AN
IRONY FOR THE AGES
Way back in 1800, (according to Monday’s Los
Angeles Times), Thomas Jefferson and Aaron
Burr, both running for president, were tied—amazingly--in Electoral College
votes. One house of Congress was forced
to decide between them.
As it developed, the political party
making the decision did not feel either man represented their beliefs, but
decided that Aaron Burr would be much easier to control, that he would bend to
their wishes. Ready to cast their votes for Burr, they were stopped by an incensed
Alexander Hamilton, who stepped in to dissuade them. Noting that Burr was a man he knew well from New York political and
legal circles, he said Burr was “deficient in honesty” and “one of the most unprincipled men in the UStates.”
Hamilton also said, “When a man
unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper;
possessed of considerable talents” . . . “having the advantage of military
habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanor—known to have scoffed in private at
the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobbyhorse of
popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of
embarrassing the General Government and bringing it under suspicion—to flatter
and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day—it may justly be
suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride
the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”
Still, the deciding party had already
observed that Jefferson’s principles, as
Secretary of State, did not please them.
Yet Alexander Hamilton persisted in his arguments. If Burr was made
president, Hamilton
said, “he will disturb our institutions,” and “disgrace our Country
abroad.” He would “listen to no monitor
but his ambition,” and further, he was
(to quote the Times) governed by a singular position—“to get power by any means
and keep it by all means.”
Though Hamilton
knew Jefferson did not please the deciding
party, he would not give up his clamor against Aaron Burr. At least, he said in one of his dozen letters
to Congress, Jefferson was a man devoted to
the Constitution.
In today’s impeachment conflicts, Adam
Schiff has become our Alexander Hamilton, quoting this astute distant scholar for
the benefit of the American public—noting how much Burr and Trump have in
common.
But it was the Los Angeles Times that
made this point: “In a striking echo to the impeachment charges against Trump, Hamilton further noted
that if Burr ever reached the White House, there was a risk that, for the
purpose of self-benefit, he would undertake
“a bargain and sale with some foreign power, or combinations with public agents in projects of gain by
means of the public monies.”
The dismissal of Burr’s candidacy did
not come easily: It took 36 ballots to achieve the presidency in Thomas
Jefferson’s favor. As we look back at Aaron Burr—this earlier version of Donald Trump—some of
us wonder whether our country and our constitution would have survived under
the dishonesty and political ambitions of Aaron Burr. Would he, too, have lied to the public some
4000 times?
How often has Trump bragged that he
could shoot someone on Fifth
Avenue in New York City and “my
voters would still support me.”
Well, the irony is, years ago, that
exact scenario occurred: In a duel that should have been stopped, Aaron Burr
killed Alexander Hamilton. And ever
since, everyone who has read a history book has come to despise the name of
Aaron Burr.
