Aaron Burr: Founder, Scoundrel, Traitor
He did a lot more that kill Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
In 1783, against all odds, the British colonies of North America defeated England, the world’s mightiest military power, thereby to become a free and independent nation. Secretly and almost simultaneously another threat throbbed in the hearts of men working to appropriate the power of that new nation to themselves.
One of these was James Wilkinson, the commanding general of the US Army who sold his country’s secrets to the rival empire of Spain and was an exhalted and despicable cad. The other despicable cad, however, was no less a figure than Aaron Burr, an ex-vice president under Thomas Jefferson, who wished to sabotage the presidency and take it for himself. Burr set in motion political forces still at work today attempting to undermine the Republic. After failing to manipulate himself into the presidency, Burr formed a plot with James Wilkinson to take over much of the western part of the country and turn it into a separate nation with financial and military help from both England and Spain!
In 1780, Burr tied Thomas Jefferson in a run for the presidency, throwing the final decision to the House of Representatives. That body then designated Jefferson president and Burr Vice President. Burr was enraged and began obsessively lusting for the office of president and plotting to obtain it. Jefferson, the nation’s third president, largely avoided Burr for the next four years and then declined to name him his vice president in the 1804 election.
But while Burr was still vice president, he met with the British minister to the US, suggesting to him that Britain might regain power in the American Southwest if they gave him guns and money for his expedition. Burr offered to detach Louisiana from the United States in exchange for a half million dollars and a British fleet in the Gulf of Mexico. This was pure treason. And it was committed by the vice president of the country!
The men who won independence from England also accomplished a government devoid of rancor or desires for revenge and established a constitution grounded in respect for the individual. The French revolution which followed was, by comparison, drenched in the blood of anybody the radicals (Jacobins) imagined to be in disagreement. And there were many.
The American founders created their new nation in the full awareness that humans are not by nature good but actually dishonest, treacherous, evil and selfish. They founded the nation to exist under the constraints of just laws to counter those tendencies. Aaron Burr’s subsequent career was, if nothing else, an instance of proof that their assessment of mens’ natures was correct.
Meanwhile, that other paragon of loyalty and virtue, General James Wilkinson had made deals with representatives of the Spanish government by which Spain hoped to cut the United States down to size. He even informed his contacts about the cross-continent expedition of Lewis and Clark which Spain was very eager to stop. Had their agents ever caught up with that expedition, they would certainly have killed its leaders and members on the spot and the world would never have known. That assuredly would have cut America down to size.
Burr was a master at connivance and manipulation and strongly influenced the Democratic organization in New York which became Tammany Hall. Corruption ran in the veins of this group who used money to buy votes and steal elections. Burr used Tammany as a means of shoring up his political fortunes.
Having been rejected as Jefferson’s vice president in 1804, Burr set his sights on breaking the new nation apart and setting himself up as “emperor” of whatever territory he could steal by force of arms from the United States. He travelled west on scouting missions to find investors. He found a promising one in the person of Harman Blennerhassett, an enormously wealthy Irish aristocrat, living in an estate on his own island in the Ohio River.
It is likely that tales of Blennerhassett's huge fortune had reached Burr, inspiring his dream of forming a western empire. The easily duped Blennerhassett was convinced by the witty and persuasive ex-vice president to take part in the scheme. Blennerhassett's island would be the base camp and his money would outfit the expedition. He contracted to have fifteen large riverboats built to transport the proposed army. One of these craft was sixty feet long and was elegantly appointed, even having a fireplace and glass windows. It was to be his own personal transport. Blennerhassett's money was also used to purchase arms, ammunition, provisions and whisky for a force of five hundred men.
Alas, fate intervened. General James Wilkinson, Burr’s partner in crime, got a bad case of cold feet when word got out that some sort of conspiracy was being undertaken by Burr. In order to weasel out of any culpability, Wilkinson drafted a letter to President Jefferson betraying the plot. Jefferson issued an arest warrant for Burr. Poor Harman Blennerhassett lost his island, his home and his money to the ransacking Virginia Militia as Burr stole away down the Mississippi only to get arrested by a posse in Alabama.
Blennerhassett escaped to Kentucky but both he and Burr would up in the Virginia State Penitentairy. Burr stood trial for high treason, but was acquitted when the five month trial fail to produce any concrete evidence of an overt act of war.
Aaron Burr left for Europe after the trial, where he once again tried to foment the armed takeover of yet another sovereign nation, this time, Mexico. It failed.
Burr died in New York City after a series of strokes on September 14, 1836. His co-conspiritor and subsequent betrayer, General James Wilkinson, otherwise named Spanish Secret Agent #13, who once plotted to overthrow of George Washington, died in Mexico City on December 28, 1825. He is buried there.
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