At last, an intersection of history and popular culture! In 1804, Jefferson dropped Aaron Burr from the ticket, which allowed him to accept the Republican nomination to run for Governor of New York. This put Burr on a collision course with Alexander Hamilton, the head Federalist in New York. As you all know, one thing led to another, and on the morning of July 11, 1804, Hamilton and Burr took part in a duel. It's the stuff from which advertisements can be made.
But sometimes a duel isn't just a duel, and in the supercharged atmosphere of the early Republic, dueling quite often stood in for politics. The two protagonists, and how this all worked, below.
From the vantage point of 2012, it's probably difficult to understand why any of these events happened. Dueling among politicians? If we had that today, consider whether or not Mitt Romney would have won the inevitable duels he would have had to have with Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich.
Obviously, things were different in the Early Republic. As Joanne Freeman writes in "Dueling as politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-Hamilton Duel," William and Mary Quarterly 53:2 (April 1996 - available at JStor)
to early national politicians, duels were demonstrations of manner, not marksmanship; they were intricate games of dare and counter-dare, ritualized displays of bravery, military prowess, and, above all, willingness to sacrifice one's life for one's honor. Each man's response to the threat of gunplay bore far more meaning than the exchange of fire itself. Politicians considered themselves engaged in an affair of honor from the first "notice" of an insult to the final acknowledgment of "satisfaction," a process that sometimes took weeks or even months. Regardless of whether shots were fired, these ritualized negotiations constituted an integral part of a duel.
The Burr-Hamilton duel was simply the most spectacular of the political duels of the beginning of the 19th century. This was, in fact, the eleventh affair of honor for Alexander Hamilton, and one of at least 16 duels held in New York City between 1795 and 1807. Political duelists were men who identified so closely with their public role that they could not always distinguish between their status as political leaders and their identity as gentlemen. As Hamilton observed in
The Federalist #59 and #60, the absence of institutionalized political parties made personal reputation even more important, and men who didn’t abide by the rules that enforced gentlemanly standards of behavior were neither gentlemen nor leaders, and these were
intentionally provoked partisan battles veiled by the gentility of a code of honor.
The Protagonists
(John Trumbull, 1792, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)
Alexander Hamilton was one of the most important politicians of the Early Republic. Born on the Caribbean island of Nevis in January 1755 (and technically illegitimate), Hamilton fought in the American Revolution, where he impressed George Washington with his intelligence, and became one of the strongest supporters of the Constitution as the most prolific author of The Federalist Papers. As Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton established a financial policy based on the fact that the Confederation government had failed to repay American revolutionary debts, and the Washington administration was now responsible. Hamilton believed that merchant capitalists would be a vital element in the future success and prosperity of nation, so he funded the government with a modest tariff on imports and established a national bank, partially owned by the government, to further the link between public and private debt. In 1800, Hamilton convinced the Federalists in the House to vote for Jefferson instead of Aaron Burr, and by 1804, he was the most important Federalist in New York State.
(John Vanderlyn, 1802, New-York Historical Society, New York)
Aaron Burr was born in New Jersey in 1756. A grandson of the Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards, Burr too impressed George Washington with his intelligence during the Revolution. Politically liberal, Burr became a Jeffersonian republican, representing New York in the Senate after 1792, and he was Jefferson's Vice President during his first term (1801-1805).
The Circumstances
Most disputes that led to the challenges that preceded a duel occurred in the weeks following an election or a political controversy when a member of the losing faction (who had been dishonored by defeat) provoked a duel with a member of the winning faction. During the election season of 1804, Jefferson dropped Burr from the ticket in favor of George Clinton, also of New York. This allowed Burr to accept the Republican nomination to run for Governor of New York. Hamilton had distrusted Burr for some time, and he was particularly annoyed when Burr accepted the Federalist nomination for governor, since the Clintonian branch of the Republican party in New York rejected Burr. After all, if Burr became New York’s chief Federalist, Hamilton worried that Burr would corrupt the party and destroy Hamilton’s influence.
Burr knew Hamilton condemned him in private, and by January 1804 the editor of the Clintonian (Republican) American Citizen was publicly daring Burr to challenge Hamilton to a duel,. Burr waited until June 18, 1804, about six weeks after he lost the gubernatorial election to write to Hamilton concerning a letter that had appeared in the Republican Albany Register in which the writer, Charles Cooper, referred to a despicable opinion which General Hamilton had expressed of Mr. Burr. At this point Burr’s reputation had already been wounded by the public humiliation of a lost election, and he was later criticized for making a challenge based on an unspecified affront.
The Duel
Hamilton didn’t want to duel any more than he had wanted to duel the previous ten times he was challenged, but Burr saw this as a demonstration of arrogance and lack of respect which led him to broaden his demands and force Hamilton to accept the challenge. Hamilton decided he would observe all the expected rituals on the field but that he would withhold his fire.
So, on the morning of July 11, 1804, Hamilton, Burr and their seconds (the people who assisted in a duel by bringing the weapons involved) assembled at Weehawken, New Jersey, as dueling had been outlawed in New York. Here's a modern photograph of the site:
(Bill Coughlin, April 25, 2008; http://www.hmdb.org/...)
Hamilton's gun apparently had a hair-trigger, and when it went off, Burr shot at Hamilton and mortally wounded him. Hamilton died the following afternoon. By the 14th New York City was in a “frenzy” and both Hamilton’s and Burr’s seconds drafted accounts to protect the reputations of the principals, and of course these differed on the vital question of who shot first.
The Aftermath
The partisan newspapers universally joined in high praise of Hamilton and declared Burr a murderer. Burr's supporters didn’t try to defend his actions, they attacked the Clintonians and the Hamiltonians for the newspaper campaigns directed at Burr, because they were unable to defend Burr as an honorable duelist.
Joanne Freeman concludes:
Killing Hamilton drove Burr into physical exile. Condemning Hamilton
thrust Burr into intellectual exile, for few men shared his opinion, or at
least said so in public. Ultimately, Burr's fate forced him to perceive the
truth-to discern the self-interest and political pragmatism underlying the
laws of honor. Assuming an attitude of "defiant affectation," he taunted
public men by pricking at their convictions about political honor. With
"amazing nonchalance," his first biographer reported, Burr sometimes spoke
of "my friend Hamilton-whom I shot," a blunt reminder of the duel's
viciousness and of the violent nature of American politics.
This effectively began the decline of the Federalist Party, especcially in New York. But, as the PBS website
"The Duel" observes, it was only the celebrity of the man who was killed that makes these events stand out. Americans did not stop dueling, especially in the South. In 1859,
a duel between Senator David C. Broderick and Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court David S. Terry just south of San Francisco over the subject of slavery drew national attention.
Next week, the bicentennial of an American war that we're not celebrating although Canada is.