binney seems to have resembled Celeste: she was young (twenty-three in 1801), and well connected (her father was a prominent Boston physician, her brother a successful Philadelphia lawyer). Sansay, whose age cannot be determined, was an exceptional woman. Though American, she spoke French like a native, and she practiced what can only be described as a European style of sexual independence, carrying on affairs during her marriage. Her husband did not approve, but neither did he dissolve the marriage. Sansay seems to have had few inhibitions and, like Burr, she found the time to convert her amorous adventures into pulp fiction.41

  Burr first mentions Binney in a letter to William Eustis in June 1800, urging his friend to pay his respects to a Miss Binney of Boston “if you have not forsworn all Virtuous women.” Despite his daughter’s endorsement of the match, the relationship was in shambles by March 1801, when Burr assumed the vice presidency. Burr ended the courtship by telling her the “plain truth and quit honorably.”42

  Only one of his letters to Binney has survived. He wrote her to get her impression of a book he had sent her and a sense of her mind. Though the author had dared to explore one of Burr’s favorite subjects—the differences between the sexes—he had failed miserably at convincing him of anything. Instead of bringing clarity, the author was guilty of “jumbling and confounding of sexes,” and was “as remote from the truth as the arrogant pretension of male superiority.” Burr’s final comment to Binney deserves attention: He believed that the task of writing a sober study of the subject was “perhaps reserved for an American pen.” Burr may even have imagined himself as that American author—the one person who could write such a radical treatise, to supplement the work of Wollstonecraft.43

  It is difficult to say precisely when Burr began his relationship with Madame Leonora Sansay, but he met her through his friend William Eustis. He may have known her as early as 1797, well before he met Binney, but it is difficult to know when the affair became serious, although it probably happened before her marriage in 1800. Burr and Madame Sansay remained in contact at least until 1812.

  Madame Sansay was married to a French merchant from New York, who was older and a widower. When they married is also a mystery, though Burr dates the union to sometime around 1800—well after he and Eustis had made her acquaintance. Her marriage contract, however, seems not to have had much impact on Madame Sansay’s comings and goings: in 1802, as the couple prepared to move to Santa Domingo (now Haiti), she traveled to Washington, meeting with Vice President Burr to request letters of introductions for her trip. Burr asked his uncle Pierpont Edwards to prepare a letter for her, and described her in glowing terms: “you may speak very highly of her talents, her acquirements and her accomplishments—She speaks & writes French & has more sense & information than all the women to be found in St. Dom.” Burr’s protégé John Vanderlyn completed a portrait of Sansay in 1802. At the same time, Burr and Louis Sansay exchanged letters—the husband expressing a desperate concern as to whether his wife would return to him. He acknowledged outright that he feared his wife was planning to run off with another man, though it seems clear that the suitor was not Burr. Either way, Louis Sansay appealed to Burr to talk to his wife, promising to settle $12,000 on her in case of his death, and this suggests that Burr was acting as the couple’s lawyer as well as marriage counselor.44

  The Sansays reconciled and headed to Haiti. It was here she began to fashion her literary persona, writing highly entertaining letters to the vice president. Along with details of the political upheaval wrought by the Haitian Revolution, she traced the (autobiographical?) romances of a certain “Clara” on the exotic island. Burr’s fondness for Leonora Sansay is evident once again in 1804; as he prepared for his duel with Hamilton, he wrote out special instructions to his daughter, establishing that she alone would be able to examine the contents of his correspondence with Madame Sansay. It should be noted, however, that Burr did not consider the Sansay letters to be the most passion-filled among his papers—he kept another bundle, tied with a red string and marked “Put,” which he wanted immediately burned if he did not survive the duel. He considered his le
tters to and from Leonora (with the heading “Clara and mentor”) too embarrassing to be made public at any time, but only because they supplied evidence of his frivolity. As he told Theodosia, “My letters to Clara are in the same bundle. You, and by-and-by Aaron Burr Alston [Theodosia’s child], may laugh at gamp when you look over this nonsense.” Burr’s plan was that these letters would someday be read by his grandson, much in the way that the young are still called in to sit through old home movies of their elders in youthful, happier times.45

  Leonora Sansay was an independent woman. When she returned to America, she settled in Philadelphia, established her own artificial flower shop, and published at least two racy novels. She may have been Burr’s on again, off again mistress—it is impossible to do more than speculate. We do know, however, that she openly discussed her sexual liaisons with that liberty provocatively employed by the women of France. Yet she also appears to have been a romantic, putting love (“union of hearts”) before the empty gratification of mere physical pleasure. Much like her “mentor” Burr, Sansay imagined that her life was entertaining enough for both a private and public audience. With Leonora, as with Susan Binney, Burr preferred to cast his amours as affairs of the intellect—for him a woman’s mind made her more desirable. If Jefferson engaged in a struggle between “Head and Heart” in his famous letter of 1786 to the Anglo-Italian artist Maria Cosway, for Burr there was no need for any such choice—he felt he could have both.46

  Burr and Eustis shared all kinds of gossip, admired the same women, and yet their most revealing collaboration was one of altruistic action on behalf of a young girl named Susan Lewis. She was the daughter of Maria Reynolds, née Lewis, who had been ruined as a result of her adulterous affair with Alexander Hamilton. In December 1800, Burr implored Eustis to risk his political reputation by finding Susan a home (he would be associating with a family that had been exiled from polite society). “I repeat & do assure you,” wrote Burr, “she is to my belief, pure and innocent as an angel.” He added, in case Eustis might have questioned Susan’s paternity, that she was not his illegitimate offspring: “she has not the most remote affinity to me.” Still he was, he said, “under a sacred obligation to protect her.”47

  Burr placed Susan in a boarding school in Boston. His intention was “to give her the kind of education that may enable her to gain a livelihood, if that should depend on her own exertions.” But Miss Lewis had other plans. In 1803, she eloped with a young man named Francis Wright, whom Eustis described as a complete cad: “educated to dissipation without acquiring any one decent trait.” Three weeks after their elopement, Wright abandoned Susan, and Eustis next discovered her in a house “frequented by young men”—a brothel. Eustis now predicted the worst: “I see nothing to be expected of our unfortunate charge but a gradual declension from reputable life down to what lengths or depths God knows.” Although her two protectors refused to abandon her, Susan Lewis seemed destined to repeat her mother’s mistakes: eventually married three times and divorced twice, she was ruined by marrying the wrong kinds of men.48

  Burr’s relationships with women were varied and complex. He was not the high-flying libertine that the Hamiltonians claimed him to be: a dangerous man without principles, roaming the streets to fulfill his need for sex, and then abandoning his victims to a life of shame. Burr’s way of life can best be described as an American version of the French gallant: through open flirtation, he enjoyed the theatrical aspects of courtship, warded off boredom, and indulged what the French called “small pleasures.” Just as his mind was hungry, his sexual appetite partook of a literary passion, if not a pornographic fascination, with sexual conversation; this is evidenced by his secret stash of letters tied up with red string.49

  Though Burr actively courted a number of women during his widowerhood, he avoided marriage. Whether this was because he never found a woman who could replace Theodosia, or he appreciated his freedom too much to sacrifice any part of it, he seemed content to remain single. That he rejected outright the old canard of the natural superiority of males, however, placed him in a rare class. It is unfortunate that he never wrote the sober treatise on the sexes that he promised. It alone might have placed him in the unique position among the founders of advocating the extension of rights—a modern concept of rights—to women. No other founder even came close to thinking in these terms.

  “AN INSINUATING DECEITFULNESS . . . CALCULATED TO FASCINATE YOUTH”

  It was not Burr’s sexual relationships with young women but his alleged attractiveness to ambitious young men that conditioned the most virulent attacks against him by men within his own party. And it was a British political refugee turned scandalmonger named James Cheetham who, almost single-handedly, orchestrated Burr’s fall from political grace. He was a hatter born in Manchester, who quickly learned the contentious “Grub Street” style of satirical and slanderous newspaper writing. Cheetham arrived in New York City in 1798, and within two years, thanks to Burr’s assistance, assumed the editorship of the American Citizen. It was the only Republican newspaper in the city at the time. But Cheetham left the Burrite fold in 1801, claiming to have become suspicious of Burr’s activities.50

  Matthew Livingston Davis offered a less noble explanation for Cheetham’s defection. Davis contended that the editor’s talents were up for sale to the highest bidder; in fact, he was more than willing to slander Jefferson, he told Davis, if Burr and his men agreed to pay him the tidy sum of $2,000. Whatever his motives, Cheetham soon became the indispensable tool of DeWitt Clinton, and embarked on a relentless campaign to exile Burr from the Republican Party leadership. Jefferson backed Cheetham: the president was no longer neutral, having chosen sides among the factions vying for power in New York.51

  In December 1801, Cheetham traveled to Washington City to meet with Madison and Jefferson. He then wrote a letter to the president, detailing all of Burr’s supposed intrigues. Burr did try to steal the election, the editor charged, but it was not (as he later contended) through some backroom deal with Federalists during the election tie. He instead claimed that the wily vice president had done his wheeling and dealing long before that: he had convinced a few electors in New York to drop their votes for Jefferson, giving Burr the edge in the actual presidential election. The source of his story, tellingly, was DeWitt Clinton.52

  He then went after the Burrites. The editor charged that Marinus Willett had campaigned for Burr (and not Jefferson) in Rhode Island, and that Timothy Greene acted as Burr’s “secret agency” in South Carolina. John Swartwout, William P. Van Ness, and David Gelston were “entirely devoted to him,” and equally intent on bad-mouthing the Jefferson administration. Matthew Livingston Davis was, according to Cheetham, “so perfectly Destitute of an independent mind,” and so unmistakably under Burr’s command, that he had reviled Jefferson’s name all across Manhattan. What, then, was Burr’s “little faction” up to? Cheetham concluded that “Burr and his panders” had an “obvious” goal: “It is to bring the present administration into disrepute, and thereby place Mr. Burr in the Presidential Chair.”53

  Cheetham concocted stories. His accusation against the Burrites was really nothing more than a self-portrait. He was servile in his devotion to DeWitt Clinton. He could call Burr an “intriguing and inexplicable man,” and in the same breath explain how utterly transparent the vice president was, eager to express “in copious streams to every person who visited him,” and to “none . . . more than myself,” his dislike of the administration. Lying with apparent ease, Cheetham thus claimed to be Burr’s closest confidant. Jefferson could have—and should have—investigated the charges. But he did not. Or perhaps Jefferson did not want to know, because he had made up his mind about Burr already.54

  Cheetham’s campaign did not remain undercover for long. Almost immediately following his trip to Washington, Cheetham wrote the first of many scathing pamphlets against Burr. It centered on a Scotsman, John Wood, formerly a tutor to several prominent fam
ilies in New York, who had contracted with local printers to write an exposé of the Adams administration. Wood’s hastily prepared book was filled with numerous errors and huge portions stolen from other works. And after Burr examined its contents, he discovered that the book contained some dangerous libel. Knowing it hurt rather than helped the Republican cause, Burr decided the book should be suppressed. But the printers had other ideas: they wanted first $1,500, then $2,500 (a not too subtle bribe) to keep the book out of circulation. Wood further contributed to the fiasco by claiming to be Burr’s agent.55

  Cheetham jumped at the opportunity to embarrass Burr. In his May pamphlet, he contended that Burr’s motive for suppressing the book was his fear that it might alienate him from his Federalist friends—friends he would need to steal the next presidential election from Jefferson. Burr’s allies finally decided to put the book on sale in order to show how ridiculous Cheetham’s insinuations were, for the book’s deficiencies spoke for themselves. But by then, Cheetham was already onto his next attack pamphlet. Now Cheetham was echoing essentially what Hamilton had whispered among his Federalist cronies: that Burr was another “Cataline,” whose “malignant, secret, and duplicitous force . . . corrupts whatever it touches.” Burr’s plot had centered on the election tie. Cheetham likened Burr to Benedict Arnold, the country’s most infamous traitor. This Burr had “crouched, and fawned, and surrendered himself” to the Federalists so that he could filch the 1800 election from Jefferson. No longer just a perverted politician, he was a cold-blooded traitor to his party.56