Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  2. George Dangerfield, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, 1746–1813 (New York, 1960), 185–86, 277–78.

  3. Parton, Life and Times of Aaron Burr, I: 169.

  4. Young, The Democratic Republicans, 42, 46–49, 163, 278, 431.

  5. Sidney I. Pomerantz, New York An American City, 1783–1803 (New York, 1938), 397; Paul M. Hamlin, Legal Education in Colonial New York (New York, 1939), 90.

  6. Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to the 1890s (New York, 1999), 265, 270.

  7. Julius Goebel, Jr., ed., The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, 5 vols. (New York, 1964–81), I: 197–202; Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 267.

  8. On Duane, see Leo Hershkowitz, “Federal New York: Mayor’s of the Nation’s First Capital,” in Stephen L. Schechter and Wendell Tripp, eds., World of the Founders: New York Communities in the Federal Period (Albany, N.Y., 1990), 30–32; Edward P. Alexander, A Revolutionary Conservative: James Duane of New York (New York, 1938), 158. For the “harvest” for lawyers, see Alexander Hamilton (hereafter AH) to Gouverneur Morris, Feb. 21, 1784, in Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, III: 512.

  9. Goebel, ed., The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, I: 215–16, 220; AH to James Duane, Aug. 5, 1783, AH to Robert Livingston, Aug. 13, 1783, and AH to Gouverneur Morris, Feb. 21, 1784, in Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, III: 430–31, 512; E. Wilder Spaulding, New York During the Critical Period (1932), 123.

  10. Burr handled sixty-three cases before the Mayor’s Court in 1784. Until 1791, when he represented his last case before that court (until resuming practice in 1813), most of his cases involved defending debtors or collecting debts. For specific cases, see Mary Clarke v. Somandyke, Dec. 9, 1786, John Jay v. William Ivers, July 12, 1788. Burr also handled five cases for William Malcolm between 1784 and 1790; see New York City Mayor’s Court (hereafter NYCMC), Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 13. For a letter from a debtor, see Grant Cottle to AB, Oct. 6, 1787, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1; see also Bruce Mann, Republic of Debtors: Bankruptcy in the Age of American Independence (Cambridge, Mass., 2002), 99.

  11. Burr handled a total of eighteen cases under the Trespass Act. Clients did not always get the sum they sued for. Though Burr’s client Obadiah Wells sued for £500, the jury only awarded him £40. See Minutes, NYCMC, Mar. 1, 1786, and Obadiah Wells v. John Folk, Feb. 10, 1784, NYCMC, Feb. 10, 1784. Burr handled two Trespass Act suits for John Jay’s family before the New York Supreme Court. See NYCMC and New York Supreme Court (NYSC), Burr Papers, microfilm, reels 13 and 15; and Goebel, ed., The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, I: 266.

  12. William Malcolm to AB, July 15, 1783, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1. Burr handled a case for Marinus Willett; see Marinus Willett v. George and Susannah Turnbull, Nov. 5, 1789, in NYCMC, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 13. For the friendship and “violent Whig” credentials of Willett, Lamb, and Malcolm, see Isaac Q. Leake, Memoir of the Life and Times of General John Lamb (Albany, N.Y., 1850), 205–06, and Young, The Democratic Republicans, 67.

  13. Burr handled thirteen cases of assault and battery (assault and trespass) in the Mayor’s Court between 1784 and 1788. For the case of assault and imprisonment, see George Higday v. Martin Macaboy, Dec. 27, 1784, NYCMC, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 13. This case was identical to that of Joshua Hartt v. Townshend Wickes, NYSC, 1787, in which Hamilton represented the Loyalist defendant—see Goebel, ed., The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, I: 517.

  14. Burr handled three slave cases—all in 1784. The case involving the female slave was Thomas Stevenson v. John Lake, May 11, 1784, NYCMC, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 13; see also Shane White, Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770–1810 (Athens, Ohio, 1991), 1, 4; and William Strickland, Journal of a Tour in the United States of America, 1794–95 (New York, 1971), 228–30.

  15. See Lazarus and Amos Hadden v. Bartholomew Griffin and John Barker, May 21, 1796, New York Chancery Court (hereafter NYCC), Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 20. Burr proposed the following revised wording for the bill: “That from and after the passing of this act, all Negro, Mulatto, Indian, Mustee, or other person of whatsoever description, age, or colour, now holden, or claimed as slave or slaves, by any citizen or inhabitant of this State, shall be, and hereby declared absolute free.” See Journal of the Assembly of the State of New York, 8th sess. (1785), 53–54, 76–77.

  16. See AB to Theodosia Prevost Burr, Dec. 14, 1781, and AB to his daughter Theodosia Burr, Mar. 7, 1794, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 237, 377.

  17. In 1790, 27 of 120 members of the New York Manumission Society were listed in the census as owning slaves. The best known slaveholder was John Jay, who served as president of the organization for many years. Burr was not listed as a member of the society. See White, Somewhat More Independent, 81–82; also Robin Brooks, “Melancton Smith: New York Anti-Federalist, 1744–1798,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Rochester, 1964, 282.

  18. This observation was not made in a letter to Burr, but in a letter from Macomb to another of Burr’s clients, William Constable. See Alexander Macomb to William Constable, Jan. 11, 1792, Constable Papers, Vol. 3, New York Public Library; and Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 14, 18–19. For Burr’s insistence on collecting all the necessary papers, see AB to Tapping Reeve, Dec. 10, 1785, John Kelly v. AB and Anne De Visme, Sept. 21, 1785, NYCC, and Burr’s case notes, NYSC, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1, 16, 18.

  19. AB to Theodosia Prevost Burr, July 17, 1791, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 297.

  20. Parton, Life and Times of Aaron Burr, I: 151–52; see also Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 21.

  21. AB to Jeremiah Wadsworth, Sept. 14, 1785, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 17; Francis A. de La Rochefoucault-Liancourt, Travels through the United States of North America, the Country of the Iroquois, and Upper Canada, in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797. . . ., 2nd ed. (London, 1800), 1: 261; William Priest, Travels in the United States of America (London, 1802), 132; and Shaw Livermore, Early American Land Companies (New York, 1939).

  22. Washington had pursued various land speculations before the Revolution, but he did not collect on his investment until after the war. He was the surveyor on bounty lands, and kept the best lands for himself, also persuading veterans to sell their shares to him. In the end, he acquired 20,147 acres. After the war, he invested in New York lands, revived his Ohio Company, and invested heavily in lands near Mount Vernon. His frontier lands totaled 60,000 acres in the West. He had landholdings in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky, and realized $50,000 in profits from selling tracts of the frontier lands between 1795 and 1799. He also invested in several canal schemes and government securities. See Ferling, First of Men, 69–73, 331–35, 489–90, and Dangerfield, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, 253; Robert Frances Jones, “The Public Career of William Duer: Rebel, Federalist Politician, Entrepreneur, and Speculator, 1775–1792,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 1966, 193–99, 204, 208; for satire of Hamilton as “Magnus Apollo,” see New-York Journal, June 11, 1790.

  23. For James Monroe, see Robert D. Arbuckle, Pennsylvania Speculator and Patriot: The Entrepreneurial John Nicholson, 1757–1800 (University Park, Pa., 1975), 85; for the term “plunged head and ears,” see Melancton Smith to Andrew Craigie, Oct. 1787, quoted in Brooks, “Melancton Smith,” 142; and for Troup and Livingston’s involvement in the Million Dollar Bank and Troup’s numerous land ventures, see Tripp, Jr., Robert Troup, 138–41, 148–79.

  24. See Peter Colt to AB, Sept. 17, 1787, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 30–31; Geissler, Jonathan Edwards to Aaron Burr, 15; Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 205–07; and “Deed to William Malcolm and AB for Manhattan Property,” Dec. 13, 1785, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  25. Brant’s second wife was another daughter of George Croghan—see Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 3–4, 83; Williams, “The Prevosts of
the Royal Americans,” 20–25.

  26. Burr pledged his assistance to Prevost in 1784—see AB to Augustine Prevost, Jan. 6, 1784, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1. Burr moved for an attachment against the sheriff for contempt in violating the injunction. Goebel offers a weak defense of Hamilton in this affair: “In the absence of documentation it cannot be assumed that Hamilton in any way perpetrated a fraud upon the court. As to the controversial sheriff’s sale of Croghan’s remaining Otsego lands in 1786, no attempt was ever made to set it aside, to the best of our knowledge, and the contempt proceeding was never pressed. We suspect that it was the Cooper and Craig, a ‘hardnosed’ pair, who pressured Sheriff Clyde to proceed with the sale in violation of the injunction issued out by the Chancery, and not Hamilton. If Hamilton did counsel his clients and the sheriff to disregard the Chancellor’s order, he violated the terms of the injunction and acted in an unethical manner.” See Goebel, ed., The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, IV: 78–89, 91–104, 113; Williams, “The Prevosts of the Royal Americans,” 25–26; and Alan Taylor, William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic (New York, 1995), 66–70.

  27. See William Cooper to AB, Nov. 19, 1787, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I:32; Goebel, ed., The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, IV: 105. For the mutual affection between Burr and Prevost, see AB to Augustine Prevost, Jan. 9, 1784, and Aug. 1785, and for Burr’s letters offering advice, AB to Augustine Prevost, Mar. 26, 1789, and Apr. 5, 1789. Prevost even purchased gifts for the Burr family; see “Augustine Prevost: memorandum of Sundry articles . . . sent to Col. Burr’s Family,” [1783–91?]; and for Burr’s desire to live in the country, see AB to Augustine Prevost, Mar. 26, 1789, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1; see also Williams, “The Prevosts of the Royal Americans,” 28–29.

  28. See Burr’s letters to William Cockburn, the surveyor, May 24, 1784, and Burr’s interest in the “Georgia or Misicipi Lands,” AB to Augustine Prevost, Mar. 12, 1787, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 9–11. See also AB to William Cockburn, Oct. 24, and Aug. 23, 1784. And for a letter about selling his Katskill lands, or getting compensation for his western lands, see AB to Augustine Prevost, June 7, 1790, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1; and Williams, “The Prevosts of the Royal Americans,” 33–34.

  29. Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 38–39; Dixon Ryan Fox, Yankees versus Yorkers (New York, 1940), 185.

  30. Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 39–42, 36.

  31. Ibid., I: 45. See Parton, Life and Times of Aaron Burr, I: 51–52; Wandell and Minnigerode, Aaron Burr, I: 22; Schachner, Aaron Burr, 19. Lomask also rejects this view of Uncle Timothy as stern Calvinist, but does not address his career as a speculator; see Lomask, Aaron Burr: The Years from Princeton to the Vice President, 22–23.

  32. Pierpont Edwards to AB, July 31, Aug. 8, 1785, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  33. See AB to Pierpont Edwards, Aug. 13, 1785, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1. Some historians have dismissed the story of Pierpont’s infidelities, but this letter speaks for itself. For a defense of Edwards, see “Pierpont Edwards,” in James McLachlan, ed., The Princetonians, 1748–1768, I: 641–42; and for a study which acknowledges his sexual affairs, see Charles A. Heckman, “A Jeffersonian Lawyer and Judge in Federalist Connecticut: The Career of Pierpont Edwards,” Connecticut Law Review 28 (Spring 1996): 4–5.

  34. John Adams to Benjamin Rush, Jan. 25, 1806, in Schutz and Adair, eds., The Spur of Fame, 48; “Pierpont Edwards,” in McLaughlin, ed., The Princetonians 1748-1768, I: 641–42; Heckman, “A Jeffersonian Lawyer,” 45.

  35. Heckman, “A Jeffersonian Lawyer,” 2, 9.

  36. Burr did not take his seat in the assembly until Nov. 5, 1784—see Journal of the Assembly of the State of New York, 8th sess. (1784), 37.

  37. See Champagne, Alexander McDougall, 185–99, 209–11; see also Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 4.

  38. Champagne, Alexander McDougall, 201.

  39. Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 249–51; see also Journal of the Assembly of the State of New York, 8th sess. (1785), 39, 78–79.

  40. See Saul Cornell, The Other Founders: Anti-Federalists and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788–1828 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1999), 83, 85, 98; Brooks, “Melancton Smith,” 176–80.

  41. Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 292, 295.

  42. Oliver was a merchant from Ulster County, who served with Burr in Malcolm’s regiment in 1777–79—see AB to Richard Oliver, July 29, 1788, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 33–34.

  43. See New-York Journal, Apr. 30, 1788.

  44. Davis refers to a 1788 handbill with Burr as a candidate for the assembly, including “William Denning, Melancton Smith, Marinus Willett, and Aaron Burr”—Davis, Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 286. For the same handbill and notices in the newspapers, see New-York Journal, May 1, 1788; and for the poor showing of Anti-Federalist candidates in New York City as compared to Federalists, see New-York Journal, June 7, 1788; and Brooks, “Melancton Smith,” 167, 169.

  45. AB to Theodore Sedgwick, Oct. 30, 1788, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 36–37; Young, The Democratic Republicans, 119.

  46. See Thomas Greenleaf v. William S. Livingston, Oct. 1788, NYSC Cases, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 15; Leake, Memoir of the Life and Times of General John Lamb, 332–36; and Young, The Democratic Republicans, 120–21.

  47. Young, The Democratic Republicans, 120. For Lawrence as swing vote along with Smith, see Brooks, “Melancton Smith,” 239. For Lawrence’s veneration of Burr, see Nathaniel Hazard to Alexander Hamilton, Sept. 30, 1791, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, IX: 246–47. Lawrence and William Smith Livingston were Princeton graduates. Livingston was one year older than Burr, and they both graduated in 1772—so they obviously knew each other. Lawrence was younger (born in 1761); he was a member of the class of 1783, accepted to the New York bar on Aug. 1, 1786—four years after Burr. Livingston was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1780, and needed Burr’s help to get an injunction lifted so he could practice in New York. He had an office on Wall Street by 1786. Given Burr’s previous friendship with Livingston, he could have represented him—but he did not. See “William Smith Livingston,” in Harrison, ed., Princetonians, 1769–1775, III: 236–40; “Nathaniel Lawrence,” in Richard A. Harrison, ed., Princetonians, 1776–1783, III: 425–29.

  48. Thomas E.V. Smith, The City of New York in the Year of Washington’s Inauguration, 1789 (New York, 1889), 220–22; Young, The Democratic Republicans, 149.

  49. AB to Augustine James Frederick Prevost, Apr. 22, 1789, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 2; Edgar Mayhew Bacon, “Washington’s Inauguration in the First Federal Capital,” in History of the State of New York. Vol. 5: Conquering the Wilderness (New York, 1934), 86; Smith, The City of New York, 229; and Young, The Democratic Republicans, 150.

  50. See “To the Supervisors of the City of Albany, in the County of Albany” [signed by Alexander Hamilton, Chairman], Daily Advertiser, Feb. 20, 1789; and “To the Freeholders of the State of New York,” New-York Journal, Mar. 26, 1789. For the nominating committee, see Daily Advertiser, Feb. 21, 1789; for rumors of Burr’s possible candidacy for Congress, see Daily Advertiser, Feb. 20, 1789. This rumor appeared a day before his name was listed on the nominating committee for Yates.

  51. Hamilton signed his letters “H.G.” See “Letter I,” “Letter II,” “Letter III,” Daily Advertiser, Mar. 10, 11, 12 1789. In “Letter III,” he even accuses Clinton of stealing the election from Schuyler in 1777: “So far is the first report from being true, that it is a fact notorious to those who were acquainted with the transactions of the period, that in the very first election for Governor in this state, General Schuyler was a competitor with Mr. Clinton for the office, and it is alleged would have been likely to prevail, had not the votes of a considerable body of militia, then under the immediate command and influence of the latter, turned the scale in his favour.”

  52. The “sphere” argument was po
pular during the ratification debate. See a letter signed “Honestus,” New-York Journal, Apr. 28, 1788; for attacks on Clinton’s decorum, see “To the Supervisors of the City of Albany, in the County of Albany,” Daily Advertiser, Feb. 20, 1789; and for the ensuing debates on Clinton’s “hospitality,” see “To the Freeholders of the Southern District,” Daily Advertiser, Mar. 21, 1789; “To the Electors of the County of Ulster,” New-York Journal, Apr. 2, 1789; and New-York Journal, Apr. 23, 1789; also Young, The Democratic Republicans, 139. See also Kenneth R. Bowling, “New York City, Capital of the United States, 1785–1790,” in Schechter and Tripp, eds., World of the Founders, 13–17; Allgor, Parlor Politics: 18–20; and Rufus Griswold, The Republican Court, or American Society in the Days of Washington (New York, 1855), 215.

  53. Young, The Democratic Republicans, 131, 145.

  54. For Burr’s cases as attorney general, see NYSC Cases, Burr Papers, microfilm, reels 15 and 16; for his reference to rape, see AB to ?, May 12, 1791, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 2; and Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 47–48.

  55. Burr’s reform ideas were similar to those of his Princeton classmate, William Bradford, Jr., who was appointed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1791, and published a pamphlet on felony law reform in 1793. See “William Bradford, Jr.,” in Harrison, ed., Princetonians: 1769–1775, II: 185–91; and Bradley Chapin, “Felony Law Reform in the Early Republic,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 113 (1989): 164–65, 172.

  56. See “Observations of the Attorney General,” Mar. 2, 1791, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 72–76.

  57. Twelve of the fourteen state senators had been Anti-Federalists; David Gelston put forward the nomination, while Dr. Thomas Tillotson, Chancellor Livingston’s brother-in-law, sealed the deal. See New-York Journal, Jan. 20, 24, 1791; Young, The Democratic Republicans, 189–91.