Burr

by Gore Vidal

  Ducking from side to side, I managed to get clear of the worst of the fighting just as His Honour Mayor Gideon Lee appeared with a number of armed watchmen.

  The Mayor stood very tall and stern at the head of his men. “Stop!” he shouted. There was a sudden quiet as the invaders from the Sixth Ward turned to see what new entertainment was at hand.

  “This is your mayor. Disassemble. And go back to your houses. Peacefully. That is an order.”

  A well-aimed rock removed the Mayor’s tall hat. Sticks at the ready, the city watchmen moved upon the mob, and the mob charged.

  I ran as quickly as I could to the grounds of New York Hospital where I found Mr. Davis and the portly gentleman.

  “They are desperate, our friends at Tammany.” Mr. Davis was ravished by the disorder. “This”—he indicated the roaring battle all around us—“is the beginning of the end for Mr. Van Buren, and the making of Henry Clay. My boy, we have created a truly new party!”

  I cannot fathom Mr. Davis. Originally a leader of Tammany, originally a backer of Jackson, originally an ally of Van Buren, Mr. Davis split with all of them on the issue of the Bank (he likes it; they don’t; why does he care?). Now Mr. Davis has helped put together a new Whig party made up of the wealthiest people in the city, and the poorest. Two groups with nothing in common save support for Mr. Biddle’s Bank of the United States and a passion for Henry Clay. Yet why should the poor care about the Bank? And why should the rich care about Henry Clay? To me it is a perfect mystery.

  Respectfully, we stood aside as two watchmen carried the unconscious mayor of New York into the hospital, a dented top-hat resting on the proud curve of his stomach.

  “Let us go some place less turbulent.” Pleased despite the beating the Whigs were taking, Mr. Davis led us to the seedy Broadway House whose large bar-room is the unofficial centre of the Whig party.

  Mr. Davis established his headquarters in a far corner of the noisy crowded smoky room. Nearly everyone was drunk; the price of a vote, in fact, is beery oblivion after the vote is cast.

  A dark man, not in the least drunk, reported to Mr. Davis. “We took care of the lot of them in the Fourth Ward.”

  “No one hurt?”

  “No one dead.” As the man moved to go, his coat swung open and I saw both a knife and a knobbed stick stuck in his belt.

  The portly man was not pleased. “We must not resort to their tactics.”

  “We must protect ourselves.” Tea was brought Mr. Davis and beer for me and for the portly man who turned out to be the notorious Mordecai Noah. Ten years ago he was the first—and only—Jew ever to be appointed sheriff of New York. When there was criticism of a Jew being put in a position where he might hang Christians, Noah is supposed to have said, “Pretty Christians to require hanging at all!” Noah is a remarkable creature who writes melodramas for the stage, edits newspapers, and serves—or used to serve—Tammany as one of its leaders. President Madison made him consul at Tunis (this was during the time of the trouble with the pirates); and President Jackson appointed him surveyor of the port of New York, a post he recently resigned when he broke with the President over the Bank. Until the last election he was co-editor of the Courier and Enquirer, a newspaper favourable to Jackson until Mr. Biddle’s Bank became an issue. Then Noah and his newspaper turned around completely and began to attack the Administration. During the election it was discovered that Noah and his fellow editor were secretly taking money from Mr. Biddle. This scandal was helpful to the Administration; harmful to Mr. Biddle, the corruptor of the press.

  At the moment Noah edits the Evening Star which openly supports the Bank and the Whig interest. After a lifetime of loyalty to Tammany and the workies, Noah is now devoted to the rich Mr. Biddle and to his creature Henry Clay.

  Leggett thinks Noah mad. “But colourful. A compulsive actor. And of course he’s the king of the Jews, or thinks he is.” Leggett described how Noah, wearing a crown and velvet robes, took “possession” of Grand Island in the Niagara River and there proclaimed the City of Ararat, to be a home of refuge for the Jews. Needless to say, the city fathers of Buffalo quickly put a stop to that.

  This afternoon Noah was not very kingly—simply nervous and complaining. “How stupid it was of those employers to shut down their businesses and order their workers to vote Whig.”

  “Don’t fret, Mordecai. The tide that will soon bring us in will carry out our Nestorian skipper.” Mr. Davis turned to me as though to allay any possible shock on my part. “Whom we applaud. What good democrat does not? But we recognise that the President has grown old serving the people and now—poor old man—he listens to Van Buren and to the other enemies of the people. Oh, there will be changes soon!”

  I cannot for the life of me understand why men like Davis and Noah care so much about the election or rejection of other people. I don’t care who is alderman in the First Ward or president in the White House. But then that is not the point. For the true and effective partisan who supported Jackson in ’28 or ’32 there was bound to be money or office or both. Currently half of Tammany Hall are now directors of those new banks that came into existence after Jackson struck at Nicholas Biddle and the Bank of the United States. Incidentally, no one—not even Leggett—has yet made clear why the federally supervised Bank is so much worse than a thousand banks that are unsupervised. Yet for some mysterious reason the Bank is thought “aristocratic” while the banks are “democratic.” The poor of course are as certain to be fleeced by the many as they were by the one.

  “I am not confident. Not confident at all!” There was an explosion near by. The windows of the bar-room rattled.

  “Exactly what we want! Let Tammany take the credit for burning the city!” Mr. Davis was euphoric. I was alarmed. And so was everyone else. Fighting and plundering and arson have erupted all over the city.

  “Now what has Colonel Burr sent me?” Mr. Davis opened the folder.

  For the first time Noah was aware of my presence; asked me if I was indeed a messenger from Aaron Burr.

  “Not only a messenger,” Mr. Davis spoke for me, “but he is also composing a life of that much maligned man.”

  “I come to appreciate Burr more and more.” Noah was suddenly alert. “What do you know of his business out west?”

  Again Mr. Davis answered for both of us. “We know—I think—everything, and the Colonel was innocent of all charges.”

  “Of course. But what about the involvement of President Jackson?”

  “It was no greater …” In the best court-room manner I decided to move to the sort of offence that stops entirely the prosecution’s manoeuvre. “… than the involvement of Henry Clay.”

  Mr. Davis actually laughed, a whispering dry sound like law books being rubbed together. “He’s got you there, Mordecai.”

  Noah was not distressed. “Clay only defended Burr in court. Nothing more. But Jackson was ready to go to Mexico with him. Everyone knows that.”

  “Everyone except his two biographers. No, Mordecai. That line of attack will do us no good. Andrew Jackson is too beloved to treat in such a manner. Besides, he’ll be gone in two years’ time; if not sooner.”

  “That would not stop me from telling the people what they ought to know about the sort of man who … Davis, do you see what I see?” So Edmund Kean looked when he saw Banquo’s ghost at the Park Theatre. A tall smiling man had entered the bar-room. Although clean, he was dressed like a labourer.

  Mr. Davis lost his usual composure. “Let us look the other way,” he announced too late, for the man, blinking his eyes in order to adjust them to the dimness, came to our table. Glumly, Mr. Davis introduced me to Thomas Skidmore.

  Five years ago Leggett lent me Skidmore’s pamphlet “The Rights of Man to Property!” but I never read it. In those days Skidmore was considered to be the anti-Christ—no, worse, the anti-property! A self-taught machinist, Skidmore argued (brilliantly but wildly, according to Leggett) in favour of putting an end to imprisonment for debt, an en
d to private ownership of land, an end to all inherited wealth. He even favoured the taxing of churches—and just about every other measure the mind of a crank could conceive if he wants really to be hated in our city. Leggett finally attacked him as the apostle of a system of “public robbery.” Nevertheless, for a single season Skidmore had been the hero of the workies, and the terror of the property owners.

  “We shall win the city.” Mr. Davis was polite but cool.

  Noah was neither. “We shall prove, Mr. Skidmore, that reform is possible without destroying society.”

  “But that makes no sense, Mr. Noah. No sense at all.” The mild whiny voice contrasted with the blunt words. “Until we give to each man his due there is not a society here but a tyranny of the few.”

  “That is what the Tammany men say in the Sixth Ward.”

  “But, Mr. Noah, they don’t mean what they say and we do.”

  “We, Mr. Skidmore?” Noah was most unpleasant.

  But Skidmore was serene. “An idea so basic as true equality, Mr. Noah, cannot be the sole possession of a single mind, no matter how—radical.” With a pleasant nod, Skidmore moved on to a table of low types, swilling beer. As he sat down, he suddenly said in a loud voice, “Mr. Davis, the Whig party will fail. Because the others have more than you.”

  “What did that mean?” Noah turned to Mr. Davis. “More what?”

  Mr. Davis shrugged. “He is a bad man.”

  Having listened so much to Leggett, I made the obvious answer. “He means that if you are going to have a world with a few people rich and a good many poor then the party with more rich people than the other will win.”

  For the first time Noah did me the honour of listening. “He’s right.” He spoke to Mr. Davis as if I was not there.

  “Charlie is a clever boy.”

  “Then why is he working for Colonel Burr?”

  “Why indeed?” Mr. Davis gave me the Tammany look which means “nothing is what it seems.”

  “I admire him, as a lawyer.” I was defensive, and ought not to be.

  “Charlie is onto something golden.” Mr. Davis sounded as if he had just bought a judge’s decision. “He will write the true story of Colonel Burr while I shall write the official memoirs. That means Charlie will beat me all hollow.” We are to be in competition, Matthew L. Davis and I? I am suspicious.

  Noah showed interest. “You have arranged for publication?”

  “Yes.” Mr. Davis answered for me. “Charlie is dealing with William Leggett.”

  I was startled. How did Mr. Davis know? “But I am not writing for the Evening Post …”

  “Leggett!” Noah proceeded at length to accuse Leggett of every crime. Then, “Thank God, Webb beat him to the ground! In the street! With a cane!” I said that it was Leggett who had beaten Webb. We were interrupted by a clatter of horses in the street, the jangle of armour, a shout: “It’s the militia!”

  “Let us hope they get to the ballot-boxes before our friends at Tammany do.” For the first time Mr. Davis showed some anxiety. Certainly he showed none at all a few moments later when a rock broke through the window just above his head and fell to the table with a crash, rather delicately jostling my beer mug as it rolled to the floor.

  Noah and I both leapt to our feet. Not Mr. Davis. Coolly he combed the glass shards from his thin gray hair.

  A red face poked through the hole in the window and bellowed, “There they are, the …”

  We never heard just what we were, for Mr. Davis in a swift gesture raised his cane and cracked smartly the red face. “Out, you whoreson!” rang the voice of Tammany’s one-time Grand Sachem. The red face was seen no more.

  The bar-room broke into cheers. Mr. Davis accepted the homage of his people with a gracious, thin-lipped smile. “Quite like the old days!” he said to me. “When Burr and Hamilton were dividing the people. I confess to nostalgia.”

  “You’re mad! They’ll burn the city now! They’re capable of anything if they think they’re losing the election.” Noah was trembling.

  “Most unlikely.” Mr. Davis assembled the fragments of window glass into a neat pile. Then he put Burr’s message into his coat pocket; turned to me. “The Colonel thinks I should give you any notes I might have.”

  “I don’t want you to give me anything if you really believe that I intend to …”

  “Charlie, Charlie! Whatever you want to read you can. I shall send you what I have.” Mr. Davis was now on his feet. “Try to publish as soon as you can.”

  I thanked Mr. Davis. He is remarkably kind. But then he cannot publish his own book for several years at least and perhaps he thinks my effort will whet the public’s appetite for the entire story. My effort? What am I writing about?

  I now act even to myself as if I were writing the full story of the Colonel’s life when, actually, I am only on the track of one small portion of it which Leggett assures me will change history. Though I sometimes wonder how different history will be if the president is Clay rather than Van Buren. Also, do I want to be the key that opens such a door? Odd situation to be in for someone who dislikes politics and politicians. It is my secret dream to live in Spain or Italy and write stories like Washington Irving. I am counting on this work to bring me the money to travel. I only hope that the Colonel is dead when I publish. No. I cannot hope or want that. But I must publish within the next year and a half. Before the presidential election. It is a hard business I have got myself into.

  Four

  VERPLANCK WAS DEFEATED for mayor by 179 votes out of some 35,000 cast. Tammany Hall is victorious but shaken, for the Whigs have taken the city’s common council. Mr. Davis must be happy. Colonel Burr is happy—no, amused. “It’s the new people, Charlie. They’re going to take it all one of these days.”

  “Mr. Davis thinks Clay will be the next president.”

  “Poor Matt! He lacks judgement in the big things but is a master of the small. Van Buren will be nominated and he will defeat Clay or any other National Republican—no, no, Whig, I must get used to calling them that. How topsy-turvy it is! Those of us who were for the Revolution were Whigs. Those for Britain were Tories. Then there was the fight over the federal Constitution. In our state Governor Clinton wanted a weak federal government. So some of the Whigs became anti-Federalist, and some like Hamilton became Federalist. Then the Tory-Federalists became Republican. Now Tory-Federalist-Republicans call themselves Whig though they are anti-Whig while the anti-Federalist Republicans are now Jacksonian Democrats. Oh, names are magic here!”

  “What were you, after the Revolution?”

  “Neutral. I inclined to the anti-Federalists, but I took no part in the long debate. I do recall my first reading of the Constitution. ‘It will not last fifty years,’ I said. Obviously I was wrong—about the fifty years. But I am right in principle. The Constitution is much too brittle a document for a country like ours. By the way, I saw a dead man on West Street when I got off the boat this morning. He was killed last night at the polling-place, and no one has thought to take away the corpse. ‘Thy hand great Anarch lets the curtain fall and universal darkness buries all.’ ” I know the quotation by heart because Burr so often quotes it.

  “Do you favour Van Buren?” I asked. A single drop of sweat trickled down the centre of my spine. It is a warm day.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Because of your old connection?”

  The eyes were shut now; small feet on the edge of the grate. “I am old and therefore moderate. The only old man I know who loves danger and surprise is Andrew Jackson. But then I think there must be a medical explanation. Too much blood in the brain. At least I prefer the decorous way Matty Van does things. He is without ferocity, while Clay is unstable and corrupt.”

  “Does Mr. Davis know you prefer Van Buren?”

  “Oh, yes. He pays no attention to me. He knows that Aaron Burr—what’s left of him—is not a Burrite.”

  Five

  THE CITY IS A WRECK from the rioting. In some streets every w
indow is broken. But who cares? The day is beautiful, the militia have been withdrawn, the Irish are sick with sore heads, and I go with Helen Jewett to the Vauxhall Gardens.

  We took a coach up the Bowery to the point where it meets Broadway. Helen was like a child. Since she joined Mrs. Townsend’s establishment she has never been beyond a block or two of Thomas Street. She wore a high-necked dress, and looked as much a lady as ever drank tea in the Ladies Dining Room of the City Hotel.

  “Oh, it took me hours and hours to convince her that I did have an aunt who lived here and that one of the—one of our guests knew her and told me that she often wondered where I was and so I said, ‘Mrs. Townsend, I must tell my aunt I’m alive and well because suppose she asks the police about me?’ ” Helen has a smile like an isosceles triangle long side down. “So she let me off for the day, very put out she was, too, and told me that God punished liars. Do you think this is true?”

  I said I doubted it. But assured her that if there is a Hell, it would one day include a marvellously learned lady, able to drive Satan mad with scripture and theology.

  The evening was warm and the gardens crowded with couples. No one seemed aware that we are living through what Leggett terms a revolution.

  After a promenade beneath coloured lanterns, dutifully breathing in and out the country air, scented with hyacinth, we found ourselves in a bower close enough to the band to hear the music but not so close as to be forced to shout at one another. A Negro waiter brought us vanilla ice-cream and cake. I have never been so nervous, and I cannot think why.

  Helen was not at all what I expected—or she expected? At first she had been like a dog unchained from a gate. She could not get enough of the sights and the sounds the rest of us take for granted. The Gingerbread Man on Broadway particularly intrigued her as he ran by, coat-tails streaming in the wind, pockets bulging with gingerbread, his only food. No one knows who he is or where he lives because he never speaks, just runs, eats gingerbread, sips water at the public pumps.