Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  123. AB to Albert Gallatin, Feb. 12, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 500; Edward Livingston to Matthew L. Davis, Feb. 5, 1801, in W. C. Ford, “Some Papers of Aaron Burr,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society (1919): 64.

  124. For reports on the voting, see Aurora, Feb. 16, 1801.

  125. Whether accurate or not, Federalists believed that Smith was the weak link among the Republicans; other Federalists besides Bayard approached him with offers for assurances from Jefferson. They assumed he would be more willing to make a deal. His biographer notes that they did not approach Gallatin. Federalists shared a negative view of Smith: James Gunn described him as “a man of small talents, but he has a passion for low intrigue, and wishes to be Secretary of the navy.” Gallatin would later offer his own opinion that Smith had misled Bayard. He wrote: “One of our friends, who was very erroneously and improperly afraid of a defection on the part of some of our members, undertook to act as an intermediary, and confounding his own opinions and wishes with those of Mr. Jefferson, reported the result in such a manner as gave subsequently occasion for very unfounded surmises.” Gallatin reacted as Burr did to those requesting that he resign: he thought Smith was guilty of impertinence, acting irrationally out of fear, and intentionally misleading Bayard. See Cassell, Merchant Congressman, 99, 100–01; and James Gunn to AH, Jan. 9, 1801, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXV: 303; Gallatin to Henry A. Muhlenberg, May 8, 1848, in Adams, Life of Albert Gallatin, 250–51; and depositions of James Bayard and Samuel Smith, 1806, in Elizabeth Donnan, ed., “Papers of James Bayard, 1796–1815,” in Annual Report of the American Historical Society for the Year 1913 (Washington, D.C., 1915), 128–29, Aurora, Feb. 17, 1801, and on voting, see John Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (New York: 2004), 193.

  126. To his father-in-law, Bayard insisted that Burr did everything to stop the usurpation: “The election was in his power, but he was determined to come in as a Democrat. . . . We have been counteracted in the whole business by letters he has written to this place.” See James A. Bayard to AH, Mar. 8, 1801, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXV: 345; James A. Bayard to Allen McClane, Feb. 17, 1801, Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; see also James Bayard to Richard Bassett, Feb. 16, 1801, in Donnan, ed., “Papers of James Bayard,” 126, 128–29.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1. See the New York Daily Advertiser, Mar. 6, 1801.

  2. Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: The First Term, 1801–1805 (New York, 1970), 3–4; AB to Caesar A. Rodney, Mar. 3 and 4, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 518; New York Daily Advertiser, Mar. 12, 1801.

  3. For church song, see Andrew Burstein, Sentimental Democracy (New York, 1999), 215; for toasts, see Aurora, Mar. 9, 10, 1801; and for Burr as Jefferson’s successor, see “Jefferson and Burr,” Aurora, Mar. 21, 1801; also New York Daily Advertiser, Mar. 4, 1801, and American Citizen, Mar. 5, 1801.

  4. Malone, Jefferson the President, 46.

  5. Jefferson claimed he was responsible for 316 offices. He did not include the military, judiciary, or the postmasters appointed by the postmaster general. See Malone, Jefferson the President, 51, 69–70, and Allgor, Parlor Politics, 4–5.

  6. AB to Caesar Rodney, Mar. 5, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I; 519; and Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Process of Government Under Jefferson (Princeton, N.J., 1978), 12–17. In a letter to Dr. John Coats, another member of the Canadian expedition, Burr referred to Dearborn as “our fellow-traveller through the wilderness.” So, there appears to have been some bond between the two men. See AB to Dr. John Coats, Feb. 23, 1803, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 220.

  7. For newspaper attacks on Gallatin, see New York Daily Advertiser, Mar. 16, Apr. 16, 1801; see also Albert Gallatin to Hannah Gallatin, Feb. 19, 1801, in Adams, Life of Albert Gallatin, 263; AB to Samuel Smith, Dec. 17, 1800, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 472, 519; and Cunningham, The Process of Government, 12–13.

  8. See “Memoranda on Appointments,” Mar. 17, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 537, 541–43.

  9. Pierpont Edwards to Thomas Jefferson, May 12, 1801, in Gaillard Hunt, “Office-seeking During Jefferson’s Administration,” American Historical Review 3 (1898): 274–77; Pierpont Edwards and others to Levi Lincoln, June 4, 1801, enclosed in Lincoln to Jefferson, June 15, 1801, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, microfilm; Noble E. Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power: Party Operations, 1801–1809 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963), 18–21; AB to Pierpont Edwards, Mar. 9, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 526; and Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Cary Nicholas, June 11, 1801, in Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, IX: 266.

  10. Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Cary Nicholas, June 11, 1801, in Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, IX: 266.

  11. See AB to Edward Livingston, Feb. 12, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 502.

  12. Clinton and Armstrong had a key friend in common: Ambrose Spenser, a Federalist turned Republican, who served on the Council of Appointment. See Steven Edwin Siry, “DeWitt Clinton and the American Political Economy: Sectionalism, Politics, and Republican Ideology, 1787–1828,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1986, 43, 46–47, 56–57; Evan Cornog, The Birth of Empire: DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience, 1769–1828 (New York, 1998), 6, 35, 37–40, 43; Dangerfield, Chancellor Robert L. Livingston, 305; and Skeen, John Armstrong, 44.

  13. Skeen, John Armstrong, 42, 44–49; and Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 535–36.

  14. Armstrong’s biographer concludes: “Armstrong was indeed aggressive, not in the physical sense, but in the disputatious sense. Whether he delighted in his controversies or not is conjectural (more probably he did), but it can be said that he never side-stepped or avoided a dispute. He was also cynical and sarcastic and his demeanor was haughty and contemptuous—not endearing qualities”—Skeen, John Armstrong, 13, 16, 39–40, 49, 227.

  15. The Council of Appointment began removing Federalists and appointing Livingston and Clinton supporters as early as August 1801. See Siry, “DeWitt Clinton and the American Political Economy,” 45–47; Robert Livingston to Edward Livingston, Aug. 23, 1801, in Dangerfield, Chancellor Robert L. Livingston, 305; AB to Albert Gallatin, June 28, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 602–03; I: 538; James Nicholson to Albert Gallatin, Aug. 10, 1801, Papers of Albert Gallatin, microfilm; and Adams, The Life of Albert Gallatin, 282.

  16. AB to Albert Gallatin, Sept. 8, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 620–22; also Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 40, 42, 44.

  17. Albert Gallatin to Thomas Jefferson, Sept. 14, 1801, in Adams, The Life of Albert Gallatin, 287.

  18. Ibid., 287–88.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Ibid., 288–89. In the Anas, Jefferson rationalizes his estrangement from Burr by stating: “I had never seen Colonel Burr till he came as a member of the Senate. His conduct soon inspired me with distrust. I habitually cautioned Mr. Madison against trusting him too much. . . . There never had been an intimacy between us, and but little association.” The Anas was composed a decade after his retirement from the presidency, and it was a highly political document intended to shape the ex-president’s legacy. This brief portion called “Conversations with Aaron Burr” was meant to have taken place in 1804, by which time he had already decided to exclude Burr from national office. There is ample evidence that Jefferson courted Burr as much as Burr courted Jefferson in the late 1790s, and in 1801, they were still on good terms. See “Conversations with Aaron Burr,” in Lipscomb and Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, I: 447–48.

  21. Aaron Burr! (May 1801), in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 4.

  22. Ibid.

  23. AB to William Eustis, May 13, 1801. Burr had used the same aphorism in an earlier letter to Jefferson during the election tie, in which he wrote, “I invariably pronounce to be a lie, every thing which ought not to be true”; see AB to Thomas Jeffe
rson, Feb. 12, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 579, 501.

  24. On prostitution, see Clara Anna Lyons, Sex Among the Rabble: An Intimate History of Gender and Power in the Age of Revolution, Philadelphia, 1730–1830 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2006), 107–08, 110, 188, 192; Timothy Gilfoyle, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920 (New York, 1992), 24–26; Kenneth Roberts and Anna M. Roberts, eds., Moreau de St. Méry’s American Journal, 1793–1798 (Garden City, N.Y., 1947), 156; see also Rush’s “Deaths of Persons of Note or Singular Character,” in George W. Corner, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush: His “Travels through Life” together with his Commonplace Book for 1789–1813 (Westport, Conn., 1948), 310–11. John Armstrong told Jefferson that Willett had lived in adultery, which he recorded in his Anas; see Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 536. Willett had an acknowledged illegitimate son, born in 1783, during his first marriage; see Howard Thomas, Marinus Willett: Soldier, Patriot, 1740–1830 (New York, 1954), 95, 151, 184–87. For Burr’s defense of Anne Livingston, see Anne Horne Livingston v. Henry Beekman Livingston, Dec. 7, 1790, NYCC Cases, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 19.

  25. AB to Pierpont Edwards, May 5, 1798, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 4; for another letter suggestive of an intimate relationship, see Mrs. Hoyt to AB, Sept. 29, 1803, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 5; for contraceptives sold in bookstore, see Moreau de St. Méry’s American Journal, 176–78.

  26. See James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Sept. 27, 1806, in Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville, Va., 1997), 231–32.

  27. “The Old Bachelor’s Masterpiece” (Fairhaven, Vt., 1797), 33–34. James Kent, Supreme Court justice and longtime admirer of Hamilton, described his friend Egbert Benson as an “invincible bachelor.” See John D. Gordan III, “Egbert Benson: A Nationalist in Congress, 1789–1793,” in Bowling and Kennon, eds., Neither Separate Nor Equal: Congress in the 1790s, 63.

  28. For sexual euphemisms, see Peter Wagner, “The Pornographer in the Courtroom: Trial Reports About Cases of Sexual Crimes and Delinquencies as a Genre of Eighteenth-Century Erotica,” in Paul-Gabriel Boucé, ed., Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Manchester, 1982), 135; and for the chancellor’s brother, John R. Livingston, as New York City’s “whoremaster,” see Gilfoyle, The City of Eros, 43–44.

  29. The diplomat in question was José Ignacio de Viar, who later was consul general under Yrujo. Sally McKean was the daughter of Governor McKean of Pennsylvania, and married Carlos Fernando Martínez de Yrujo in 1798; see Sally McKean to Dolley Madison, Aug. 3, 1797, in Mattern and Shulman, eds., The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison, 34; see also Lyons, Sex Among the Rabble, 204.

  30. For the story about Pinckney, see Cynthia D. Earman, “Messing Around: Entertaining and Accomodating Congress, 1800–1830” (personal paper in possession of the author).

  31. Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: lix.

  32. See AB to William Eustis, Aug. 10, 1800, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 277–78, 442; and Theodosia Burr to William Eustis, Aug. 27, 1800, and for Eustis’s invitation to the wedding, AB to William Eustis, Jan. 26, 1801, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 4. Eustis eventually married Caroline Langdon of New Hampshire (niece of Senator John Langdon) in 1810; he was fifty-seven, she twenty-nine. See Mattern and Shulman, eds., The Selected Letters of Dolley Madison, 400.

  33. Robert Troup to Rufus King, May 27, 1801, in King, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, III: 459; Porter, “Mixed Feelings: The Enlightenment and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” 11; see also Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility, 291–93; and Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 234.

  34. “Celeste” and “Inamorata” are discussed below. For “La Planche,” and “Madame G.,” see AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Dec. 27, 1803, June 4–5, Feb. 8, 16, May 1, 8, June 11, July 20, 1804; and for the miserable marriage, see AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Nov. 3, 1801, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 156, 251, 267, 276–77, 285, 287, 289, 328.

  35. For references to “sculpture,” “statues,” or “busts,” see AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Nov. 9, 26, Dec. 8, 1801, and Feb. 2, Feb. 23, 1802; in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 147, 157, 160–62, 172.

  36. AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, June 13, 1804, in ibid., II: 289.

  37. The entire story included a series of letters from June 5 to June 12 in ibid., II: 222–32, esp. 223, 224.

  38. AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, June 8, 1803, in ibid., II: 226.

  39. See AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, June 10 and June 11, 1803 (entitled “Continuation of the Story of the Loves of Reubon and Celeste”) in ibid., II: 227, 229–30.

  40. AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Nov. 22, Dec. 27, 1803, May 1, May 8, June 24, July 20, 1804, in ibid., II; 247, 251, 285, 287, 290, 328.

  41. Susan Binney (1778–1849) was the daughter of Dr. Barnabas Binney of Boston, and the sister of Horace Binney, a lawyer in Philadelphia—see Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 436; see also Phillip S. Lapsansky, “Afro-Americana: Rediscovering Leonora Sansay,” Annual Report of the Library Company of Philadelphia for the Year 1992 (Philadelphia, 1993), 29–46.

  42. AB to William Eustis, June 13, 1800, Dec. 5, 1800, Mar. 29, 1801, May 13, 1801, June 24, 1801, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 435, 464, 549, 579, 599.

  43. AB to Susan Binney, Nov. 25, 1800, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 4.

  44. Sansay may have been the daughter of William Hassall, who ran an inn near the State House in Philadelphia—see Lapsansky, “Afro-Americana: Rediscovering Leonora Sansay,” 30; AB to Pierpont Edwards, Mar. 30, 1802, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 702–03; see also AB to William Eustis, July 16, 1797, and John Vanderlyn to AB, Apr. 8, 1802, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reels 4 and 5.

  45. AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, July 10, 1804. Burr also made some provision for Leonora Sansay in his will, as he mentioned in his letter to Joseph Alston, July 10, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 322–23, 326.

  46. Sansay did not endorse the French way of seeking “only the gratification of their sensual appetites.” She believed in the “union of hearts.” See [Leonora Sansay], Secret History; or, the Horrors of St. Domingo, in a series of letters, written by a lady at Cape Francois, to Colonel Burr (Philadelphia, 1808), 79; see also Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 703.

  47. AB to William Eustis, Dec. 1, 1800, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 463. Maria Reynolds divorced James Reynolds in 1793; she then married Reynolds’s “former co-conspirator” in the extortions of Hamilton: Jacob Clingman. In 1800, she divorced him. See Cogan, “The Reynolds Affair and the Politics of Character,” 416.

  48. AB to William Eustis, Apr. 18, 1801, William Eustis to AB, July 31, Aug. 9, Aug. 11, 1803, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: 561, II: 783–84, 788–89.

  49. For the French version of this lifestyle, see Michel Feher, ed., The Libertine Reader: Eroticism and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France (New York, 1977), 14, 20.

  50. Grub Street was the famous haunt of hack writers in London. See “James Cheetham,” Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1930), 47; see also James Cheetham to Thomas Jefferson, Dec. 10, 1801, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd ser. (1907–08) I: 46–52.

  51. Matthew Livingston Davis, Memorandum Book, Vol. 57, Rufus King Papers, New-York Historical Society, New York; for Jefferson’s patronage of Cheetham, see Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 254–55. Cheetham’s letters are filled with his unctuous pleas to Jefferson for financial support. See James Cheetham to Thomas Jefferson, June 17, 1803, July 25, 1804, in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 59–63.

  52. James Cheetham to the President [Thomas Jefferson], Dec. 10, 1801, in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 46–47.

  53. Ibid., 48–49, 51.

  54. Ibid., 49.

  55. John Wood’s
book was titled History of the Administration of John Adams Esq. Late President of the United States. Mary-Jo Kline has called this episode, which ended the “lip service” that the Clintonians paid to their brief alliance with the Burrites, “bizarre even by the standards of N.Y. partisan politics.” Burr seems to have had no role in the preparation of the manuscript, but became involved later when he first examined the book in Oct. 1801. William Duane, Republican editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, felt Wood’s book was “a hasty, crude, and inconsistent production, calculated rather to produce evil than the least good.” See William P. Van Ness to AB, Jan. 2, 1802, AB to William P. Van Ness, Mar. 17, 1802, and William Duane to AB, Apr. 15, 1802, Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 641–46, 698–98, 724–27; see also AB to William P. Van Ness, Mar. 18, 1802, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 5; and James Cheetham to Thomas Jefferson, Dec. 29, 1800, and Jan. 30, 1801, in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 51–58.

  56. See James Cheetham, A Narrative of the Suppression by Col. Burr, of the History of the Administration of John Adams, Late President of the United States (New York, 1802), 11, 38–39; and James Cheetham, A View of the Political Conduct of Aaron Burr, Esq., Vice President of the United States (New York, 1802), 57.