BURR, AARON, son of the clergyman Aaron Burr; b. N.P., Feb. 6, 1756; d. N. Y., Sept. 14, 183G. lie was left an orphan before the age of three; graduated at Princeton in 1772; in 1775, went into the army as a private; at Arnold's attack on Quebec, acted as aid to gen. Montgomery, and endeavored to bring off the body of that officer, who fell at his side. He acted as brigade-major to Arnold, and in .flay, 1770, he became a member of Washington's military family, which he left after a few weeks to become aid to gen. Putnam. In 1777, he was made lieut.col., and won distinction at Monmouth in command of a brigade. In 1778-70, he was stationed near New York, and was for it short time in command of West Point. Ile was always opposed to Wash ington, whose military talents he esteemed very lightly. B. resigned in consequence of ill health in the spring of 1770; and three years later married Mrs. Prevost, the widow of a British officer, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of law at Albany, N. Y. In 1784, and again in 1798-09, he was elected to the state assembly. In 1789, he was appointed attorney-general of the state, and in 1791 was chosen U. S. senator. He was an early, zealous, and unscrupulous partisan leader among the "republicans" (afterwards "democrats"), and the especial rival of Alexander Hamilton, the prominent leader of the federalists. In the presidential struggle of 1800, John Adams (then president), Thomas Jefferson, Charles C. Pinckney, and B. were the candidates, and the votes for Jefferson and B. were equal-73 for each. As the con stitution then provided, the person having the greatest number of electoral votes was to be president, and the next highest was to be vice-president. This equal division devolved upon the house of representatives the settlement of the matter, and there each state had one vote only, a majority of all the states being necessary to elect. After a week of balloting, Jefferson was selected the president, B. being vice-presi dent. He had been favored by Jefferson for that place from the first, but his ambition was higher, and he did his utmost to defeat Jefferson, who was the regular candidate of the party. This course politically ruined B. ; lie was thereafter trusted by no party, though in 1804 the federalists nominated him for governor of New York, the result being his defeat by Morgan Lewis. These disappointments and defeats, added to the
intensely bitter character of the partisan warfare of the time, led to the duel (.July 11, 1804) in which Hamilton was killed by Burr. For this act, which was then deemed little less than murder, B. was legally disfranchised in New York, and covered with the heavier curse of popular indignation. In the spring of 1805, he-started for the western part of the country, bent, as was generally believed, upon establishing a govern ment in the Mexican territories, and possibly comprising a portion of the Louisiana pur chase. Ile bought a large tract of land on Red river, and intimated that the conquest of Mexican states was a part of the plan. It was in the course of these operations that he plundered the famous 131ennerhassett (q.v.). President Jefferson caused hint to be arrested (Feb. 19. 1807, in Alabama) on a charge of treason, for which he was tried the next month at Richmond, Va. The jury gave a verdict of acquittal. and the next year he visited Europe to raise the means for an attempt. upon Mexico. Four years of effort amounted to nothing, and in 1812 he returned in extreme poverty, and began to practice law in New York; but his course had alienated the people, and he could never regain his position in the courts. At the age of 78 he married Madame Jumel, a widow, who had a large estate in the upper part of flue city of New York; hut they were soon after ward divorced, and B. died iu 1836 on Staten island in poverty and utter abandon ment, not only because of his political course, but more in consequence of his social character. He had but one legitimate child, a daughter named Thcodosia,.who becamq the wife of Jo eph Allston, governor of South Carolina. This daughter was probably the only human being except himself whom B. ever really loved; and she sailed from Charleston in the spring of 1812 ou a visit to her father (who had just arrived from Europe), but the schooner on which she was a passenger was never afterwards heard of. There have been many stories told of its fate, and three or more dying prisoners have given relations of their part in the robbery and destruction of the vessel, but none have proved trustworthy. The most probable theory is that the schooner foundered off cape Hatteras in a furious storm that came soon after she sailed.