GateHouse Media
July 10, 2020
Last week, Disney+ released a film version of Lin-Manuel
Miranda’s original Broadway production of “Hamilton.” July 11, marks the 216th
anniversary of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr’s infamous duel in Weehawken,
New Jersey.
Whether one’s understanding of the Burr and Hamilton feud
was gleaned from history books or the Broadway stage, Hamilton cost Burr the
presidency and that cost Hamilton his life.
In 1800, Thomas Jefferson was running for president and Burr
vice president on the Democratic-Republican ticket against President John
Adams, seeking reelection on the Federalist ticket. Because the Constitution
did not distinguish between president and vice president in the votes cast by
each state’s electors in the Electoral College, both Jefferson and his running
mate Burr received 73 votes.
According to Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, if
two candidates each received a majority of the electoral votes but are tied,
the House of Representatives would determine which one would be president. As a
result, the Federalist-controlled House of Representatives would select the
president. This quirk in the Electoral College was later remedied by the 12th
Amendment.
Although Hamilton, a Federalist, was no friend of Jefferson
he wrote a letter to the House of Representatives zealously urging fellow
Federalists to choose Jefferson over Burr.
Hamilton wrote “a man without theory cannot be a systematic
or able statesman.” Burr is “more cunning than wise ... inferior in real
ability to Jefferson.” Hamilton continued, “Great Ambition unchecked by
principle ... is an unruly Tyrant.”
Jefferson became president and Burr vice president. In 1804,
Burr killed Hamilton in a duel, but Burr’s story doesn’t end there.
Little more than three years later, in the summer of 1807,
Burr was accused of treason, one of the gravest crimes in American law -
punishable by death. How did a man who only a few years earlier was vice
president end up on trial for treason?
Burr was disgraced by killing Hamilton and dropped from
Jefferson’s reelection ticket. Burr then sought to raise a small army on the
American frontier. It was alleged he planned to lead an independent campaign
against Spanish-held territories in Texas and Mexico, but it was also possible
that he planned to wrest a portion of the newly-acquired frontier from the
United States. According to associates, Burr had sought to form a new western
nation with himself as emperor.
Although it wasn’t entirely clear what Burr had been up to
between 1804 and 1807, President Jefferson demanded that he be charged with
treason. Burr fled toward what is now Florida. He was arrested in early 1807 in
Wakefield, a town in Mississippi Territory. He was confined to a military fort
and brought to Richmond, Virginia, for trial. Supreme Court Chief Justice John
Marshall presided over a trial that took prosecutors several months to present.
Burr’s lawyers presented a zealous defense. They argued that
the definition of treason, outlined in the Constitution, required evidence of an
“overt act” not just a plan or conspiracy. Chief Justice Marshall said that to
prove treason, “war must actually be levied against the United States ...
conspiracy is not treason.”
When Marshall ruled in favor of Burr’s interpretation of the
law, the prosecution’s case unraveled, and the jury found Burr not guilty.
For several years after the trial, Burr lived in
self-imposed exile in Europe. He returned to New York and resumed his law
practice. He remarried late in life. His new wife was a wealthy widow who filed
for divorce after only four months of marriage. She hired Alexander Hamilton
Jr. to prosecute the divorce. Hamilton finalized the divorce on Sept. 14, 1836,
the day Burr died.
It is a good thing Hamilton, Burr and Jefferson have become
subjects of everyday conversation in the last half-decade - even if it’s
because of a Broadway musical. It would be even better if their names were
bantered about in 2020 because of independence, government, personal rights and
presidential politics.
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