The public and private character of Burr, Hamilton had long known and despised. He regarded him as a dangerous man, and one wholly unfit to fill any office of trust or emolument. And this opinion, although avoiding open controversy with Burr himself, he had not scrupled to express privately to his own political friends, for the purpose of dissuading them from giving any support to one so little to be depended on. He recognized himself no other claim to political distinction than honesty of purpose, the ability and the will to serve the country, united with what he deemed to be sound political principles, neither of which recommendations could he discover in Aaron Burr.
Burr had, on the other hand, few ends in life save his own advancement, and he scrupled at no means by which this object might be compassed; but in his most deeply laid schemes, he saw that the vigilant eye of Hamilton was upon him, and after his defeat in 1804 as a candidate for governor of the State of New-York, stung with mortification at his overthrow, and justly deeming the influence of Hamilton as one of the most potent causes of it, he resolved to fix a quarrel upon him. Seizing upon an expression which was contained in a letter, published during the recent political contest, but which had been forgotten by every one save himself, he dragged it before Hamilton's attention, tortured it into an imputation upon his personal honor, demanded of Hamilton an explanation which it was impossible for him to give, and made his refusal the pretext for a peremptory challenge.
In accepting the challenge of Burr, Hamilton was but little under the influence of those motives which are commonly uppermost in such contests. To the practice of duelling he was sincerely and upon principle opposed, and had frequently borne his testimony against it. His reputation for personal courage had been too often tried, and too signally proved to be again put at risk. His passions, though strong, were under his control, and that sensitiveness on the score of personal honor, which a man of spirit naturally cherishes, and which the habits of a military life rendered prompt and delicate, was in him satisfied by a conscious integrity of purpose. His disposition was forgiving and gentle to a fault, and made it impossible for him to feel any personal ill will even towards such a man as Burr. The manifold obligations which as an honest and conscientious man he was bound to regard—his duties to a loved and dependent family, and his country, which held almost an equal place in his affections, united to dissuade him from meeting his adversary. And yet these latter, viewed in connection with his peculiar position, with popular prejudices, and the circumstances of the times, were what impelled him to his fatal resolution. His theoretic doubts respecting a republican form of government, while they did not in the least diminish his preference for our political system, yet made him painfully anxious in regard to its success. He thought that every thing depended upon keeping the popular mind free from the corruption of false principles, and the offices of trust and honor out of the hands of bad men. To these ends he had been, and still was, employing all his energy and influence. He could not bear the thought of losing or weakening by any step, however justifiable in itself, that influence which he had reason to think was not exerted in vain. These were the large and unselfish considerations which governed him; and though a cool observer removed from the excitement and perplexities of the time may pronounce them mistaken, still if impartial he must regard them as sincere. They were what Hamilton himself, in full view of the solemnity of the step he was about to take, and of the possible event of it, declared to be his motive. "The ability," said he in the last paper he ever wrote, "to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with prejudice in this particular."
After some fruitless endeavors on the part of Hamilton to convince Burr of the unreasonableness of the request which the latter had made, all explanations were closed, and the preliminaries for the meeting were arranged. Hamilton having no wish to take the life of Burr, had come to the determination to throw away his first shot,—a course too which approved itself to his feelings for other reasons.
The grounds of Weehawk, on the Jersey shore opposite New-York, were at that time the usual field of these single combats, then chiefly by the inflamed state of political feeling of frequent occurrence, and very seldom ending without bloodshed. The day having been fixed, and the hour appointed at seven o'clock in the morning, the parties met, accompanied only by their servants. The bargemen, as well as Dr. Hosack, the surgeon mutually agreed upon, remained as usual at a distance, in order, if any fatal result should occur, not to be witnesses. The parties having exchanged salutations, the seconds measured the distance of ten paces, loaded the pistols, made the other preliminary arrangements, and placed the combatants. At the appointed signal, Burr took deliberate aim and fired. The ball entered Hamilton's side, and as he fell, his pistol too was unconsciously discharged. Burr approached him, apparently somewhat moved, but on the suggestion of his second, the surgeon and bargemen already approaching, he turned and hastened away, Van Ness coolly covering him from their sight by opening an umbrella. The surgeon found Hamilton half lying, half sitting on the ground, supported in the arms of his second. The pallor of death was on his face. "Doctor," he said, "this is a mortal wound;" and, as if overcome by the effort of speaking, he swooned quite away. As he was carried across the river the fresh breeze revived him. His own house being in the country, he was conveyed at once to the house of a friend, where he lingered for twenty-four hours in great agony, but preserving his composure and self-command to the last.[16]
The melancholy event of the duel affected the whole country, and New-York in particular, with the deepest indignation and grief. The avenues to the house where Hamilton was carried before he expired, were thronged with anxious citizens. His funeral was celebrated by a mournful pageant, and an oration in Trinity Church by Governeur Morris, which stirred up the people like the speech of Antony over the corpse of Caesar, to a "sudden flood of mutiny." Burr, with an indictment for murder hanging over him, fled secretly from the city to the South, where he remained until the excitement had in a measure subsided. His wretched end, and the place which history has assigned to him, leave room at present for no other emotions save those of regret and pity. In the deep gloom which the death of Hamilton occasioned, his political opponents almost equally shared. In contemplating his character they seemed to catch some portion of his own magnanimity, and the animosities of which he had been so conspicuous an object, were swallowed up in the conviction that a great and irreparable loss had fallen equally upon all.
There was not, we think, at that time, a life which might not have been better spared than that of Hamilton. Certainly no man represented so well as he, the character and the principles of Washington; and no man was gifted with an array of qualities which better fitted him either as a magistrate or a man to control aright the opinions and the actions of a people like that of the United States. He was a man "built up on every side." He had received from nature a most capacious and admirable intellect, which had been exercised and developed by deep study and large experience in the practical conduct of affairs. His education was like that which Milton describes as "fitting to a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war." His opinions were definite and fixed; were held with the confidence which is the result of complete conviction; and came from him recommended by a powerful eloquence, and a persuasive fairness and magnanimity. The strength of his passions gave him an almost unbounded influence over the minds of others, which he never perverted to selfish purposes or unworthy ends.
A lofty integrity was one of the most prominent traits of his character. It was not, as in his great contemporary Jay, clothed with the appearance of austerity, nor did it, perhaps, so much as in the latter spring from a constant and habitual sense of responsibility to a Supreme Being; but it was rather a rare and noble elevation of soul, the spontaneous development of a nature which could not harbor a base or unworthy motive, cherished indeed and fortified by a firm faith and a strong religious temperament. It was this which enabled him to spend so long a period of his life in the public service in the exercise of the most important public trusts—among them that of the Treasury department, with the whole financial arrangements of the country under his control, and come from it all without a stain or a suspicion. His character for uprightness might be presented as an example in illustration of the fine precept of Horace:
——Hic murus aheneus esto
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa.
Political hostility and private malice explored every corner of his life with the hope of fixing a stain upon his official integrity; but these miserable attempts had no other effect than to bring defeat and disgrace on the authors of them. His honesty was as conspicuous in his private as in his public career, and was indeed sometimes carried to an extent which we fear might seem in our times like an absurd refinement. When about to enter upon his duties as Secretary of the Treasury, he was applied to by some friends engaged in monetary transactions for information with respect to the policy which he proposed to pursue, the disclosure of which would perhaps promote their interests, and not injure those of the public. But this he utterly refused to give, holding it as inconsistent with his duty as a public servant, to make his office even the indirect means of contributing to the emolument of friends by imparting to them information which was not open to all alike. While at the bar, and practising only as counsellor, he was associated with the Messrs. Ogden, who were then leading members of the profession in New-York city, and he received only the retaining and trial fees, though his reputation brought to the office a large proportion of all the important suits which arose. It was proposed to him to form a connection with other attorneys, by which engagement he might receive a portion of the attorney's fees in addition; but this offer he at once rejected, saying that he could not consent to receive any compensation for services not his own, or for the character of which he was not responsible.