Alexander Hamilton’s Very Bad Day at Weehawken

You think politics today is a vicious contact sport?  Sissy stuff.  On July 11, 1804 the sitting Vice President of the United States plugged a Founding Father in the gut leaving him to die in agony a day later.  It was the most famous Affair of Honor in American History—the fatal meeting between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton on the dueling grounds at Weehawken, New Jersey, a bluff overlooking the Hudson River and the City of New York beyond. 

The men, so alike in temperament and ambition, were long-time bitter political rivals.  

Alexander Hamilton--the bastard son of small time Barbados merchant and certified Founding Father at the peak of his career in 1792 as the first Secretary of the Treasury and George Washington's most trusted advisor.  Detail from a full length portrait by John Trumbull.

Hamilton, of course, was George Washington favorite, the virtual son he never had.  After distinguished service as Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Revolution, he became the principal author of the Federalist Papers.  As Secretary of the Treasury, he famously paid off American war debt and established the First Bank of the United States.  Thomas Jefferson’s bitter personal and political rival, Hamilton founded and was the chief architect and organizer of the Federalist Party.  In New York he was a successful lawyer and businessman who married into the wealthy and powerful Patroon dynasty, the Schuylers.

Yet despite his wealth, success, and fame, he was humiliated by the humble circumstances of his birth as the bastard child of a Scottish clerk on the island colony of Barbados.  He would be haunted by rumors that his mother was a mulato creole.  He knew that he was not by rights a gentleman and his foreign birth forever precluded him from becoming truly Washington’s heir as President.

Aaron Burr is commemorated for his service as the third Vice President by this bust in the Senate chamber.

Burr was born in more privileged circumstances, the son and namesake of a leading Presbyterian divine and the second president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton.)  He served with distinction in the Revolution displaying battlefield bravery and shrewd tactical acumen many times.  He achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, but despite his notable achievements was not elevated to higher rank by Washington—a cause of personal bitterness.  After the war Burr married the daughter of a British officer and moved to New York where he became the leading criminal defense attorney in the city.  After a turn in the State Assembly, Burr’s political fortunes rose under the sponsorship of Governor George Clinton, the leading northern ally of Jefferson in his emerging Democratic Republican Party.  Clinton appointed young Burr state Attorney General and backed him in 1791 when Burr beat incumbent Phillip Schuyler—Hamilton’s father-in-law—to take a U.S. Senate seat. 

Although their previous personal relations were cordial much of their mutual enmity grew from this confrontation.  In the end Burr grew restless in a Senate dominated by Federalists and prolonged absences hurt his income as an attorney on which he was dependent since he was not personally wealthy.  He resigned his seat to return to the state Assembly.  Officially an independent with Republican leanings, Burr also drew support from moderate Federalists who became alarmed at Hamilton’s attacks on President John Adams.  In the city Burr assembled his own political organization, considered by many one of the first political machines.  He enlisted the support of a local patriotic society, The Sons of St. Tammany, in addition to Jefferson loyalists. 

In the election of 1800, New York and its rich electoral vote was considered pivotal.  Burr was named running mate to Jefferson on the Democratic Republican ticket in the hope that he could deliver New York, although the Assembly was in Federalist hands before the election.  Federalists in the city under Hamilton were in disarray, divided by his tepid support of the President.  A private letter by Hamilton highly critical of Adams’ character was published causing considerable damage and Burr was suspected—but never proven—to be behind the dirty trick.  Meanwhile his new machine paid off handsomely.  Republicans swept the city taking with it the Assembly which in turn selected Republican electors. 

Under the Constitution at the time the candidate with a majority of electors won the presidency and the second place finisher became vice president.  This system was in place before the development of parties.  There was no provision for tickets or a designated vice presidential candidate.  There was a plan for one elector to withhold a vote to Burr, but mysteriously none did so, resulting in a 73-73 tie vote between Jefferson and Burr.  The decision was thrown into the House of Representatives where Federalists held a substantial edge.  

The election of 1800 was thrown into the House of Representatives when Jefferson and Democratic-Republican running mate both received 73 Electoral College votes.

The House soon deadlocked.  Despite public and private statements deferring to Jefferson, ever ambitious, Burr privately courted friends of John Adams among the Federalists to block Jefferson.  Hamilton sprang into action himself, unleashing a flurry of letters urging the election of Jefferson who he considered the “far less dangerous of the two.”  However, much he detested Jefferson, he despised Burr more.  On the 36th ballot Hamilton convinced two of his supporters to abstain.  Recognizing defeat, Burr’s moderate Federalist support fell in line behind Jefferson.  Needless to say, after the intrigue relations between the new President and Vice President were icy. 

Against this festering background, things came to a head in 1804 as it became apparent that Jefferson would dump Burr as Vice President.  He turned his eyes to a comeback in Albany as Governor. These plans were squashed when Hamilton threw his support behind another Republican, Morgan Lewis.  During the campaign an ardent supporter of Hamilton sent a letter to his father-in-law Philip Schuyler excoriating Burr and alluding to “a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr.”  The letter indiscreetly found publication in the Albany Register.  Burr whipped off a letter demanding of Hamilton an “explanation and apology.”  Hamilton professed ignorance of any such statement and refused to apologize. 

After subsequent exchanges through intermediaries, Burr formally challenged Hamilton.  At many points in this exchange either party could have diffused the situation over a slight which many historians believe did not rise to the occasion of an affair of honor even among the prickly.  But they did not.  Hamilton may have been suffering depression over the downturn of his political fortunes—the defeat of Adams had destroyed the Federalists as a national party leaving behind only a sectional rump in New England.  He had also been humiliated by a sexual blackmail scandal which had caused him to issue a public letter admitting to indiscretions.  And he was also deeply in debt.  Most of all, he mourned the loss of his son Philip who had been killed on the Weehawken dueling ground in 1801 in a fight at least partly over his father’s honor. 

Plans were laid for the duel, which would be held in secret in New Jersey because dueling had been outlawed in New York State and because both men, despite participation in earlier duels, were publicly opposed to the practice.  In a document written to be found in event he was killed, Hamilton wrote that:

I have resolved, if our interview is conducted in the usual manner, and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire. 

This was a common, honorable, practice which was usually, but not universally, honored in turn by the second party refusing to fire or “wasting his shot.”  In this manner most duels ended bloodlessly but honorably.  But Burr had no way of knowing that this was Hamilton’s intention.  

Only fanciful pictures of the duel exist.  This one at least shows Hamilton wasting his shot in the air.  But all the seconds and witnesses stood apart with their back turned so as not to be able to testify as eye witnesses.  The men arrived by boat across the Hudson, not by carriage.  And Burr would have broken his wrist and probably his nose had he discharged his pistol in such a ridiculous manner.

There was no eyewitnesses testimony to the shooting itself.  The seconds to both men and the hired oarsmen who had ferried them across the Hudson were positioned with their backs to the action so that if called to court they could truthfully testify that they did not “witness fire.”  The best reconstruction of the events goes as follows—although a minority historians debate virtually every single particular to this day. 

The men faced each other at a distance of less than twenty feet.  Hamilton faced east, across the river with the morning sun in his eyes.  There was a slight, rising mist.  Hamilton ostentatiously practiced aiming and sighting his pistol and polished his glasses for better vision, which would have indicted to Burr that he intended to shoot.  By lot, Hamilton had the first shot.  He raised his pistol and fired high into the air, the bullet lodging in a tree limb high above and to the left of Burr.  But this was not the common way to “waste a bullet” which was to fire into the ground. 

Burr may have concluded that he had simply come under incompetent fire.  At any rate, he leveled his matched pistol and fired, striking Hamilton in the stomach.  The bullet grazed his liver and diaphragm before becoming lodged in his spine, likely paralyzing him below the wound.  He crumpled to the ground immediately. 

Turning around witnesses describe Burr as looking shocked and starting toward Hamilton before his second rushed him away, hiding him behind an umbrella.  Hamilton told Dr. David Hosack, “The wound is fatal” before collapsing into unconsciousness.  The doctor soon lost trace of a pulse or sign of respiration.  Seconds hurriedly carried the wounded man to the boat, where he revived. 

Carried to the home of an acquaintance Hamilton lingered until the next day, much of the time awake but delirious with pain. 

Burr must have known that his political career was as dead as Hamilton.  Public outrage was great.  He was indicted for murder in both New Jersey and New York.  Burr fled the city to the South Carolina plantation of his beloved daughter Theodosia.  The murder charges in New Jersey were eventually dismissed. 

Burr returned to Washington to finish his term as Vice President, dutifully presiding over sessions of the Senate.  His final days were marked as the presiding officer in the impeachment of Federal Judge Samuel Chase with what a contemporary said was, “with the dignity and impartiality of an angel and the rigor of a devil.”  Soon after he summoned all of his considerable charm in an emotional farewell to the Senate that had even some of his old enemies in tears. 

Burr turned his attention to adventurous schemes in the West including a filibustering campaign to liberate Texas from the Spanish—or possibly to set himself up a ruler of an inland empire.  Unfortunately for Burr one of his fellow plotters was the Commanding General of the U.S. Army James Wilkinson, who was also a long-time secret agent of the Spanish (can’t make this kind of stuff up, folks.)  As authorities began to uncover the plot, Wilkinson saved himself in a letter to President Jefferson putting the whole thing in Burr’s lap.   

Burr defends himself at his treason trial presided over by Chief Justice John Marshall.

Jefferson was eager for revenge on Burr and had him prosecuted for treason.  The President was foiled at the 1807 trial presided over by Federalist Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall sitting as a circuit judge who directed a verdict of acquittal on the grounds that no eyewitnesses to any overt acts could be found.

Fleeing notoriety and creditors Burr went to Europe where he tried to raise money for further western adventures.  He lived for a while with noted British Unitarian Jeremy Bentham.  He was eventually ordered out of England and Napoleon Bonaparte refused to entertain him to hear about his plot to seize Spanish Florida and/or British Caribbean islands. 

In 1812 Burr returned to New York, where he was tried for murdering Hamilton but acquitted.  He resumed the practice of law and his charm ensured a wide circle of friends.  One feeble attempt at a political comeback failed.  His heart and health were broken when his beloved daughter Theodosia and his grandson perished in a shipwreck.  A long-time widower, he married a wealthy heiress late in life, but she walked out after only four months after discovering that Burr was siphoning her riches to support Western land investment schemes.  She was granted a divorce on the day he died.  September 14, 1836 at the age of 80 after a paralyzing stroke.  

Hamilton is more kindly remembered by history,  His bust stands on the old Weehawken Dueling Grounds in New Jersey overlooking the Hudson River.

The Burr-Hamilton Duel spurred opposition to dueling in the North.  Burr, with his reputation for shady dealings and political opportunism is generally cast as the villain of the story by historians.  But he had his supporters, including liberal novelist Gore Vidal, who made Burr the hero of one of the novels in his multi-volume American history arc.  

Following the duel Anti-dueling sentiment spread, laws against the practice were more scrupulously enforced and new ones were enacted where they had not previously been enforced.  By 1830 most of the nation outlawed dueling, and it was rapidly disappearing in the North. It long remained common, however, among the Southern Planter class and in the military, two places in which honor depended on the acknowledgement of others and could be irretrievably lost if not defended.

The climatic duel in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. 

Most contemporary Americans, of course, owe everything they know about Hamilton, Burr, and the duel to Lin-Michal Miranda’s phenomenally successful Broadway sensation Hamilton.

 

Lincoln Took a Dangerous Path to an Inauguration in a Time of Treason

 

Lincoln's First Inaugural on the steps of the Capitol building with its unfinished dome.

Note—This entry appeared on blog in 2021—three years ago and another year ahead until the next Presidential inauguration.  It framed the Lincoln inauguration tale in a particularly dramatic moment in time.

The big day that so many of us have been breathlessly awaiting, the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, is finally at hand.  But it is hardly what we had hoped for.  More than 25,000 National Guard troops and thousands more from Federal law enforcement agencies, state, and local police are encamped in Washington and standing guard around the city after the insurrectionist siege of the Capitol building on January 6.  Bridges and highways into the city are closed, mile upon mile of fencing and barricades have been erected, most of the center of the city is on lock-down, the National Mall is closed, and flags fill the spaces where huge crowds would have gathered, and almost all outdoor events have been canceled except for the actual swearing in ceremony and inaugural addresses in front of a very limited crowd of dignitaries and family.  That’s what this historic event will be like in this time of ongoing treason and treachery.

Weeks after the January 6 Seine of the Capitol Joe Biden's inauguration was marked by unprecedented security--thousands of troops, police, and security service personnel and the ceremonies held before a small, highly screened audience of officials, dignitaries, and family.

But it is not the only time the transfer of Presidential power occurred under similar conditions.  In 1861 Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration was even more tumultuous and dangerous. But the parallels between the two are astonishing.

Lincoln, a former Illinois horse-trading state legislator, one term Congressman who had opposed the popular Mexican War, and shrew railroad lawyer with a folksy demeanor with a rags to riches story had risen rapidly from national obscurity to a national figure in the four years before the 1861 election.  On the basis his 1858 speech to the Illinois Republican convention which nominated him for the Senate—“A house divided against itself cannot stand”—his subsequent debates against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas in the losing campaign, and an address at Cooper’s Union in New York City thrust him into limelight.

The Republican Party had been cobbled together with former Whigs like Lincoln, Free Soilers, abolitionists, a handful of anti-slavery Democrats, and even vestiges of the anti-immigrant Know Nothings to challenge the Democrats who had except for two terms controlled the Executive Mansion since Andrew Jackson.  In 1856 they were essentially a minor party who put western explorer and adventurer John C. Fremont in nomination.  He was swamped by Democrat James Buchanan, former Senator from Pennsylvania and Secretary of State.

Buchanan’s term was an utter failure.  A “northern man of Southern principles his attempts to placate Southern slave interests had only emboldened firebrands like John C. Calhoun into making more demands for Northern concessions and threats of secession if they were not met.  As the threats began to turn into reality, Buchanan did nothing.  His own party abandoned him and split into factions.  He has been almost unanimously judged the worst President before the Civil War and maintained that position on all-time lists until challenged by Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, and of course Donald Trump.

When the Republican National Convention met conveniently at the Wigwam in Chicago Lincoln was a favorite son candidate and dark horse.  Important, well known figures like abolitionist William Seward of New York, and Ohio governor and financier Salmon P. Chase were the leading contenders for the nomination but no one could get a majority after multiple ballots.  Thanks to some shrew convention management by Judge David Davis and a packed gallery, the convention was finally stampeded into nominating Lincoln.

Meanwhile the Democrats were shattered.  Lincoln’s old rival Stephen Douglas ran on his platform of popular sovereignty to preserve the Union.   Southern Democrats rallied behind Buchanan’s vice president John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky,  A third faction became the short-lived Constitutional Union Party led by John Bell, former anti-Jackson Democrat turned Whig and Senator from Tennessee who ran on a pro-union platform and against the expansion of slavery.

In the November election Lincoln captured slightly less than 40 % of the popular vote but swept the North plus California and Oregon gaining 180 Electoral College votes.  Breckenridge carried most of the South and 72 electoral votes.  Bell carried only the border states of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee with 39 votes.  The hapless Douglas carried only Missouri took three of New Jersey’s split vote for a total of 12, 

Almost immediately Southern states began to secede from the Union believing that the “Black Republican” was an existential threat to slavery despite Lincoln’s repeated pledge to leave slavery unmolested in states where it was legal to preserve the Union. Between December and February seven states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—left the Union without any interference from lame duck Buchanan.  At least four more—Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina—expected to follow.  The border states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were teetering on the edge.  Before he ever took power, Lincoln was faced with a broken Union.

Lincoln sat for this portrait in February just weeks before the inauguration.  That day would be the first he made a major public appearance sporting his new whiskers.

In those days there were months between the election and an inauguration in March of the next year, a holdover from the early republic when transportation to the Capitol in winter was perilous and difficult.   As Lincoln began to prepare for his long train tour from his home in Springfield to the Capitol, Congress convened to open and officially count the Electoral College votes on February 13, 1861 a mob tried to break into the building to prevent it but was turned away by a hastily arranged Army security force organized by Virginian General-in-Chief Winfield Scott who was taunted by the mob as a Free state pimp, old dotard and traitor to the state of his birth.  Sound familiar?

Lincoln’s train trip took a rambling route making frequent stops to greet and rally supporters but as the train neared its final destination, Lincoln’s chief of security detective Allan Pinkerton and his personal friend and bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon got wind of a plot to kidnap or kill the President Elect. A planned route through Bellaire, Ohio, to Wheeling, Virginia and eastward, was subsequently rerouted through the Pittsburgh vicinity, Harrisburg, and into Maryland and before reaching Washington.

Lincoln escorted by detective Allan Pinkerton, in Derby left rear, and his personal body guard William Lamon, in slouch hat.

But Maryland was a divided state with a secessionist governor.  Pinkerton’s agents turned up a plot to ambush Lincoln when he changed trains in Baltimore by a mob that might include state militia and Baltimore police.  Pinkerton was unsure even of the loyalty of Army troops at Fort McHenry. 

On the evening of February 22, telegraph lines to Baltimore were cut at Pinkerton's behest to prevent communications from passing between potential conspirators in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Lincoln left Harrisburg on a special train and arrived secretly in Baltimore where he would have to change trains in the middle of the night where a city ordinance prohibited night-time rail travel through the downtown area. The railcars had to be horse drawn between the President Street and Camden Street stations.

An anti-Lincoln mob assembled at the expected transfer point in Baltimore.  Illustration by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly.

The New York Times published a report by Joseph Howard, Jr. that Lincoln was disguised in a Scottish tam and long cloak in his passage between trains.  Other accounts, particularly those circulated in the South embellished the account and accused him of disguising himself as a woman—pretty hard for a bearded man of 6’ 3” to carry off.  By the time he finally reached Washington he was a laughing-stock and denounced by even previously favorable newspapers.  The story of him slinking to his inauguration would haunt Lincoln for the duration of presidency.

Ordinarily supportive even Harper's Weekly could not resist portraying a panicked, long-legged Lincoln fleeing through the streets of Baltimore disguise as a Scotsman.  Other publications had him disguised as a woman.

Mary Lincoln, the children, and other members of the party kept to the original plan and made it through the city unmolested.  Lamon later claimed that there was no Baltimore plot and that Pinkerton had invented it to enhance his prestige with Lincoln and secure future government contracts. 

We may never know the truth but Joe Biden surely had an easier trip this week from Delaware.

On Inauguration Day members of the Senate and House from the soon to secede states still set in their chambers.  President Buchanan had refused to turn over coastal fortification to the already departed states but had refused to re-inforce their garrisons or supply them.  The many of the heavily Southern professional Army officer corps had already resigned their commission and taken up arms with their state forces or with the infant Confederate Army.  Old Fuss and Feathers Winfield Scott had remained loyal and there was hope that the unanimously acknowledged ablest man in the service, Colonel Robert E. Lee of Virginia would follow his example.  But when Virginia seceded he instead took command of its State troops.  The U.S. Army was tiny and much of it was scattered in small detachments on the frontier.  The perpetually cash starved Federal government dependent on almost exclusively on tariffs and land sales seemingly could not afford to raise a new Volunteer army.  Financial markets were in a state of near panic over potential disruptions to trade, especially in cotton which kept New England mills humming.  The country was in an acute crisis.

Chief Justice Roger Taney administers the oath of office to Lincoln.  Stephen Douglas can be seen over Taney's shoulder and out-going President James Buchanan is seated next to new Vice President Hannibal Hamlin.

Lincoln’s procession to the Capitol accompanied by Buchanan was surrounded by heavily armed cavalry and infantry, an unprecedented amount of protection for the President-elect as the nation stood on the brink of war.  Southern Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger Taney who is best remembered as the author of the Dred Scott Decision administered the oath of office to Lincoln.  Vice President Breckenridge administered the oath to his successor Hannibal Hamlin.  Breckenridge then took a seat in the Senate but was expelled after he enlisted in the Confederate Army.  He later served as the Confederacy’s Secretary of War in 1865.

Lincoln’s First Inaugural speech is considered one of the greatest orations in American history.  In it he concluded:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

The South was unmoved by the conciliatory language and northern abolitionists were alarmed by his soft stance on the maintenance of slavery.  Less than six weeks later, on April 12 state militia fired on Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina harbor which was forced to surrender the following day.  President Lincoln declared a formal state of insurrection and one after another four states followed with the three border states held in the union by force of arms and in the cases of Kentucky and Missouri civil wars within the Civil War.

You know the rest of the story of the bloodiest war in American history and of Lincoln’s ultimate fate on the cusp of final victory,

Two presidents inaugurated with treason fresh in the air.

We are all holding our collective breaths that things turn out better for Biden and Harris and for our nation.  But it might be a close thing.