Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  57. Other prominent Republicans agreed with Burr, such as Alexander Dallas; he was the newly appointed U.S. Attorney for Pennsylvania’s Eastern District, and felt strongly that the repeal threatened the independence of the judiciary. See AB’s “Comment on a Motion to Repeal the Judiciary Act” (Jan. 27, 1802), AB to Barnabas Bidwell, Feb. 1, 1802, AB to Joseph Alston, Feb. 2, 1802, Alexander J. Dallas to AB, Feb. 3, 1802, and Nathaniel Niles to AB, Feb. 17, 1802, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II, 653–56, 659–61, 666–68, 678–79.

  58. Robert Troup to Rufus King, Apr. 9, 1802, in King, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, IV: 103; John P. Van Ness to William Van Ness, Apr. 2, 1802, Van Ness Papers, New York Public Library; see also Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 204–05.

  59. See Gouverneur Morris to AH, Mar. 11, 1802, and AH to James Bayard, Apr. 6, 1802, and James Bayard to AH, Apr. 12, 1802, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXV: 561, 587–88, 600; Robert Troup to Rufus King, Apr. 9, 1802, in King, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, IV: 102; and Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 205.

  60. AB to Joseph Alston, Mar. 8, 1802, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 185.

  61. John P. Van Ness to William Van Ness, Apr. 2, 1802, William P. Van Ness Papers, New York Public Library; AB to Joseph Alston, July 3, 1802, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 205; and AB to Pierpont Edwards, July 15, 1802, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 728.

  62. After the duel, Burr sent Alston a newspaper that detailed the affair of honor. He wrote that Clinton, according to the account, “indirectly acknowledges that he is an agent in the calumnies against me.” See AB to Joseph Alston, Aug. 2, 1802, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 209; see also Cornog, The Birth of Empire, 43–44; and Siry, “DeWitt Clinton and the American Political Economy,” 50–53. And on using dueling for political advancement, see Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 184–87.

  63. American Citizen, Aug. 16, Oct. 18, 25, Nov. 1, 1802; July 20, 22, 25, 1803.

  64. See my essay “‘The Little Emperor’: Aaron Burr, Dandyism, and the Sexual Politics of Treason,” in Jeffery I. Pasley, Andrew W. Robertson, and David Waldstreicher, eds., Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2004), 129–58.

  65. American Citizen, Dec. 20, 1802, June 20, Aug. 3, 1803, Jan. 17, 1804.

  66. American Citizen, Jan. 24, Feb. 1, 9, 1803, Jan. 10, 1804. For the importance of the Cataline and the sodomite plot in eighteenth-century English political satire, see Cameron McFarlane, The Sodomite in Fiction and Satire, 1660–1750 (New York, 1997), 30–31, 37, 101–02, 111, 114.

  67. See Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: xxxi, 412, 584, 2: 613, 896; and B. R. Brunson, The Adventures of Samuel Swartwout in the Age of Jefferson and Jackson (Lewiston, N.Y., 1989), 1–2. On Peter and Washington Irving, see Stanley T. Williams, The Life of Washington Irving (New York, 1935), 23, 25–26, 35–36; and Bruce I. Granger and Martha Hartzog, eds., The Complete Works of Washington Irving: Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent./ Salmagundi (Boston, 1978), xxiii.

  68. Cheetham used several similar terms to describe Burr as demonic, treacherous, and elusive. He called him a “sort of a legerdemain,” an “invisible spirit,” a “serpent,” a man “with the eye of a lynx,” and one whose career displayed a “convenient versatility.” He also referred to Burr’s “refined system of intrigue and necromancy.” See Charles Nolan, Jr., Aaron Burr and the American Literary Imagination (Westport, Conn., 1980), 50–52; American Citizen, Aug. 20, 1802; also James Cheetham, On the Subject of Aaron Burr’s Political Defection (New York, 1803), 24. For Burr’s opinion of Irving, see AB to Charles Biddle, Dec. 7, 12, 1802; and for Bloomfield’s letter urging Burr to defend himself and Burr’s published response, see Joseph Bloomfield to AB, Sept. 17, 1802, and AB to Joseph Bloomfield, Sept. 21, 1802, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 743–44, 737–39.

  69. For Cheetham’s defense of his lack of evidence, see “Letter Eight,” American Citizen, Oct. 12, 1802.

  70. Cheetham’s two pamphlets, A View of the Political Conduct of Aaron Burr, Esq., Vice President of the United States (July 1802) and Nine Letters on the Subject of Aaron Burr’s Political Defection, with an Appendix (Feb. 1803), included these charges. The attacks made in his pamphlets also appeared in the American Citizen—see Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 738.

  71. See “The Coach!!!,” Morning Chronicle Express, Jan. 3, 1803; also a similar article mocking Cheetham’s claims about the stage coach ride, Morning Chronicle, Jan. 27, 1803. Irving published an entire series of articles, entitled the “Rights of Editors,” that pointed out all of Cheetham’s journalist tricks, such as fake letters to the editor, circular logic, and his reliance on unsubstantiated gossip.

  72. “Aristides” [William P. Van Ness], An Examination of the Various Charges Exhibited Against Aaron Burr, Esq. Vice-President of the United States; and a Development of the Characters and View of the Political Opponents (New York, 1803); there was also a southern edition of Van Ness’s pamphlet published in Virginia. See also Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 812–13, 829; Cornog, The Birth of Empire, 42–43.

  73. See Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 822–23; Siry, “DeWitt Clinton and the American Political Economy,” 60.

  74. Gideon Granger to DeWitt Clinton, Feb. 1, 1804, Clinton Papers, Columbia University Library, New York, N.Y., Thomas Jefferson to DeWitt Clinton, Dec. 2, 1803, in Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, VIII: 282.

  75. Clinton received 67 out of 108 votes, the remaining votes were divided among five other candidates from western and northern states. See Wilson Cary Nicholas (ally of DeWitt Clinton) to DeWitt Clinton, Aug. 13, 1802, DeWitt Clinton Papers, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.; Littleton W. Tazewell to John Randolph, Mar. 4, 1804, Tazewell Family Papers, Virginia State Library, Richmond, Va.; Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 103–07, 208; Morning Chronicle, Mar. 2, 1804; and Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 840.

  76. Lansing had a distinguished career: he was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, a lawyer, and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and the New York ratifying convention in 1788. He was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 1790 and made chief justice in 1798; he became chancellor in 1801. See Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 830, and Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 122.

  77. Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 830–31; Cornog, The Birth of Empire, 51, 53. Morgan Lewis was a classmate of Burr’s at Princeton, graduating one year after Burr, as a member of the class of 1773. He had attended the same grammar school as Burr in Elizabethtown, when Burr’s future brother-in-law, Tapping Reeve, was the instructor. He married Gertrude Livingston, the sister of Robert R. Livingston. Clinton had tried to woo Lewis, as he had Burr, by appointing him state attorney general in 1791, and later he appointed him to the state Supreme Court in 1792. He became chief justice in 1801 when John Lancing became chancellor. See “Morgan Lewis,” in Harrison, ed., Princetonians: 1769–1775, II: 308–12.

  78. See Hamilton’s “Speech at a Meeting of Federalists in Albany,” Feb. 10, 1804, and AH to Robert G. Harper, Feb. 19, 1804, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 187–93.

  79. See Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 212–13; Everett Somerville Brown, ed., William Plumer’s Memorandum of the Proceedings in the United States Senate, 1803–1807 (New York, 1923), 517–18; and “Rufus King: Memorandum of a Conversation between Burr and Rufus Griswold,” Apr. 5, 1804, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 862–65.

  80. See Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 828; Chilton Williamson, American Suffrage: From Property to Democracy, 1760–1860 (Princeton, N.J., 1960), 162–64; and Pomerantz, New York, an American City, 145–47.

  81. Oliver Phelps to Thomas Jefferson, Apr. 10, 1804, Jefferson Papers, microfilm; John P. Van Ness to William Van Ness, Apr. 2, 1802, William P. Van Ness Papers, New York Public Library; Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 838–39;
and Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 210–11. Irving also criticized Jefferson for supporting Cheetham; see Chronicle Express, Dec. 29, 1803, Jan. 9, 1804.

  82. Chronicle Express, Dec. 29, Mar. 14, 1803, Jan. 30, Feb. 2, 16, 20, 28, Mar. 14, 22, and Apr. 5, 1804. For his independence from “family connections,” see “To the Republican Electors of the State,” [1804] broadside, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.; and Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 832–33.

  83. American Citizen, Jan. 10, Feb. 25, Mar. 20, Mar. 30, Apr. 19, Apr. 28, Apr. 30, 1804. Sardanapalus was a ruler circa 822 B.C. who dressed in woman’s attire, wore makeup, and lived in seclusion with his concubines and eunuchs. Antoninus Heliogabalus was Roman emperor in 218–222; he was known for sending out his agents in Rome to search for young men with large penises that he might “enjoy their vigour.” See Aelius Lampridius, The Life of Antoninus Heliogabalus, trans. David Magie (1924).

  84. American Citizen, Apr. 28, 1804. Burr wrote Theodosia before the more lurid attacks appeared; see AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Mar. 28, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 281.

  85. AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Apr. 25, May 1, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 284–85; New-York Evening Post, May 3, 1804; and Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 837, 842.

  86. Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 877.

  87. AB to AH, June 18, 1804 (and enclosure), in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 242–46.

  88. See “William P. Van Ness’s Narrative of the Events of June 18, 1804,” in ibid., XXVI: 241; AB to Charles Biddle, July 18, 1804, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 887.

  89. “William P. Van Ness’s Narrative of the Events of June 18–21, 1804,” and AH to AB, June 20, 1804, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 246–49.

  90. AB to AH, June 21, 1804, in ibid., XXVI: 249–51.

  91. “William P. Van Ness’s Narrative of the Events of June 22, 1804,” in ibid., XXVI: 251–52.

  92. “Nathaniel Pendleton’s Narrative of the Events of June 22, 1804,” “William P. Van Ness’s Narrative of the Events of June 25, 1804,” “Nathaniel Pendleton’s Second Account of Alexander Hamilton’s Conversation at John Taylor’s House,” all in ibid., XXVI: 252, 261–63.

  93. AH to AB, June 22, 1804, “William P. Van Ness’s Narrative of Later Events of June 25, 1804,” ibid., XXVI: 253–54, 264–65.

  94. AB to William P. Van Ness, June 26, 1804, and “William P. Van Ness’s Narrative of the Events of June 26, 1804” and “William P. Van Ness to Nathaniel Pendleton, June 26, 1804, in ibid., XXVI: 266–69.

  95. See AB to AH, June 22, 1804, “Nathaniel Pendleton to William P. Van Ness, June 26, 1804,” and “William P. Van Ness to Nathaniel Pendleton, June 27, 1804” in ibid., XXVI: 255–56, 270–73.

  96. John Randolph to Joseph H. Nicholson, Aug. 27, 1804, in Robert McColley, ed., John Randolph: A Biography by Henry Adams (Armonk, N.Y.), 83–84.

  97. For Burr’s views on honor, see “Aaron Burr’s Instructions to William P. Van Ness,” in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 256–57; see also Charles Biddle, Autobiography of Charles Biddle, Vice-President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania: 1745–1821 (Philadelphia, 1883), 303.

  98. Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 294. Nineteen-year-old Philip Hamilton had engaged in a duel with George Eacker on Nov. 23, 1801, and Hamilton’s eldest son died the following day. Hamilton was deeply affected by the duel, especially since his son died defending his father’s honor (Eacker had attacked Hamilton’s economic and military policies)—ibid., XXV: 435–37.

  99. For the publication history of Hamilton’s “Statement on Impending Duel with Aaron Burr” (a title given it by the editors of the Hamilton Papers), ibid., XXVI: 281.

  100. Ibid., XXVI: 278–29.

  101. Ibid., XXVI: 279.

  102. Ibid., XXVI: 279; see chapter six for Hamilton’s attacks on Burr during the election tie in 1801.

  103. Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 280.

  104. AB to Joseph Alston, July 10, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 324; and Hamilton, “Statement of my property and Debts July 1, 1804,” in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 283–86; Schachner, Alexander Hamilton, 432.

  105. AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, July 10, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 322–23.

  106. W. J. Rorabaugh, “The Political Duel in the Early American Republic: Burr v. Hamilton,” Journal of the Early Republic 15 (Spring 1995): 1.

  107. As Merrill Lindsey has noted, Hamilton owned a correct pair of dueling pistols but chose to use Church’s pistols with the hair trigger. His selection of trick pistols violated the code of honor. “Joint Statement by William P. Van Ness and Nathaniel Pendleton on the Duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr,” July 17, 1804, and William Van Ness to Charles Biddle, [undated], and David Hosack to William Coleman, Aug. 17, 1804, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 333–36, 344; Biddle, Autobiography of Charles Biddle, 304; Rorabaugh, “The Political Duel,” 2–3; and Merrill Lindsay, “Pistols Shed Light on Famed Duel,” Smithsonian 6 (Nov. 1971): 96.

  108. AB to Charles Biddle, July 18, 1804, AB to William Van Ness, July 20–21, 1804, in Kline, ed., Papers of Aaron Burr, II: 887–89; Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 335; Biddle, Autobiography of Charles Biddle, 304.

  109. AB to David Hosack, July 12, 1804, and Benjamin Moore to William Coleman, July 12, 1804, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 312, 315–17; and Douglass Adair and Marvin Harvey, “Was Alexander Hamilton a Christian Statesman?” William and Mary Quarterly 12 (Apr. 1955): 328–29.

  110. “General Hamilton’s Death,” American Citizen, July 21, 23; see also Aug. 7, Aug. 16, 1804; New-York Evening Post, Aug. 4, 1804; Schachner, Aaron Burr, 254–55.

  111. See “The Funeral,” New-York Evening Post, July 14, 1804, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 322–23.

  112. “Funeral Oration,” in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 324–25, 328–29.

  113. Gouverneur Morris’s Diary, July 13, 1804, in ibid., XXVI: 324.

  114. AB to Joseph Alston, July 13, 18, 1804, John Swartwout to AB, Aug. 2, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II; 327, 329; AB to Charles Biddle, July 18, 1804 [two letters, same date], in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 885–87.

  115. AB to Joseph Alston, July 29, 1804, AB to Theodosia Alston, Aug. 3, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 328–29, 331; Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 886, 890.

  116. AB to Theodosia, Dec. 4, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II; 351–52. Elisha Boudinot, Hamilton’s mentor and an ardent Federalist, was the judge presiding over the hearings in New Jersey where Burr was indicted for murder. See AB to Charles Biddle, Jan. 31, 1805, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II; 886, 905–06; and The People v. Aaron Burr, Aug. 14, 1804, in Syrett, ed., Hamilton Papers, XXVI: 341–44.

  117. AB to Joseph Alston, July 13, 1804, and AB to Joseph Alston, July 29, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 327, 329; New-York Evening Post, Aug. 4, 1804.

  118. For Burr’s travel plans and his friend Pierce Butler, see AB to Charles Biddle, Aug. 11, 1804, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 624, 893–94; AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Aug. 11, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 331.

  119. AB to Joseph Alston, Aug. 11, 1804, AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Aug. 28, 1804, see also his journal/letter to Theodosia (Aug. 31–Sept. 26, 1804), esp. AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Sept. 15, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II; 332–43.

  120. AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Aug. 28, 1804, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 333; Lomask, Aaron Burr: The Years from Princeton to the Vice President, 358.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1. Schachner, Aaron Burr, 261; Brown, ed., William Plumer’s Memorandum, 203–4; Albert Gallatin to James Nicholson, July 19, 1804, in Papers of Albert Gallatin, microfilm.

  2. Brown, ed., William Plumer’s
Memorandum, 203–04, 213.

  3. Thomas Jefferson to J. H. Nicholson, May 13, 1803, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Library of Congress; Jane Shaffer Elsmere, Justice Samuel Chase (Muncie, Ind., 1980), 149–50, 161, 165–67, 175–76; James F. Simon, What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States (New York, 2002), 148, 195–97, 199; Peter Charles Hoffer and N. E. H. Hull, Impeachment in America, 1635–1805 (New Haven, Conn., 1984), 206, 216–17; Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 466, 469; and Eleanore Bushnell, Crimes, Follies, and Misfortunes: The Federal Impeachment Trials (Urbana, Ill., 1992), 46, 49. The sixty-three-old Pickering was widely known to have been “deranged” (in modern terms, clinically insane); he was impeached on grounds of his drunkenness and incompetence.

  4. Elsmere, Justice Samuel Chase, 162; Hoffer and Hull, Impeachment in America, 182; and Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 228–30. In 1806, Jefferson approved a series of prosecutions for sedition in Connecticut. Ironically, one of the Federalists indicted there was Burr’s brother-in-law, Judge Tapping Reeve. Even more perverse, Connecticut’s District Judge Pierpont Edwards (Burr’s uncle), until he dismissed the indictment, was almost forced to preside over the case. See Charles Heckman, “A Jeffersonian Lawyer and Judge in Federalist Connecticut: The Career of Pierpont Edwards,” Connecticut Law Review 28 (Spring 1996): 697–706, and Robert Wetmore, “Seditious Libel Prosecutions in 1806 in the Federal Court in Connecticut: United States v. Tapping Reeve, and Companion Cases,” Connecticut Bar Journal (1983): 196–204.

  5. Thomas Jefferson to Joseph H. Nicholson, May 13, 1803; Hoffer and Hull, Impeachment in America, 182; Simon, What Kind of Nation, 199.

  6. Elsmere, Justice Samuel Chase, 170, 175, 181.

  7. Burstein, America’s Jubilee: July 26, 1826: A Generation Remembers the Revolution After Fifty Years of Independence (New York, 2001), 171–74, 202–03. For a contemporary account of Randolph as the only orator worth listening to in Congress, see Journal of Alexander Dick, 1806–1809, Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; Elsmere, Justice Samuel Chase, 168–69.