Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson A Study in Character

by Kennedy, Roger G.

• ISBN13: 9780195140552
• ISBN10: 0195140559
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-09-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book restores Aaron Burr to his place as a central figure in the founding of the American Republic. Abolitionist, proto-feminist, friend to such Indian leaders as Joseph Brant, Burr was personally acquainted with a wider range of Americans, and of the American continent, than any other Founder except George Washington. He contested for power with Hamilton and then with Jefferson on a continental scale. The book does not sentimentalize any of its three protagonists, neither does it derogate their extraordinary qualities. They were all great men, all flawed, and all three failed to achieve their full aspirations. But their struggles make for an epic tale. Written from the perspective of a historian and administrator who, over nearly fifty years in public life, has served six presidents, this book penetrates into the personal qualities of its three central figures. In telling the tale of their shifting power relationships and their antipathies, it reassesses their policies and the consequences of their successes and failures. Fresh information about the careers of Hamilton and Burr is derived from newly-discovered sources, and a supporting cast of secondary figures emerges to give depth and irony to the principal narrative. This is a book for people who know how political life is lived, and who refuse to be confined within preconceptions and prejudices until they have weighed all the evidence, to reach their own conclusions both as to events and character. This is a controversial book, but not a confrontational one, for it is written with sympathy for men of high aspirations, who were disappointed in much, but who succeeded, in all three cases, to a degree not hitherto fully understood.

Author Biography

Roger G. Kennedy has served as Director of The National Park Service, as Director of The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and as Vice President, Finance, of the Ford Foundation. He has written nine books, has appeared in his own series on the Discovery Channel, and was a White House correspondent for NBC. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xv
Preface	xvii
PART ONE Character and Circumstance	3	(84)
Character Gentlemen Hotspur and Bolingbroke Sacrificial Suicide Pretensions to Character The Chesterfieldian Fallacy Candor	7	(14)
Circumstance Party and Faction Emulation, Rivalry, and Ambition The West and Slavery The Character of Burr	21	(12)
The Fatal Twins Burr, Hamilton, and the Consolations of Religion Hamilton and the Consolations of Home Pain and Wrath	33	(11)
I Wish There Was a War Staff Work The Cincinnati and Thomas Jefferson Colonels Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson Where Is Jefferson? John Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, and the Question of Character	44	(12)
Politics, Love, Learning, and Death The Women Burr and Washington A Hypocrite or a Dangerous Man? Oaths and Other Words to Be kept Dueling Founders Dr. Cooper Eavesdrops	56	(19)
Fascination Jachin and Boas Equal and Opposite Assisted Suicide The Code	75	(12)
PART TWO Character Tested by Slavery and Secession	87	(96)
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1790s and the First Jim Crow Period The Fourteen-Year Campaign Good Company Religion, Conviction, and Abolition The Manumission Society The Presence of Washington Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, the French, and the Blacks The Center Holds: Burr, Jay, and Moderation Removal: Red and Black	89	(22)
Misdemeanors in Kentucky and Tennessee Secession, Filibustering, and James Wilkinson Washington Copes with Secession The French Incite Secession and Filibustering George Rogers Clark: Frustrated Filibuster	111	(16)
Filibustering as Policy, Glory, or Adventure Wilkinson and Wayne Hamilton and Wilkinson Hamilton's Will Strict Construction Burr and Disunion	127	(20)
Washington, Western Pennsylvania, and Secession Erring Sisters and Their Siblings Albert Gallatin and Secession Riots and Reaction Braddock's Field and Washington's March A Tempest in a Teapot? Georges Collot Burr, Gallatin, and the Election of 1800 Gallatin Attempts to Keep Two Friends	147	(25)
Character, Economic Interest, and Foreign Policy The Quasi-War and the Black Speech Private War and Private Embarrassments	172	(11)
PART THREE In the Wake of the Hurricane	183	(48)
Clamor and Retreat Sanctuary The Truxtons The General The Biddles Come to the Rescue	185	(10)
Southern Hospitality Gin, Green Seed, and Empire Patriotic Gratitude and Yankee Ingenuity The Attractions of Florida The Presences of History Three Generations of McIntoshes and Slavery Family Southern Communications	195	(19)
Fort George Don Juan McQueen Bowles, Slavery, and McQueen John Houstoun McIntosh Caballing in the Carolinas with the Scots Virginia Complications	214	(17)
PART FOUR The Great Valley	231	(24)
Burr and the Middle Ground Among the Stockbridges Joseph Brant	233	(9)
``A Country of Slaves'' Turning Oglethorpe Around Seminole Carondelet and Servile Insurrection Militia Matters Calming Mr. Jefferson	242	(13)
PART FIVE The Expedition	255	(134)
Intentions, 1800--1805 Absurd Reports The Manic Burr Goes West On to the Hermitage, New Orleans, and the Clergy Casa Calvo, Grand Pre Morales, and Recruiting La Chaumiere du Prairie Wilkinson's Fidelity Wilkinson's Estimates Jefferson Recomputes the Odds	257	(26)
Whose Valley? A Garden with a Past Burr's Lost Paradise Empire, Sanctuary, and Speculation	283	(9)
Mr. Jefferson's Colleagues Neutral Ground In the Shoes of Thomas Adam Smith George Morgan for the Prosecution John Adams and the ``Lying Spirit'' of the Virginians Meanwhile, in Bruinsburg Captain Hooke	292	(13)
The Thinking Part of the People The Jury Convenes at Jefferson College Senator Plumer Reports The Charge of Filibustering Mr. Jefferson's Private Armies and the Opinion of Another Jury The Mississipi Federalists Silas Dinsmoor Robert Ashley Thomas Rodney and Old'76 John McKee	305	(28)
The Wheeled Cell and the Trial Rousing the Neighborhood Benjamin Hawkins The Case of Bollmann Elijah Clarke and His Trans-Oconee Ruins Fort Wilkinson	333	(14)
Precedents and Justice Recalling a Real Rebellion Consolation Prizes French Accessories	347	(12)
Groundsprings of Wrath West by Southwest Cherchez les Femmes	359	(30)
Postscript John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Other Women James Parton Attempts a Rescue The Falling Man Adams, Abolition, and Jefferson Adams and Jefferson The Worst and the Best	371	(18)
Appendix: Biases and Apologies	389	(6)
Notes	395	(40)
Bibliography	435	(18)
Index	453