Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  112. AB to Jane McManus, Nov. 17, 1832, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 11; and Linda S. Hudson, Mistress of Manifest Destiny: A Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807–1878 (Austin, Tex., 2001), 14–15, 17, 28–31.

  113. AB to Jane McManus, Nov. 17, 1832, Enclosure: AB to Judge Workman, Nov. 16, 1832, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 11. Jane was in New York in early July 1834 (when Eliza Jumel presented her bill to the court), but by the end of the month she was back in Texas. See Hudson, Mistress of Manifest Destiny, 32–33; Eliza B. Burr v. AB, NYCC, 318, 361–63.

  114. Eliza Jumel’s behavior in later years is consistent with this reading. The gay divorcée returned to Europe proclaiming herself the widow of the former U.S. vice president. She apparently felt there was a power in widowhood, translatable into social capital; but she enjoyed her independence more than she actually enjoyed being married to the seventy-seven-year-old Burr. See Eliza B. Burr v. AB, NYCC, 291, 301–02, 306–13, 354. For Burr’s reference to “Madame of the Heights,” see AB to Nelson Chase, Jan. 20, 1834, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1218. And for Jumel spreading gossip about Burr’s reckless spending, see Diary of William Dunlap (1766–1839): The Memoirs of a Dramatist, Theatrical Manager, Painter, Critic, Novelist, and Historian (New York, 1930), III: 796; and Constance M. Greiff, The Morris-Jumel Mansion: A Documentary History (Rocky Hill, N.J., 1995), 56.

  115. Eliza B. Burr v. AB, NYCC, 291, 382–83; and People v. Johnson, 1837, and AB: Last Will and Testament, with codicils of Jan. 11, July 26, Dec. 27, 1835, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 11; Hudson, Mistress of Manifest Destiny, 37.

  116. Ogden Edwards, the son of Pierpont Edwards, took care of the funeral arrangements. See Samuel Lewis Southard to Ogden Edwards, Sept. 16, 1836, in Papers of Pierpont Edwards Collection, 1756–1876, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.; Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1228; Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 446–49.

  EPILOGUE

  1. For Burr’s lost papers, see Mary-Jo Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I, xxx. For Jefferson’s concerted effort to shape his historical legacy, see Burstein, Jefferson’s Secrets, 211–34. And for Jefferson’s family, who did everything possible to preserve his memory, see Jan Ellen Lewis, “The White Jeffersons,” in Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture (Charlottesville, Va., 1999), 127–60; and Elizabeth Chew, “‘Our Pioneering Way’: Monticello, the Randolph Family, and Jefferson’s Memoirs of 1829,” Paper given at the Thomas Jefferson in Retirement Conference, Mar. 4, 2005. For the importance of Hamilton’s wife and family, and the publication of his papers, for protecting and enhancing his reputation, see Stephen F. Knott, Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth (Lawrence, Kans., 2002), 21–23, 154.

  2. From a paper read by Judge John Greenwood before the Long Island, N.Y., Historical Society, on Sept. 24, 1863, reprinted in Parton, Life and Times of Aaron Burr, II: 403–14.

  3. The Conspiracy; or, the Western Island: A Drama in Five Acts (1838) was published anonymously. Tarkington’s play was performed at the Fulton Theatre in New York City on Jan. 10, 1931—see Samuel H. Wandell, Aaron Burr in Literature (London, 1936), 232; and Charles J. Nolan, Jr., Aaron Burr and the American Literary Imagination (Westport, Conn., 1980), 189. Atherton also has a mysterious Madame La Croix (later Madame Jumel), a French spy and Jacobin, funding Burr’s political career in 1800; later, out of revenge against Hamilton for not leaving his family for her, she convinces Burr to challenge him to a duel—see Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton, The Conqueror; A Dramatized Biography of Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1902), 459, 500, 509, 512–13; Thomas B. Sweeney, Aaron Burr’s Dream for the Southwest: A Drama for the Library (San Antonio, Tex., 1955), 3, 5, 116, 163, 173, 186–67, 193–94.

  4. Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 682, 704, 716.

  5. Joseph Holt Ingraham, Burton; or, The Sieges: A Romance, 2 vols. (New York, 1838); for an obituary that claimed “as a successful ladies’ man there never was parallel to Aaron Burr in this country,” see New York Herald, July 12, 1836.

  6. Virginia Tatnall Peacock, “Theodosia Burr (Mrs. Joseph Alston),” in Famous Belles of the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1901), 19; Emerson Hough, The Magnificent Adventure, this being the story of the world’s greatest exploration, and the romance of a very gallant gentleman; a novel (New York, 1916). And see Judge Champ Clark, “Address on Aaron Burr,” in Modern Eloquence, VII: 230; Anya Seaton, My Theodosia (Boston, 1941), 63, 117, 363–64; and Gore Vidal, Burr (New York, 1973), 137.

  7. Jerome Dowd, Burr and Hamilton: A New York Tragedy (New York, 1884); Charles Frederic Nirdlinger, The First Lady of the Land: A Play in Four Acts (Boston, 1914), 12, 25, 32–33, 49, 51–54, 63–64, 78, 99–100, and 145. The same theme of Burr as the elegant but honorable suitor of Dolley Madison appears in David Nevins’s novel Treason (New York, 2003); see also Nolan, Aaron Burr and the American Literary Imagination, 77–78, 94–95.

  8. Kennedy’s take on Jefferson is no less far-fetched than his take on the relationship between Hamilton and Burr. Reminiscent of Nirdlinger’s work of 1914, Kennedy’s Jefferson is jealous of Burr for having come between Madison and him, that is, for ruining their “bachelor partnership.” This time Jefferson is the closeted gay lover, who resents that Burr introduced Dolley to Madison. The suicide argument (Hamilton’s death wish) can be traced back to an article published in the Journal of Psychohistory in 1980. Atherton (see note 3 above) also relied on sexual jealousy as the reason for the duel. See Roger Kennedy, Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character (New York, 1999), 42, 368; Arnold A. Rogow, A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (New York, 1998), xiv, 266–67; also Knott, Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth, 196.

  9. William Henry Venable, A Dream of Empire, or the House of Blennerhassett (New York, 1901), 83; Eudora Welty, “First Love” (1943) from The Wide Net and Other Stories, in The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (New York, 1983), 154, 159, 166.

  10. See “Portrait of Burr,” Port Folio, May 16, 1807, 314–15.

  11. Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York, 2000), 18. Other accomplished historians of the early period err in similar ways through a lack of thoroughness in researching Burr’s political conduct. John Ferling and Joanne Freeman both call Burr an “enigma,” and a man without principles; Freeman describes him in Chesterfieldian terms. She also contends that “Burr was a most unfounderlike Founder, and those who force him into the traditional ‘Founder’ model deny his very essence.” This skewed view of Burr’s character matches that of a Hamilton biographer, the politically conservative Forrest McDonald, who merely repeats what Hamilton said about Burr’s ambition, but makes no effort to obtain real proof. Two other conservative defenders of Federalism, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, distort Burr’s character in their massive study of the 1790s. They describe him as a “consummate liar, less than the first rank of the Republic’s founders’ generation,” and again as an “enigma.” Elkins and McKitrick conclude that he was “not a representative man of his time. He was clearly a deviant type; whether he represented anything or anyone beyond himself is at best debatable.” In his 1994 presidential address before the Society for Historians of the Early Republic, William J. Rorabaugh observed that “Burr’s self-centeredness was legendary.” Gordon Wood, in his new book Revolutionary Characters, continues this reductionist tradition, claiming that Burr was the only founder who rejected the prevailing notion of virtue. In effect, Wood contends that Burr lacked both moral and political principle and was devoid of all the positive qualities that the other founders possessed. No one but Alfred Young stopped to investigate Burr’s role in state politics, wherein he clearly emerges as a legitimate actor. See John Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (New York, 2004), 9, 95; Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, 205, 211; and Freeman, “History as Told by the Devil Incarnate: Gor
e Vidal’s Burr,” in Mark C. Carnes, ed., Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront America’s Past (and Each Other) (New York, 2001), 32; Forrest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton: A Biography (New York, 1982), 360; Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800 (New York, 1993), 743–44; W. J. Rorabaugh, “The Political Duel in the Early Republic: Burr v. Hamilton,” Journal of the Early Republic 15 (Spring 1995): 5; Gordon Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (New York, 2006); and Alfred Young, The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763–1797 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1967).

  12. The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York, 1961), 54–55.

  13. Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 367.

  * Election day in 1796 was December 7.

  * The Louisiana Purchase was divided in two territories: north of the 33rd parallel was the Louisiana Territory, and south of it the Orleans Territory. Today the 33rd parallel divides the states of Arkansas and Louisiana.

  INDEX

  The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.

  Adair, John, 290, 294, 296, 305, 307, 309, 310, 314, 325–26, 350

  Adams, Abigail, 122, 154

  Adams, Henry, 290

  Adams, John, vii, 16, 97, 134, 141, 154, 170, 261, 328, 329, 337, 365, 413, 414

  —election of 1792, 3, 115, 116, 117, 118

  —election of 1796, 146, 151, 152, 153

  —as president (1797–1801), 162, 168, 170, 172, 173, 224, 225, 244, 245, 306, 326; and election of 1800–01, 196, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 209, 213, 215, 217

  Adams, John Quincy, 381

  Adams, Samuel, 153, 208

  Alderson, John, 395

  Alexander, James, 314, 350

  Alexander, Gen. William. See Stirling

  Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), 171–72, 174, 274, 326

  Alien Landowners Act, 182

  Allbright, Jacob, 358–59

  Allen, Moses, 12–13, 14

  Alston, Aaron Burr (AB’s grandson), 241, 264, 380, 387

  Alston, Joseph (AB’s son-in-law), 159–60, 205, 216, 223, 236, 237, 246, 264, 267, 268, 269, 305, 322, 351–52, 368, 374, 385, 387, 390, 393–94, 409

  Alston, Theodosia Burr (AB’s daughter), viii, 54, 56, 76, 82, 159, 178, 204, 223, 264, 305, 352, 356, 357, 370–71, 375–76, 377, 378, 380, 384–85, 386, 387, 388, 409; education, 79, 80, 81–83, 91, 124, 126, 139, 165, 236, 293; marriage to Alston (1801), 159–60, 216, 236, 237, 409; correspondence with Burr, 5–6, 81, 235, 236–39, 241, 255, 263, 268, 269, 282, 292, 293, 339, 340–41, 342, 346, 350, 357, 373, 374, 377, 380–81, 392; death at sea (1813), 387, 398, 405

  Alston, William, 205

  American Citizen, 224, 243, 248, 254, 255, 300, 331

  American Whig Society, 11–12

  Ammon, Harry, 166

  Anderson, John, 396

  Angerstein, John Julius, 156, 160

  Angerstein tract, 156

  Anti-Federalists, 85, 86, 87, 99–100, 101–3, 108, 117, 128

  “Aristides” pamphlet (anon.), 250

  Aristocracy (anon.), 139–40, 141

  Armstrong, John, 228–29, 231, 251, 369, 384, 392

  Arnold, Benedict, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 173, 245

  Astor, John Jacob, 159

  Atheron, Gertrude, The Conquerer, 408

  Bache, Benjamin, 138, 172

  Bache, Margaret, 172

  bachelors, 58–59, 234

  Baker, John, 339

  Bank of New York, 98, 184

  Bank of the United States, 108, 184, 369, 389

  Bartow, Kate, 388

  Bartow, Phoebe, 388

  Bartram, William, Travels, 269

  Bastrop property, 302, 305, 335, 355, 356

  Bayard, James A., 177, 213–14, 219–20, 398

  Bayard, Richard H., 398

  Beccaria, Cesare, 105, 374

  Beckley, John, 115–16, 120, 144, 147, 148–49, 150, 151, 152, 153, 205

  Bellamy, Jonathan, 29, 57, 59

  Bellamy, Rev. Joseph, 16, 21, 29, 56, 57, 83

  Bellamy, Mrs., 56, 61

  Bellamy family, 57, 58

  Benson, Egbert, 234

  Bentham, Jeremy, 134, 372–73, 374, 375, 376, 377, 379, 380, 388, 391

  Biddle, Charles, 257–58, 261, 265, 267, 268, 284, 289, 363, 369, 397

  Biddle, Capt. James, 397

  Biddle, Nicholas, 369

  Bigelow, Maj. John, 52

  Bingham, Anne Willing, 122–23, 124

  Bingham, William, 122

  Binney, Susan, 239–40, 241

  Bishop, Abraham, 249

  Blair, Hugh, 29

  Blennerhassett, Harman, 293, 306, 309, 315–16, 324, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 356, 357, 359, 360, 361, 363, 368–69, 370, 408; servants, 349, 356–57, 358–59

  Blennerhassett, Margaret, 293, 356, 357, 368

  Blennerhassett Island, 293, 304, 315–16, 324, 325, 333, 350, 352, 353, 354, 358–59, 360–61

  Blodget, Rebecca, 389–90, 399

  Blodget, Samuel, 389, 390

  Bloomfield, Joseph, 204, 249, 276

  Blount, William, 149, 150, 151–52, 173, 283

  Bolívar, Simón, 395

  Bollman, Dr. Justus Erich, 303, 313–14, 326, 327, 330, 336, 346–47, 349, 350, 352–53, 392

  Bonaparte, Jérôme, 383

  Bonaparte, Joseph, 372

  Boston Post Road, 180

  Boston Ten Townships, 96

  Boswell, Samuel, 58, 378

  Botts, Benjamin, 339, 361–62, 399

  Bowdoin, James, 285, 337

  Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 12, 20; “Death of General Montgomery,” 19, 20, 27

  Bradford, William, 16, 20, 27, 29, 56

  Bradley, Stephen, 332

  Brandywine, battle of, 40

  Brannon, Michael, 44

  Brant, Joseph, 94, 159

  Britain (England), 125, 135, 136, 171, 174, 272, 283, 290, 291, 292, 369–70, 371, 372, 379–80, 383, 387

  British (English) army, 32, 33, 35, 36, 40, 42, 43, 45, 62, 63, 66, 76, 88

  British Parliament, 15

  Brooke, Robert, 145

  Broome, John, 198

  Brown, John, 149, 150, 294, 296, 300, 304, 306, 307

  Brown, Dr. Preston, 306

  Browne, Dr. Joseph, 76, 180, 183–84, 185, 287

  Brummell, Beau, 348, 410–11

  Bunker Hill, battle of, 33, 36

  Burdett, Charles, 397

  Burk, John, 170, 171, 172

  Burr, Aaron

  —birth, 3

  —childhood, 2–3, 4–6, 7

  —education: Presbyterian Academy, 8, 9; College of New Jersey (Princeton), 9–16, 83, 115, 405; theological studies with Bellamy, 16, 21, 56, 83; law studies with Reeve, 59, 73

  —with Continental forces: in Montgomery’s attack on Quebec (1775), 19–20, 22–23, 24, 30–31, 62, 156; on Washington’s staff, 33–34; on Putnam’s staff, 33, 34, 35, 36–37; appointment as lieutenant colonel and response to Washington, 37–40; with Malcolm’s regiment, 37, 40–45, 46; West Point assignment, 48–49; Westchester County assignment under McDougall, 49–53

  —marriage to Theodosia: eligible bachelor period preceding, 55–61; first meeting, 61, 64; military escort journey, 67; growing affection and friendship, 69, 70, 71–72, 74, 75; wedding at the Hermitage (1782), 3, 75–76, 180; children born to, 76; nature of their partnership, 77–79; her death, 127

  —law practice: apprenticeships, 73, 83; licensing (1782), 75–76; move to New York, 76–77, 88; cases and
courtroom style, 88–90, 91–92; defense of Prevost claim, 93–94; concurrent land speculation, 92, 93, 94–96, 97–98; Greenleaf suit, 101–2

  —first term as a New York State assemblyman (1784–85), 90, 98–99

  —as New York State attorney general (1789–91), 104–5, 110, 111, 374; “Observations,” 104–5

  —as a U.S. senator (1791–97), viii, 1–2, 77, 105–6, 107, 108, 111–12, 123, 124, 126–27, 130, 136, 140, 148, 155, 170, 191; roles in New York State gubernatorial election and publication of An Impartial Statement of the Controversy . . . (1792), 108–10, 111–13, 114, 115, 132; appointment to state Supreme Court rejected, 117; and Reynolds case, 121–22; defense of Gallatin, 132–34; criticism of Jay appointment and treaty, 135–38; satires against, 138–41; campaign for New York State governorship (1795), 142, 143–45; campaign for vice presidency (1796), 145–49, 150–54, 155, 160

  —financial problems after land speculation failures of 1797, 155–61; loss of Richmond Hill, 158–59; German Company investment, 160–61

  —second term as a New York State assemblyman (1798–99), 162, 178–87, 188, 189, 253, 413; service on Military Committee and passage of bill for New York City fortifications, 168–69, 170–71, 181; support of Burk and Gallatin and opposition to alien laws, 170, 171, 172, 173–75, 413; Holland Land Company deal, 181–83; duel with Church, 164, 182, 188; establishment of Manhattan Land Company, 183–86, 187–88; loss in 1799 election, 178, 188

  —high profile court cases: Le Guen v. Gouverneur and Kemble, 189–91; Levi Weeks murder trial, 191–96