Aaron Burr

 Note: It's an election year. It's only right and proper to pay a little attention to politics. A little.

Fallen Founder: The life of Aaron Burr - Nancy Eisenberg

John Adams said that he had never known in any country the prejudice in favor of birth, parentage, and descent more conspicuous than in the instance of Colonel Burr. Aaron Burr in fact was a revolutionary, soldier, lawyer, US senator, a vice president and received the same number of electoral votes as Jefferson in the election of 1800. But our image of Burr these days is that of a villain. This biography paints Burr in different lights to convince the reader to see Burr without being inordinately influenced by the conventional wisdom.

The positives of Eisenberg's biography are many. It is clearly written. She provides the background of politics in the state of New York in the 1790s and the “get it while you can” energy of westward expansion. She makes a solid case for Burr’s beliefs about equal rights for women and his admiration for Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist. She slams Alexander Hamilton and historians such as his hagiographer Ron Chernow for portraying Hamilton as a martyr. Like Yale historian Joanne Freeman, Eisenberg examines the use of gossip and invective in the early years of the Republic. Finally Eisenberg gives proper attention to the neglected figure of Albert Gallatin who was caught between his old friend Burr and his new ally Jefferson.

The weakness, to my mind, is that she does not make a strong enough case for the existence of Burr’s political principles to convince me that Burr had any such principles. I'll grant that he did have sympathies and leanings for the great unwashed that we would not expect any born aristocrat. Burr was more like us post-moderns: ambitious and ever ready to let expedience best virtue.

No wonder Alexander “Master of Lying Invective” Hamilton and Thomas “Red Fox” Jefferson couldn't stand Burr. Burr acted as a pragmatic politician who accepted spoils and patronage as natural parts of political life. Burr was hardly the impartial arbiter or disinterested elite that Hamilton and Jefferson thought a real leader should be. In the disputed election of 1800 Hamilton beat the character drum, never doubting that “upon every virtuous and prudent calculation” Jefferson was to be preferred to Burr. Burr had no character, Hamilton argued, and Jefferson at least had pretensions to character. Both feared for their own power against Burr’s gift for friendship, cultivation of allies and undoubted organizational skills.

Another problem is that I'm spoiled by narrative biographies that use the subject's own words and letters throughout the tome. For instance I'm a proud veteran of Henry Adams’ Life of Albert Gallatin which has about 200 pages of letters. After the killing of Hamilton, Burr leads a wandering and rackety life. His letters have been lost and scattered. He burned letters too (probably wisely) so there's not much in the way of documentary evidence in his own words. For instance little documents Burr’s schemes of empire building that formed the basis for his treason trial in 1807. Eisenberg explains the reason for the acquittal persuasively. However post-trial when he was living in Europe and hobnobbing with the great and grabby, one gets the feeling he was up to something with regard to carving out an independent country in what's now the southwestern USA.

This book is worth reading. Elites who pride themselves on knowing how the world really works will not relish Eisenberg's shots, thrusts, and jabs at Hamilton but us bloody-minded readers who scorn being firmly guided to right thinking will enjoy the conventional wisdom being turned over in this biography.