You have all heard the story of Damon and Pythias, true type of devoted friendship, and history abounds in such examples; but sometimes it shows a darker side, and the controlling force in two men's lives will be hate instead of love, and the end will be shipwreck and tragedy. Such a story we are to tell briefly here of the lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
They were born a year apart. Burr in 1756, at Newark, New Jersey; Hamilton, in 1757, on the little West Indian island of Nevis. Burr was of a distinguished ancestry, his grandfather being the famous Jonathan Edwards; Hamilton's father was an obscure planter whose first name has been lost to history. Burr graduated at Princeton, entered the army, rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and resigned in 1777 to study law, being admitted to the New York bar five years later. Hamilton was sent to New York, entered King's, now Columbia, College, got caught in the rising tide of Revolution, proved himself uncommonly ready with tongue and pen, enlisted, saw the battles of Long Island, Trenton, and Princeton, was appointed aide-de-camp to Washington and acted as his secretary, filling the post admirably, but resigned in a fit of pique over a fancied slight, and repaired to New York to study law. Such, in outline, is the history of these two men until Fate threw them in each other's way.
New York City was the arena where the battle was fought. Within a few years, Hamilton and Burr were the most famous men in the town. They resembled each other strongly in temperament and disposition; each was "passionate, brooking no rivalry; ambitious, faltering at no obstacle; proud with a fiery and aggressive pride; eloquent with the quick wit, the natural vivacity, and the lofty certainty of the true orator." They were too nearly alike to be friends; they became instinctive enemies. Each felt that the other was in the way.
For sixteen years, Burr practiced law in New York, growing steadily in influence. For five of those years, Hamilton did the same. They were the foremost lawyers in the city. No man could stand before them, and when they met on opposite sides of a case, it was, indeed, a meeting of giants. But in 1789, Washington appointed Hamilton his secretary of the treasury, and leaving New York, Hamilton applied himself to the great task of establishing the public credit, laying the basis for the financial system of the nation, which endures until this day. It was a splendid task, splendidly performed, and Hamilton emerged from it the leader of the powerful Federal party.
In 1800, two men were candidates for the presidency. One was Thomas Jefferson and the other was Aaron Burr. Instead of being overwhelmed by the great Virginian, Burr received an equal number of electoral votes, and the contest was referred to Congress for decision. As a Federalist, Burr felt that he should have Hamilton's support, but Hamilton used his great influence against him, stigmatizing him as "a dangerous man," and Jefferson was elected. Four years later, Burr was a candidate for governor of New York, and again Hamilton openly, bitterly, and successfully opposed him, again speaking of him as "a dangerous man."
Smarting under the sting of this second defeat, Burr sent a note to Hamilton asking if the expression, "a dangerous man," referred to him politically or personally. Hamilton sent a sneering reply, and expressed himself as willing to abide by the consequences. It was "fighting language between fighting men"—a quarrel which Hamilton had been seeking for five years and which he had done everything in his power to provoke—and Burr promptly sent a challenge. Hamilton as promptly accepted it, named pistols at ten paces as the weapons, and at seven o'clock on the morning of July 11, 1804, the two men faced each other on the heights of Weehawken, overlooking New York bay. Both fired at the word; Burr's bullet passed through Hamilton's body; Hamilton's cut a twig above Burr's head. Hamilton died next day, and Burr, his political career at an end, buried himself in the West.
Three years later, he was arrested, charged with treason, for attempting to found an independent state within the borders of the Union. He had a wild dream of establishing a great empire to the west of the Mississippi, and had collected arms and men for the expedition, and was on his way down the Mississippi when he was arrested and taken back to Richmond for trial. But his plan could not be proved to be treasonable; indeed, his arrest was due more to the animosity which Jefferson felt toward him, than from any other cause, and, brought to trial a year later, he was acquitted. But his reputation was ruined, there was no hope for him in public life, and his remaining years were spent quietly in the practice of his profession, partly abroad and partly in New York.
It has been too much the habit to picture Burr as a thoroughgoing scoundrel who murdered an innocent man and conspired against his country. As a matter of fact, he did neither. Of the charge of treason he was acquitted, even at a time when public feeling ran high against him, and in the quarrel with Hamilton, it was Hamilton who was at all times the aggressor. Both were brilliant, accomplished and courtly men—even, perhaps, men of genius—but Fate spread a net for their feet, blindly they stumbled into it, and, too proud to retrace their steps, pushed on to the tragic end.
The presiding judge at Burr's trial, not the least of whose achievements was the holding level of the scales of justice on that memorable occasion, was the last of that great school of statesmen who had fought for their country's independence, and who had seen the states united under a common Constitution. John Marshall lived well into the nineteenth century, and his great work was to interpret that Constitution to the country, to give it the meaning which it has for us to-day. Marshall was a Virginian, was just of age at the outbreak of the Revolution, and served in the American army for five years, enlisting as a private and rising to the rank of captain. At the close of the war, he studied law, gained a prominent place in the politics of his state, drew the attention of Washington by his unusual ability, and in 1800 was appointed by him secretary of state. A year later he was made chief justice of the Supreme Court—an appointment little less than inspired in its wisdom.