1804 In duel, Burr
fatally shoots Hamilton
^top^
In a duel held
near Weehawken, New Jersey, Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his
long-time political antagonist Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a leading Federalist
and former secretary of the treasury under President George Washington,
died the following day.
In 1801, in
an election conducted before presidential and vice presidential candidates
shared a single ticket, Thomas Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr
had defeated Federalist incumbent John Adams with seventy-three electoral
votes each. The tie vote then went to the House to be decided, and Alexander
Hamilton was instrumental in breaking the deadlock in Jefferson's favor.
Burr, because he finished second, became vice president, but Jefferson grew
apart from Burr, and did not support his nomination to a second term in
1804.
A faction of the Federalists,
who had found their fortunes drastically diminished after the ascendance
of Jefferson, sought to enlist the disgruntled Burr into their party. However,
Hamilton opposed such a move, and was quoted by a New York newspaper saying
that he "looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not
to be trusted with the reins of government." The article also referred to
occasions when Hamilton had expressed an even "more despicable opinion of
Burr." Burr demanded an apology, Hamilton refused, so Burr challenged his
old political enemy to a duel.
On 11
July 1804, the pair met at a remote spot in Weehawken Heights, New Jersey.
Hamilton, whose son was killed in a duel three years earlier, deliberately
fired into the air, but Burr fired with intent to kill. Hamilton, fatally
wounded, died in New York City the next day. The questionable circumstances
of Hamilton's death effectively brought Burr's political career to an end.
Fleeing to Virginia, he traveled to New Orleans
after finishing his term as vice president, and met with US General James
Wilkinson, who was an agent for the Spanish. The exact nature of what the
two plotted is unknown, but speculation ranges from the establishment of
an independent republic in the American Southwest to the seizure of territory
in Spanish America for the same purpose.
In the fall of 1806, Burr led a group of well-armed colonists toward New
Orleans, prompting an immediate investigation by US authorities. General
Wilkinson, in an effort to save himself, turned against Burr and sent dispatches
to Washington accusing Burr of treason. On February 19, 1807, Burr was arrested
in Alabama for treason and sent to Richmond, Virginia, to be tried in a
US circuit court. On September 1, 1807, he was acquitted on the grounds
that, although he had conspired against the United States, he was not guilty
of treason because he had not engaged in an "overt act," a requirement of
treason as specified by the US Constitution. Nevertheless, public opinion
condemned him as a traitor and he was forced to retire to a private life.
Burr and Hamilton were both New Yorkers.
The reason they crossed the Hudson is that New Jersey did not have a law
against dueling at the time. New York had banned the practice earlier, partly
due to Hamilton's own campaign efforts after his son was killed in a duel.
Dueling was outlawed in the North much earlier than it was in the South.
The state of Massachusetts declared it "detestable and infamous." Duelists
in that state could be punished even if they both survived the duel. A typical
penalty would be to stand an hour with a rope around their neck at the gallows
and then to spend a year in prison. Transgressors might also receive lashes
from a whip. For duelists who died, there was still a civic penalty to be
paid. The loser was buried without a coffin near the spot of the duel with
a stake driven through his body. The winner could be prosecuted for murder,
executed, and buried in the same manner.
Even the mere threat of a duel had serious consequences: In 1818, George
Norton challenged someone to a duel in New York for insulting his honor
and was sentenced to a month in prison for his dare. In the South, dueling
was much more popular and accepted, especially among upper-class society.
The practice was so common that legislators were asked to take an oath to
declare that they had never been in a duel. Even after dueling became illegal,
the law was rarely enforced.
The Burr-Hamilton
duel was not the last high-profile case. In 1809, future senator Henry Clay
and Humphrey Marshall were arguing over legislation in Kentucky's state
house when Clay called Marshall a demagogue and Marshall responded by calling
Clay a liar. Their subsequent duel was fought with pistols at a length of
ten paces. Luckily for both, neither was a good shot (nor were the weapons
particularly accurate), and they both recovered from their injuries.
In a duel held in Weehawken, New Jersey,
Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his long-time political antagonist
Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a leading Federalist and the chief architect
of the US's political economy, died the following day. Alexander Hamilton,
born on the Caribbean island of Nevis in 1757, came to the American colonies
in 1773 as a poor immigrant. In 1776, he joined the Continental Army in
the American Revolution, and his relentless energy and remarkable intelligence
brought him to the attention of General George Washington, who took him
on as an aid. Ten years later, Hamilton served as a delegate to the Constitutional
Convention, and he led the fight to win ratification of the final document,
which created the kind of strong, centralized government that he favored.
In 1789, he was appointed the first secretary of the treasury by President
Washington, and during the next six years he crafted a sophisticated monetary
policy that saved the young US government from collapse. With the emergence
of political parties, Hamilton was regarded as a leader of the Federalists.
Aaron Burr, born into a prestigious New Jersey family in 1756, was also
intellectually gifted, and he graduated from the College of New Jersey (later
Princeton) at the age of 17. He joined the Continental Army in 1775 and
distinguished himself during the Patriot attack on Quebec.
A masterful politician, he was elected to the New State Assembly in 1783
and later served as state attorney. In 1790, he defeated Alexander Hamilton's
father-in-law in a race for the US Senate. Hamilton came to detest Burr,
whom he regarded as a dangerous opportunist, and he often spoke ill of him.
When Burr ran for the vice presidency in 1796 on Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican
ticket (the forerunner of the Democratic Party), Hamilton launched a series
of public attacks against Burr, stating, "I feel it is a religious duty
to oppose his career." John Adams won the presidency, and in 1797 Burr left
the Senate and returned to the New York Assembly. In 1800, Jefferson chose
Burr again as his running mate. Burr aided the Democratic-Republican ticket
by publishing a confidential document that Hamilton had written criticizing
his fellow Federalist President John Adams. This caused a rift in the Federalists
and helped Jefferson and Burr win the election with 73 electoral votes each.
Under the electoral procedure then prevailing, president and vice president
were not voted for separately; the candidate who received the most votes
was elected president, and the second in line, vice president. The vote
then went to the House of Representatives. What at first seemed but an electoral
technicality--handing Jefferson victory over his running mate--developed
into a major constitutional crisis when Federalists in the lame-duck Congress
threw their support behind Burr. After a remarkable 35 tie votes, a small
group of Federalists changed sides and voted in Jefferson's favor. Alexander
Hamilton, who had supported Jefferson as the lesser of two evils, was instrumental
in breaking the deadlock.
Burr became
vice president, but Jefferson grew apart from him, and he did not support
Burr's renomination to a second term in 1804. That year, a faction of New
York Federalists, who had found their fortunes drastically diminished after
the ascendance of Jefferson, sought to enlist the disgruntled Burr into
their party and elect him governor. Hamilton campaigned against Burr with
great fervor, and Burr lost the Federalist nomination and then, running
as an independent for governor, the election. In the campaign, Burr's character
was savagely attacked by Hamilton and others, and after the election he
resolved to restore his reputation by challenging Hamilton to a duel, or
an "affair of honor," as they were known. Affairs of honor were commonplace
in America at the time, and the complex rules governing them usually led
to an honorable resolution before any actual firing of weapons. In fact,
the outspoken Hamilton had been involved in several affairs of honor in
his life, and he had resolved most of them peaceably. No such recourse was
found with Burr, however, and on 11 July 1804, the enemies met at 7 a.m.
at the dueling grounds near Weehawken, New Jersey. It was the same spot
where Hamilton's son had died defending his father's honor two years before.
There are conflicting accounts of what happened next. According to Hamilton's
"second"--his assistant and witness in the duel--Hamilton decided the duel
was morally wrong and deliberately fired into the air. Burr's second claimed
that Hamilton fired at Burr and missed. What happened next is agreed upon:
Burr shot Hamilton in the stomach, and the bullet lodged next to his spine.
Hamilton was taken back to New York, and he died the next afternoon. Few
affairs of honor actually resulted in deaths, and the nation was outraged
by the killing of a man as eminent as Alexander Hamilton.
Charged with murder in New York and New Jersey, Burr, still vice president,
returned to Washington DC, where he finished his term immune from prosecution.
In 1805, Burr, thoroughly discredited, concocted a plot with James Wilkinson,
commander-in-chief of the US Army, to seize the Louisiana Territory and
establish an independent empire, which Burr, presumably, would lead. He
contacted the British government and unsuccessfully pleaded for assistance
in the scheme. Later, when border trouble with Spanish Mexico heated up,
Burr and Wilkinson conspired to seize territory in Spanish America for the
same purpose. In the fall of 1806, Burr led a group of well-armed colonists
toward New Orleans, prompting an immediate US investigation. General Wilkinson,
in an effort to save himself, turned against Burr and sent dispatches to
Washington accusing Burr of treason. In February 1807, Burr was arrested
in Louisiana for treason and sent to Virginia to be tried in a US court.
In September, he was acquitted on a technicality. Nevertheless, public opinion
condemned him as a traitor, and he fled to Europe. He later returned to
private life in New York, the murder charges against him forgotten. He died
in 1836. |
On
a 11 July: 
2002
On the New York Stock Exchange the stock of ICN Pharmaceuticals drops from
the previous day's close of $19.95 to an intraday low of of $8.90 and closes
at $9.30. It had traded as high as $51.12 on 04 May 1998. [< 5~year
price chart]
1940
Pleins Pouvoirs Pour Pétain.
are sufficient
to give the circumference of the earth to a fraction of an inch, and thirty
decimal places would give the circumference of the visible universe to a
quantity imperceptible to the most powerful microscope" He prepared
ephemerides (tables of computed places of celestial bodies over a period
of time) and tables of astronomical constants.
