Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character

by Roger G. Kennedy

This book restores Aaron Burr to his place as a central figure in the founding of the American Republic. Abolitionist, proto-feminist, friend to such Indian leaders as Joseph Brant, Burr was personally acquainted with a wider range of Americans, and of the American continent, than any other Founder except George Washington. He contested for power with Hamilton and then with Jefferson on a continental scale. The book does not sentimentalize any of its three protagonists, neither does it derogate their extraordinary qualities. They were all great men, all flawed, and all three failed to achieve their full aspirations. But their struggles make for an epic tale.
Written from the perspective of a historian and administrator who, over nearly fifty years in public life, has served six presidents, this book penetrates into the personal qualities of its three central figures. In telling the tale of their shifting power relationships and their antipathies, it reassesses their policies and the consequences of their successes and failures. Fresh information about the careers of Hamilton and Burr is derived from newly-discovered sources, and a supporting cast of secondary figures emerges to give depth and irony to the principal narrative. This is a book for people who know how political life is lived, and who refuse to be confined within preconceptions and prejudices until they have weighed all the evidence, to reach their own conclusions both as to events and character.
This is a controversial book, but not a confrontational one, for it is written with sympathy for men of high aspirations, who were disappointed in much, but who succeeded, in all three cases, to a degree not hitherto fully understood.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Politics, American History

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roger Kennedy's Burr, Hamilton and Jefferson: A Study in Character is an idiosyncratic look at three of America's most contentious Founding Fathers. Rather than the triple biography the title seems to promise, Kennedy instead divides the book into disconnected, discursive chapters on a variety of events and subjects which he feels illuminates his protagonists. Sort of like Joseph Ellis's Founding Brothers, only without any thematic throughline or cohesiveness. Here there will be a chapter on slavery, there a discourse on American filibustering, another on the Burr-Hamilton duel, etc. The book's main focus is on Aaron Burr, whom Kennedy admires and wants to restore to the pantheon of Founders. He's hardly alone in this, but (like most Burr apologists) fails t0 acknowledge that Burr wasn't in any way, shape or form as farsighted or ideologically oriented as Hamilton or Jefferson. He does show that the attacks on Burr's character, by Hamilton and Jefferson in particular, were often hypocritical when not completely baseless; the chapter discussing how Hamilton projected his own ambitions and personal shortcomings onto Burr is the most persuasive part of the book. He's also good at exploring the pervasiveness of filibustering activity, showing that Burr was merely one of dozens of politicians and military leaders (among them Hamilton himself) who connived in private military adventures during the early Republic. Whether this excuses Burr's role in the Western Conspiracy, though, is another matter. Despite some readable passages and insightful segments, Kennedy's book isn't cohesive enough to wholeheartedly recommend; at best, it's an articulate, readable but over-ambitious curio that never comes together.

[Aya Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was one of those I used as a resource when writing
"Theodosia and the Pirates."

I highly recommend Roger G. Kennedy's "Burr, Hamilton and Jefferson: A Study in Character", not as a straight-line historical narrative, but as an entertaining and enlightening analysis of the characters of the three men involved. All Kennedy's conclusions are richly illustrated with well documented anecdotes. Yet it is not so much that the facts in this book are previously unknown, but rather that Kennedy's writing casts them in a new and revealing light.

I came to this book already a fan of Aaron Burr, having read Gore Vidal's novel of that name, but I learned to look at the conflict among these three men in a completely different way, because Kennedy emphasized their military (or less than military) careers and their mode of trying to gain territory for the United States.

For a more detailed review, see my article on PubWages:
http://www.pubwages.com/14/the-charac...

[Pomegranates · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written in a confusing style-- Kennedy ignores chronology, leaving the reader in a constant state of readjustment. All within the same chapter, he jumps from "Emulation, Rivalry, and Ambition," to "The West and Slavery," to "The Character of Burr". This messy, spiraling setup makes for especially difficult navigation.

In the book, Kennedy tries to at once give a clear-headed view of Hamilton and Jefferson whilst conversely attempting to elevate Burr. Although he doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of Hamilton and Jefferson, when it comes to Burr he's all praise. The entire narrative is shifted in Burr's favor, focusing extensively on his pros while ignoring or marginalizing the cons (for instance, the Manhattan Company scenario). The bias is obvious-- even for someone who particularly likes Burr.

His analysis of the duel is also poor-- all speculation and imagery. And his take on Burr's religious views is at times seemingly contradictory (very uncomfortable with theology, yet based his racial views on religion?). Although the two ideas could coincide, Kennedy's disorganization and lack of connecting analysis leaves the reader to try to settle the contradiction themselves.

Additionally, this book has an especially bad, incomplete index. For those using it for research purposes, it's almost easier to just flip through the pages.

For pros-- it certainly has a lot of information in it. Lots of interesting and lesser known facts. The picture section is also quite good.

Kennedy's take on both the events and characters of the time have some interesting insights. Although his interpretations are inevitably skewed in Burr's favor, as long as you take this into account you can gain a richer perspective.

[Suzanne Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did the most powerful men of his era long to destroy Aaron Burr? Was he really a threat to democracy? Or simply a threat to Jefferson and Hamilton's political careers? Burr, grandson of fire-breathing puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards, was the closest thing to aristocracy in our new republic. And every little boy in the post-revolutionary era possessed the famous woodcut of Burr carrying the dead body of his commanding officer through the snow drifts of Canada. He was also an accomplished political operative before the term was known -- AND a progressive who created a loophole allowing men to band together to buy property, therefore be considered property owners and thus allowed to vote. Why did Hamilton seek to destroy him? Why did Jefferson bring the full weight of the Presidency against him in his treason trial (during which Supreme Court Justice John Marshall fought back against Jefferson's failure to respect habaes corpus and first amendment rights, thereby fully forming the modern role of the Court).

Why? We will never know. Partisan politics have so distorted scholarship about both Jefferson and Hamilton, and Burr's own papers were lost when his daughter, Theodosia, was lost at sea.

This and any of the other books on the Hamilton/Burr/Jefferson relationships are fascinating reads. History is written by the victors -- Jefferson writ large, the others writ small, Burr branded forever as a traitor and megalomaniac.

[Michael Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellant character study of our founding fathers. Burr has been one of my favorite people since introduced to him in Gore Vidal's Burr. He comes out best among the three. I now need to read some more on Hamilton

[Mike Cuthbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my “Adventures in Non-Fiction” period, I ran across an enticing book by Roger Kennedy about three of the most interesting of the Founding Fathers and this is it. “Interesting” can sometimes be a curse word but Kennedy maintained my interest through 394 pages, some of which almost impenetrable because of the density of characters one encounters in this book. Right off the top, let me say that I find the book a complete and total exoneration of all that one can say about Aaron Burr. Hamilton doesn’t stay around long enough, thanks to Burr, to get as involved as the others and he was not tried by Jefferson twice as Burr was, but Burr emerges triumphant, though poor and crippled and old. Jefferson, whom I have long admired for his depth and catholic interests and abilities, comes across as a manipulative, resentful and politically anxious man and hardly the champion of freedom that most of us assume him to be. Throughout the book he is adamantly on the side of the slavers and against expansion of American claims as long as they do not include slavery. Burr, on the other hand, suffers much from his abolitionist views and actions, much to the consternation of Jefferson. Kennedy also draws Jefferson and Hamilton as sexual animals, taking married women to bed as well as single, as well as slaves in Jefferson’s case. Burr, however much you might have read of his promiscuity, never intruded on a marriage like the other two. Politically, the book is a minefield. Organized political parties as we have come to know them did not exist at the time though there were two politically sympathetic groups: the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. It is no accident that Hamilton, the arch-Federalist, was the father of the first national bank in the US and was Secretary of the Treasury. Jefferson represented the Republicans, the party of the farmers and, eventually, of the states’ rights believers, located mostly in the South. With the Federalists favoring a strong central government and the Republicans against it, conflicts were bound to develop as well as personality clashes. I am no historian but it would not surprise me to find many professional historians have found the roots of the Civil War in these two parties. Burr’s anti-slavery views put him at odds with Jefferson and the latter responded by using one of the more disgusting characters of the 18th and 19th centuries, James Wilkinson, who would go to any lengths to do Jefferson’s bidding, including lying about the true nature of Burr’s actions on the western frontier. Burr was tried for those actions, as he was accused of mounting an army and a navy pursuant to splitting the East and West, developing the West for himself and his associates. He was also accused, in Jefferson’s mind, of trying to divide the country so that Burr could establish free states in the West. He was also accused of trying to start a war with Spain while Burr’s intent was to conquer Mexico. Burr was made to seem too ambitious by Wilkinson who, at one time, was known as “Number 13” to the Spanish who hired him, while organizing attacks on the Spanish in the Floridas and Mexico. He is generally described as a villain by even his most ardently favorable biographers.
The book, being a “study in character” of the three men, is not, as a biography might be, organized chronologically, but rather episodically. Jumps back and forth, between the 18th and 19th century events are normal and characters come and go as they influence the three main characters. Kennedy does not settle the question of whether Hamilton intended to miss Burr (he DID miss his only shot) and whether or not Burr would have missed Hamilton had he wanted to, but it is clear to Kennedy that Burr hated Hamilton and that he was probably a better shot. Though it is often very heavy going, the study is rich in history and amazingly funny in spots. Kennedy’s casual style is highlighted by such passages as this:

“ When he [Burr] was in Natchez, in 1806, he walked to his meetings with potential followers by following ‘a rural path…trellised with vines and shaded by evergreens…Burr’s daily resort…[was] a little vine-covered cottage,’ inhabited by ‘a widow lady from Virginia whose small farm and two or three slaves were all that remained of a large fortune…She had but one child, Madeline…a miracle of beauty.’
Whene’er the words ‘vine-colored cottage’ and ‘miracle of beauty’ appear, we are forewarned that a nineteenth century historian is about to produce a tragic lady to be seduced by satanic Aaron Burr. Cottages, miracles and virgins are strewn like faded roses petals across accounts of his career, though seldom with citations to sources earlier than a generation after his death.”

That kind of writing keeps one chuckling throughout the heavy text. I recently expanded my interest in American history (I was a music education major in college) by purchasing both the biography of John Adams by the late David McCullough and the complete Federalist Papers. My reports on those are to be completed in the future when I have regained the strength necessary to read and comprehend them.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author seeks to exonerate the reputation of Aaron Burr from the remonstrance it's suffered over the past 200 years. While Burr escaped indictment from criminal court, his guilt in the court of public opinion has persisted ever since---his reputation resting in the shadow of the more sterling reputations of his more prominent contemporaries, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. In this, Kennedy diminishes the reputations of Hamilton and Jefferson, while lifting that of Burr's a little higher. No doubt, Hamilton and Jefferson's reputations have been partly burnished by what cherry-picking of character traits can only lead to legend. Just as likely, the acts for which one has become infamous can only lead to the overshadowing of all else in their lives, certainly all that is good.

This is the predicament in which we find the reputation of Aaron Burr. Known as the shooter of Alexander Hamilton in a duel, we find him charged with much else besides. Serious charges such as violation of the Neutrality Act of 1794, and Treason. Kennedy takes up a new trial where the real trial left off. Kennedy playing the defense attorney, we find him not only seeking to dislodge his character from the ash heap of history, but elevating it to the level of, if not above, that of Hamilton and Jefferson. He makes a strong case. And certainly, unless the attorney does the work of doing an exhaustive background on their client, it's hard to know all the facts. And this isn't a study in character---as you could easily derive from the title---in the sense of comparing each one's moral compass in relation to the ideal, but merely in relation to each another. (None of these three come out of this examination unscathed.)

But in this we find the motivations of Jefferson and Hamilton examined for what they most likely were, not what we've been led to believe they were. Of course, the same with Burr. Motivations can be hard to discern, but can be approximated by what a person says, a history of their actions, and what others have said about them. We get all three in this book. While reading this, I found myself making the Biblical comparison of King Saul chasing David throughout the kingdom with charges he didn't deserve. Although the comparison doesn't ring true throughout, the corollaries are hard to ignore. Jefferson seemed to have it in for Burr and, in the end, we still don't know for sure why. It's concluded by Kennedy that hatred doesn't always come from a place of logic. Could be true.

Kennedy has been chided by some for his many diversions and also jumping from one time period to the next with no rhyme or reason. This I didn't mind as much. I guess it helped to keep me engaged in some odd way. His writing style was interesting in that he wrote at times like he was talking to the reader on a personal level. Kennedy takes you through the character examination of each. He makes his case. Still, at the end, we the reader are the jury. But the restoration of Burr's reputation, if it is to be restored, won't be overnight. It will likely take as many years to be brought to light as it's been hidden from cover.

[Bradley Brill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another welcomed addition to accounts of A. Burr in a more positive light, well-researched and told in the proper perspective of the vicious political spin of the day.

[Mark Stidham · Rating 3 out of 5]

The jacket states "This book restores Aaron Burr to his place as a central figure in the founding of the American Republic." This is fairly accurate. "There can be no full biography of Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton that leaves Burr out." Quite so. By the end, one is persuaded that Burr deserves more than his three or four lines that is normal in an accounting. Equally, he is not an evil that one might conclude from the two big negatives in the highlights, i.e., his resisting the clear desire of voters for Jefferson as President in the election of 1800 and most infamously as the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

A less charitable way to describe the book is as follows. There are scores of books on the virtues of both Hamilton and Jefferson, and Burr comes out of most of these as an unredeemed bit actor. This book is an attempt to counterbalance these excesses. If you want to persist in the myths, avoid this book. Read the book as if the author was a defense attorney for Burr, highlighting any positive references and glossing over the negatives, while creating doubt about Hamilton and Jefferson.

But whereas Hamilton and Jefferson left indisputable legacies in their accomplishments and were central in the turmoil that founded the United States, Burr had no similar influences. His most significant contribution was in Revolutionary War. No one seems to dispute this part of Burr's life, and yet his reputation was not based on this record. Otherwise, Burr is a spoiler in different elections with no accomplishments, an unwitting accomplice in Hamilton's suicide (!), and lastly an almost hapless speculator on the western frontier, who ends up in an accusation of treason by the evil TJ, whose vengeful paranoia knows no bounds.

I have three last thoughts from the book.

First, it is clear that Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson detested Burr, and character witnesses for Burr are tepid. We are led to conclude that those who did not detest him were of equal esteem (Adams, Jay, Marshall, Jackson), therefore allowing the reconsideration of Burr.

Second, Jefferson's racism clearly explains his actions post-Revolutionary War. Racism is something apart from slavery, although the former is used to justify the latter. I feel the myth of the author of the Declaration of Independence is given a pass on this, even if one understands that the enlightened man had to struggle to throw off so many other misconceptions about humanity. I am left with the opinion that most of the other founders did not have this problem of considering non-whites as inferior.

Third, the story of the expansion of the United States is complicated and difficult to appreciate. It was a revelation to me that in 1775, Jefferson, the Governor of Virginia, sent George Rogers Clark to the western front to secure it to Virginia, away from Pennsylvanians who were acting on behalf of George Washington. Jefferson wanted to preserve those lands as havens for slave owners, and he feared the anti-slave disposition of Pennsylvanians would spoil that outcome. Jefferson's signature half-truths come out as he failed to explain to George Washington that he ordered Clark not to act together with the Pennsylvanians. This book helps you to take yourself back to the times, when the alliance of the thirteen colonies was new and uncertain, when the benefits of uniting were less clear in the face of the perils of uniting (e.g., disruption of a slave economy). You begin to see how history turns when seemingly worthless sandy land of much of the South is transformed into wealth by the simultaneous occurrence of the cotton gin, slave labor, and trade with Great Britain. You realize that another dimension of slave labor is the selling of the progeny of owned slaves and that the expansion of slave states increased the demand for slaves.

It's another long review. I write to enhance my own understanding. Any readers are responsible to themselves for having invested their time. Go read for yourself!

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good re-evaluation for the better of Aaron Burr, basically freeing him from 200 years of accretion of the ... well, the lies that Thomas Jefferson had his minions spread about him. It also fits well in some recent columns and essays about Jefferson who, as Kennedy notes, was the first explicitly lying president, and able to be believed, anyway, by following on Washington, definitely, and also on Adams. And, we get dollops of Hamilton playing off of both.

First, Kennedy established that, when the electorally tied 1800 election went to Congress, Burr did nothing to "angle" for election himself. (It's well known that Hamilton worked against him.)

That said, Kennedy points out that, had Burr wanted the position it could have been his. Burr got electoral votes in 1792 and 96 as well as 1800. In the first two cases, many were in the South. In 1800, Jefferson’s agents specifically fought against this. Related to this, Burr had Federalist as well as anti-Federalist friends, esp. in New York, and including John Jay. Hamilton, Burr, Jay worked together on abolition in New York as part of that.

A lot of the enmity went back to the Revolution. Burr was mistrusted by Washington due to his assn. with Gates and his clique, before, during and after Saratoga. Hamilton used this when Washington was prez to poison him against Burr. John Marshall was in the army at Valley Forge, as were Hamilton, and Washington. Marshall, as chief justice, presided over Burr's treason trial in 1807. All of the above, remembering Jefferson's "runaway" governorship of Virginia, had reason to disdain him.

A lot of Hamilton’s envy toward Burr may have been “projection,” Kennedy says, and makes a good case for this. He also hints that Hamilton may have seen the duel as a chance for "suicide by opponent" along with one last bit of revenge, having wrecked Burr's chance at the presidency, his chance at New York's governorship earlier in 1804, and before that, John Adams' presidency.

In any case, Burr’s post-duel plans in the Louisiana Territory, as an abolitionist, may have been part of why Jefferson was even further “set” against him. Jefferson himself had designs on both the Floridas and Mexico himself, after all. But, with a chance to reset the "New World Order" in Louisiana, to meet the idealism of the Declaration and make it slave free, Jefferson took a pass.

But, that's not now. Kennedy informs us that Jeffersons’s Northwest Ordinance anti-slavery petition applied only to **new govts** in the area. Given that, pre-Constitution, Virginia claimed the entire Old Northwest, as well as the future Kentucky, it was therefore largely vacuous.

There's lot more like this, combined with a "hail, reader" style of writing by Kennedy that I find generally ingratiating.

[Chrystal Rico · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this.

[Craig Bolton]

"Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character by Roger G. Kennedy (2000)"