Aaron Burr

Character[edit]

Aaron Burr was a man of complex character who made many friends, but also many powerful enemies. He was indicted for murder after the death of Hamilton, but never prosecuted;^[120] he was reported by acquaintances to be curiously unmoved by Hamilton's death, expressing no regret for his role in the result. He was arrested and prosecuted for treason by President Jefferson, but acquitted.^[121] Contemporaries often remained suspicious of Burr's motives to the end of his life, continuing to view him as questionable at least since his role in the founding of the Manhattan Company.


In his later years in New York, Burr provided money and education for several children, some of whom were reputed to be his natural children. To his friends and family, and often to strangers, he could be kind and generous. Jane Fairfield, the wife of the struggling poet Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, recorded in her autobiography that in the late 1820s, their friend Burr pawned his watch to provide for the care of the Fairfields' two children.^[122] Jane wrote that, while traveling, she and her husband had left the children in New York with their grandmother, who proved unable to provide adequate food or heat for them. The grandmother took the children to Burr's home and asked his help: "[Burr] wept, and replied, 'Though I am poor and have not a dollar, the children of such a mother shall not suffer while I have a watch.' He hastened on this godlike errand, and quickly returned, having pawned the article for twenty dollars, which he gave to make comfortable my precious babes."^[122]


By Fairfield's account, Burr had lost his religious faith before that time; upon seeing a painting of Jesus' suffering, Burr candidly told her, "It is a fable, my child; there never was such a being."^[123]


Burr believed women to be intellectually equal to men and hung a portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft over his mantel. The Burrs' daughter, Theodosia, was taught dance, music, several languages and learned to shoot from horseback. Until her death at sea in 1813, she remained devoted to her father. Not only did Burr advocate education for women, upon his election to the New York legislature, he submitted a bill, which failed to pass, that would have allowed women to vote.^[124] Hamilton attacked Burr for supporting the idea that women were the intellectual equals of men.^[125]


Burr was considered a notorious womanizer. In addition to cultivating relationships with women in his social circles, his journals indicate that he was a frequent patron of prostitutes during his travels in Europe; he recorded brief notes of dozens of such encounters, and the amounts he paid. He described "sexual release as the only remedy for his restlessness and irritability".^[126]


Burr also fought against anti-immigrant sentiment, led by Hamilton's Federalist party, which suggested that anyone without English heritage was a second-class citizen and even challenged the rights of non-Anglos to hold office. In response, Burr insisted that anyone who contributed to society deserved all the rights of any other citizen, no matter their background.^[127]


John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary when Burr died: "Burr's life, take it all together, was such as in any country of sound morals his friends would be desirous of burying in quiet oblivion."^[128] Adams' father, President John Adams, had frequently defended Burr during his life. At an earlier time, he wrote, Burr "had served in the army, and came out of it with the character of a knight without fear and an able officer".^[129]


Gordon S. Wood, a leading scholar of the revolutionary period, holds that it was Burr's character that put him at odds with the rest of the Founding Fathers, especially Madison, Jefferson and Hamilton. He believed that this led to his personal and political defeats and, ultimately, to his place outside the golden circle of revered revolutionary figures. Because of his habit of placing self-interest above the good of the whole, those men thought that Burr represented a serious threat to the ideals for which they had fought the revolution. Their ideal, as particularly embodied in Washington and Jefferson, was that of "disinterested politics," a government led by educated gentlemen. They would fulfill their duties in a spirit of public virtue and without regard to personal interests or pursuits. This was the core of an Enlightenment gentleman, and Burr's political enemies thought that he lacked that essential core. Hamilton thought that Burr's self-serving nature made him unfit to hold office, especially the presidency.


Although Hamilton considered Jefferson a political enemy, he also believed him a man of public virtue. Hamilton conducted an unrelenting campaign in the House of Representatives to prevent Burr's election to the presidency and gain election of his erstwhile enemy, Jefferson. Hamilton characterized Burr as exceedingly immoral, an "unprincipled ... voluptuary" and deemed his political quest as one for "permanent power." He contended that Burr cared little about the Constitution and predicted that if he gained any more power, his leadership would continue to be for personal gain, while Jefferson was a true patriot and public servant committed to preserving the Constitution.^[130]