Aaron Burr - Character

Character

Aaron Burr made many friends but also some powerful enemies, and is still perhaps the most controversial of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was indicted for murder (but not convicted) after the death of Hamilton; arrested and prosecuted for treason by Jefferson (but not convicted). To his friends and family, and often to complete strangers, he was kind and generous. In her Autobiography of Jane Fairfield, the wife of the struggling poet Sumner Lincoln Fairfield relates how their friend Burr saved the lives of her two children, who were left with their grandmother in New York while the parents were in Boston. The grandmother was unable to provide adequate food or heat for the children and was in fear for their very lives. She sought out Burr, as the only one that might be able and willing to help her. 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 errand, and quickly returned, having pawned the article for twenty dollars, which he gave to make comfortable my precious babies." In his later years in New York, he provided money and education for several children, earning their lifelong affection.

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 State Legislature, he submitted a bill to allow women to vote. However, not all women were on good terms. In Burr's later years, he married Madame Jumel, the richest woman in America. Just one year later, she divorced him for his infidelity. He also stole thirteen thousand dollars' worth of her fortune, which he quickly spent. It should be noted that Burr was an avid patron of prostitutes during various episodes of his life. He recorded with great detail, in his own personal journal, encounters in Europe with dozens of women which he paid to have sex with him. Oftentimes he described "sexual release as the only remedy for his restlessness and irritability". Nevertheless, since Burr was an advocate for gender equality and since his journal "comprehensively recorded his fascination with every female he encountered", it can be seen that his love of women extended beyond a simple physical or sexual attraction.

In 1784 as a New York state assemblyman, he unsuccessfully sought to immediately end slavery in that state. John Quincy Adams (who was a great admirer of Jefferson) said after the former vice president's death, "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." This was his own opinion: his father, President John Adams, was an admirer and frequent defender of Burr. John Adams wrote that Burr "had served in the army, and came out of it with the character of a knight without fear and an able officer."

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, leading 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 felt Burr represented a serious threat to the very 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 who 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, his political enemies felt, lacked that essential core. Indeed, it was Hamilton’s belief that Burr’s self-serving nature made him unfit to hold office—especially the presidency. Jefferson, though one of Hamilton’s bitterest enemies, was at least a man of public virtue. This belief led Hamilton to launch his unrelenting campaign in the House of Representatives to prevent Burr’s election to the presidency, favoring his erstwhile enemy Jefferson instead. Hamilton teamed up with his enemies in the rival party: Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, in order to prevent Burr from obtaining the presidency. Hamilton characterized Burr as greatly immoral, "unprincipled...voluptuary," and deemed his political quest as one for "permanent power." He predicted that if in power, Burr's contributions to the Constitution would be solely for personal gain, compared to Jefferson who was committed to its standing structure. Despite this, later in Burr’s life, Jefferson would in turn go so far as to push the boundaries of the Constitution in his attempt—in the charging and trying of Burr for treason—to eliminate Burr. Though Burr’s sentiments today seem prosaic, even hackneyed, his magnetic presence and precise delivery, combined with the occasion and the youthfulness of the nation, gave a powerful resonance to his twenty-minute speech.