Who is Aaron Burr?
Aaron Burr was a candidate in the 1800 presidential election. He lost to Jefferson and was not allowed to participate in the 1804 election and became bitter toward the United States. Later he attempted to become governor of New York but, due to the mudslinging of Alexander Hamilton, lost that as well. Due to these repeated losses, Burr started considering the formation of a new country in the lands west of the U.S. Hamilton heard of these plans and informed Jefferson. As a result of these actions, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel in 1806. Burr succeeded in killing Hamilton, and headed west and started to formulate a plan to create a new country in Louisiana and other areas controlled by Spain. Jefferson charged Burr with treason, but did not attend the trial. Burr was found not guilty due to lack of reliable witnesses and because Burr had thus far only planned to start a new country, and had yet to actually implement any of his plans.
After losing the challenge for the presidency in 1800, Aaron Burr was left out of the 1804 election and became embittered. He then lost a bid for the governorship of New York, in part because of the mudslinging of Alexander Hamilton. Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson both ran in the election of 1800.
It seemed understood to everyone that Jefferson was running for president, but Aaron Burr was running for vice president. Well, when Jefferson and Burr got the same number of electoral votes and tied, Burr refused to concede and he challenged Jefferson to the presidency and made everyone have to vote for it to see which of the two Democratic Republican Party members would become the president and which one would become the vice president.
Instead of sticking with his understood role as vice president he challenged Jefferson to the presidency there. He lost. Thomas Jefferson became president and so Aaron Burr became vice president. Well in the 1804 election, Jefferson took him off the ticket. After Aaron Burr had challenged him for the presidency, Jefferson didn’t want to run with him again, so he was left out of that election altogether, and became embittered.
He then tried to run for governor of New York, and he also lost that election, because Alexander Hamilton did some mudslinging talking about the negative characteristics of Aaron Burr. Hamilton, one of the most famous Federalists, supported a different Democratic Republican than Aaron Burr, so that that person could win instead. So Hamilton disliked Burr enough that he wanted to make sure he stayed out of office even if it meant electing a different Democratic Republican instead.
At this point, Burr has been left out of the election of 1804 for the presidential election, and he’s also lost a bid for governor of New York. At this point, Burr began to toy with the idea of forming a new country in the West. He couldn’t get elected anywhere in this country. He thought maybe he’d form his own country in the West. Hamilton, who we know really doesn’t like Burr, hearing of this plan informed Jefferson.
Hamilton may not like Jefferson very much either, because Hamilton is one of the most famous Federalists and Jefferson is one of the most famous Democratic Republicans, but Hamilton really didn’t like Burr. He went and told Jefferson about Burr’s plan to go form his own country. Burr promptly challenged Hamilton to a duel. In 1806 he killed Hamilton in Weehawken, New Jersey.
Burr found out that Hamilton tattled on him to Jefferson, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. At this famous duel at Weehawken New Jersey, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in this duel. He mortally injured him and Hamilton died the day after the duel. This was going to have two big effects there. Burr lost a lot of popularity after that. He’d already been pretty unpopular, and then he wasn’t even allowed in the 1804 election for presidency. He wasn’t being voted as the governor of New York, and now he killed Alexander Hamilton, who was the most famous Federalist at this time.
The Federalists’ big leader, Burr just killed. He lost a lot of popularity with this. The Federalist Party also lost their biggest leader, the person who came up with a lot of their ideas, who wrote a lot of things that got published for Federalism. The Federalist Party took a hit and Burr’s popularity took a hit. At this point Burr actually headed west and planned to start a new country in Louisiana, and the areas controlled by Spain. Jefferson formally charged Burr with treason, but, citing his executive privilege, refused to attend the trial.
Burr did head west, claimed to start his own country in Louisiana and areas controlled by Spain. At this point, Louisiana hadn’t really been taken over by the United States yet. This area was still kind of not well-defined, and Burr decided he would go out and try to define it as his new country. Jefferson formally charged Burr with treason for trying to leave his country and start a new one in land that was still kind of iffy about whether it belonged to the United States or not. Jefferson decided he didn’t want to attend the trial and he refused to go.
Burr was eventually found not guilty, in part because he had only planned a new country, he didn’t actually get around to starting it, (so because he’d only planned a new country) and in part because the United States was unable to find any reliable witnesses. Everyone kind of knew he was going out to the West to start a new country, but he never actually started the country, and no reliable witnesses came forward to testify on the United States’ behalf, so Burr was found not guilty. Aaron Burr, while quite an unsavory figure in American history, did play a large part in politics in the 1800 to 1810 area of the United States.