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Page 14
Four years passed. Burr won high honor as president of the senate,
and the party nominated him for governor of New York with practical
unanimity. This was too much for Hamilton, who had nothing to lose by
indulging his enmity to the full. The campaign against Burr was one of
the basest on record. It was one of vilification. Being vice-president,
he was at a disadvantage when it came to conducting the campaign, and he
was defeated.
There were many features of this campaign that were peculiarly annoying
to Burr, and for the second time in his life he resorted to the duel,
and Hamilton was killed. Had Burr died in that hour, history would have
a different place for him as well as for Hamilton, but in his death
Hamilton was glorified. The most preposterous stories, such as his
firing into the air, were invented and believed. The time and the
conditions were as bad as they could be for Burr. The North never
condoned a duel that ended fatally, and then less than ever. I have no
word of apology to offer for the duel. It was weakness, as it always is,
and from it came all the ills that befell Aaron Burr.
Censure him all you choose, and then look at the conditions of his
childhood and wonder that he lived to fifty years of age before the lack
of early care brought forth its fruit. Aaron Burr received as good an
intellectual and moral legacy as any one of the 1,400 of the Edwards
family. His father and mother, grandfather and grandmother would have
given him as good an environment and training as any one of them
enjoyed, but--his father died before he was two years old, and his
mother, grandfather, and grandmother died when he was two years old, and
he and his sister, four years old, went to live with his oldest uncle,
Timothy Edwards, who was only twenty. This uncle was also bringing up
two younger brothers aged eight and thirteen, and three young sisters.
While Timothy Edwards made an eminently worthy citizen and reared a
family of noble sons and daughters, he was not prepared at nineteen to
support so many younger children and give a two-year-old boy the
attention that he needed.
At twelve years of age Aaron Burr went to college, and after this time
he never had even the apology of a home, indeed he never had a home such
as his nature demanded. There are three pictures of the child which
satisfy me that the right training would have enabled Aaron Burr to go
into history as the noblest Roman of them all.
At four years of age he was at school, where the treatment was so severe
that he ran away from school and home and could not be found for three
days.
At seven years of age he was up in a cherry tree when a very prim and
disagreeable spinster came to call, and he indulged in the childish
luxury of throwing cherries at her. She sought "Uncle Timothy," who
took the seven-year-old child into the house, gave him a long and severe
lecture, offered a long prayer of warning, and then "licked me like a
sack."
At ten years of age he ran away from the severity of his uncle, and went
to New York and shipped as cabin boy. His uncle followed him, and when
the little fellow saw him he went to the top of the masthead and refused
to come down until his uncle agreed not to punish him. It is easy to see
that his uncle aroused in him all the characteristics that should have
been calmed, and gave him none of that care which father or mother would
have provided him.
At twelve he entered Princeton, and graduated with honors at sixteen.
College life had its temptations, but he conducted himself with unusual
decorum, and upon graduation went to study with an eminent clergyman.
Apparently he expected to enter the ministry, but the theology of Dr.
Bellamy did not commend itself to him, and even less did the spirit with
which the theologian met his queries, so that for the remaining sixty
odd years of life he would not talk about theology. Here was a brilliant
lad, fresh from college, with the inheritance of Burr and Edwards, who
might have been led into a glorious career, but was instead repelled,
and went back to his uncle's home, with no profession and no plan for
life, with no one to advise him.
The battle of Bunker hill aroused Burr to patriotic purpose, and, though
but nineteen, he started for Cambridge to enlist. He was stricken with
fever, however, and before he was recovered he heard of Arnold's
proposed expedition to Quebec, and, though he had better be in bed, he
took his musket and walked to Newburyport, 30 miles, in season to ship
with the troops. Two men were there ahead of him awaiting his arrival
with instructions from his uncle to bring him back to New Jersey. This
was too much for young Burr, who did not recognize the right of his
uncle to interfere, and he expressed his mind so vigorously as to
command the admiration of the soldiers and arouse the fears of the two
messengers, who returned without him. This was the last of his uncle's
interference. Who that reads of the childhood life of this orphan can
wonder that he lacked patience under the severe reverse of political
fortune at fifty years of age? That he is the one illustrious exception
among the 1,400 need cause no surprise.
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