Free Republic

~Clip~ Think of the most famous duel in American history: The shooting of Alexander Hamilton by a pistol-wielding Aaron Burr, vice president to Thomas Jefferson, on the New Jersey banks of the Hudson River in 1804. Hamilton died the next day. Burr and Hamilton had a long-standing political rivalry, and Hamilton made no secret of his distrust for Burr when Burr, who had narrowly missed beating Jefferson, ran for governor of New York in early 1804. When Burr got wind of a newspaper article that reported Hamilton had a "despicable opinion" of him, he challenged Hamilton to a duel near...

As helping refugees from New Orleans continues, a few people are turning some attention to the long-term future of that City. Begin with this: there must be a new New Orleans. As I write this, New Orleans is flooding again, from the long distance effects of Hurricane Rita. There is a law of hydraulics that great masses of water can be controlled or channeled, but not absolutely stopped. This law is as inexorable as gravity. Thomas Jefferson understood the vital importance of the Mississippi River and the Port of New Orleans to the whole nation. Aaron Burr recognized the same...

Two centuries after their famous forebears met on the banks of the Hudson, the Hamiltons and the Burrs are still at it."LOOK AT THIS," said Antonio Burr. "Look at what they're selling." Standing in the gift shop of the New-York Historical Society on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Burr held a magnet to the light. On it were portraits of his ancestor Aaron Burr, the third vice president of the United States, and Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, whom Vice President Burr killed in a duel 200 years ago. Each man's portrait stared coldly at the other's.It was...

This is a movie review, a reminder of one of the most reprehensible people in American history, and a well-deserved pranging of James Carville and Lanny Davis. Both of them appeared last week on every TV program in the known universe to decry the criticisms of John Kerry by 254 Swift Boat veterans because “they were not on the same boat.” This is a bald-faced, brass-plated lie in a number of ways. But before we count those up, a review of M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, The Village, is in order Yes, this will connect up. And so will a...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Two hundred years ago today, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton squared off in a sunrise duel on a wooded ledge in Weehawken, N.J., above the Hudson River. Burr was vice president when he leveled his fatal shot at Hamilton, the former Treasury secretary, who died the next day in what is now the West Village of Manhattan. New Yorkers turned out en masse for Hamilton's funeral, while Burr (rightly or wrongly) was branded an assassin and fled south in anticipation of indictments in New York and New Jersey. To the horror of Hamilton's admirers, the vice president, now...

WEEHAWKEN, N.J. -- Douglas Hamilton plans to pay tribute to the family name, even if it means losing _ again. Next month, Hamilton, a fifth great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, will stand in for his founding father ancestor when the Weehawken Historical Commission re-enacts the July 11, 1804, duel with Aaron Burr that left Hamilton mortally wounded. Antonio Burr, a descendant of Aaron Burr's cousin, will stand in for his equally famous ancestor. There are no direct descendants of Aaron Burr. "Some people in the family questioned re-enacting somebody getting shot, but I have received assurance the re-enactment will be done...