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SLIDE: AARON BURR

@1776Stonewall

(Part 1) History Tidbit, 1804-1807: The Hamilton/Burr Duel, and the Burr Conspiracy: I’m going to break this “Tidbit” into 2 parts, so after this go to my page for part 2. The first will be about the famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and VP Aaron Burr, and then part 2 will be about the lesser known “Burr Conspiracy”, following the events of the duel: Ok, so Everyone is obviously familiar with this event to some extent, but what exactly, and why exactly did it happen? Here’s a refresher...
Our story begins 13 years earlier, in 1791: Philip Schuyler is one of our original Senators, and the first Senator from the state of New York (1789-1791) - And he is also the father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton. In his bid for re-election, in 1791, Schuyler is defeated by Aaron Burr, taking his Senate seat. The two Senators exchanged a series of brutal and personal debates. So, you see, the animosity already existed here between the Burr and Hamilton families years prior to their infamous duel. Fast-forward a decade - For the 1800 Presidential elections the “Democratic-Republicans” party nominated a ticket of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The parties electors voted on who would run against John Adams for president. Should their ticket win (which it did) the other would be Vice President. At this time private citizens did not vote in Presidential elections.
The problem here was that the electoral college had a tie in the voting. The tiebreak would be decided by the Secretary of the Treasury - Alexander Hamilton. . As it turned out Hamilton didn’t like either of the candidates. He and Jefferson had a long history of disagreements... But he HATED Aaron Burr.
So Burr lost the presidency because of Hamilton’s vote.
Hamilton and Burr began to openly trade insults at each other. Hamilton began printing some pretty nasty attacks at Burr in Washington papers, and so Burr, the Vice President of the United States, challenged Hamilton to a duel...
On July 11 the two met in Weehawken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson river from New York City. As the story goes Hamilton fired first, missing Burr’s head. Burr then returned fire, hitting Hamilton in the abdomen. Hamilton would die the next day.
Aaron Burr was charged with murder, as dueling was illegal. Eventually the charges were dropped, but Burr’s political career was over.
Incredibly, Alexander Hamilton’s son, Philip, died in a duel at the same exact spot 3 years earlier in a duel with George Eacker, a New York lawyer. The spot was known as the “Weehawken dueling grounds”. . . But the Aaron Burr story was far from over.

https://truthsocial.com/@1776Stonewall/115635816256100735

@1776Stonewall

(Part 2) History Tidbit (read part 1 first) - “The Burr Conspiracy”: Welcome back. So, Now, here’s the part of the story you might not have learned before: Do you know about the “Burr Conspiracy”? A scheme by former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr to create an independent republic in the American West, with plans to invade Mexico: Incredible story. So, after killing Hamilton in 1804 and finishing his term as VP, Burr’s political career was effectively over. He traveled to the American West (the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys), where he hatched an ambiguous scheme with various associates, including U.S. Army General James Wilkinson. Burr’s exact intentions are still debated by historians, but his plans included carving out a new, independent nation from the western states and territories, with himself as its leader. His plans included launching a military expedition to invade and conquer Spanish territory in Mexico, possibly even with the aid of Britain or Spain. Burr gathered a small group of armed colonists and supplies, primarily using an island in the Ohio River owned by his supporter Harman Blennerhassett as a base of operations. The plan fell apart when his co-conspirator, General Wilkinson, realized it was likely to fail. To save himself, Wilkinson turned against Burr and sent dispatches to President Jefferson, accusing Burr of treason. Jefferson, who was already a political rival and no friend of Burr’s, became convinced of his guilt and ordered his arrest. Burr was captured in February 1807 in Alabama while trying to escape to Spanish Florida. Burr was sent to Richmond, Virginia, to be tried for treason in a U.S. circuit court presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. Incredibly, after a 7 month trial, Aaron Burr was acquitted. The prosecution failed mainly due to lack of evidence to prove that he committed an “overt act” of war, which is a specific requirement for a treason conviction under the U.S. Constitution.

https://truthsocial.com/@1776Stonewall/115635823203235893