Nonprofit Profile | Rallying to an Historical Villain’s Defense
And you thought Dick Cheney was bad.
On this day in 1804, the vice president of the United States of America shot his political rival during a duel. As in, on purpose. Alexander Hamilton died the following day. His killer, Aaron Burr, was charged but never tried, and eventually returned to Washington, D.C., to serve out the remainder of his term as Thomas Jefferson’s No. 2. (Jefferson had already made clear his intention to drop Burr from the ticket for his second term; George Clinton replaced Burr as veep. No word on whether the P-Funk All-Stars were named to cabinet posts.)
The Aaron Burr Association seeks to honor and perpetuate Burr’s memory “as a student, a soldier, a lawyer, a politician, a patron of the arts, an educator, a banker, and as a husband and father” and “to secure for him the honor and respect which are due him as one of the leading figures of his age.” Burr has gone down in history as the bad guy, with some accusing him of using a doctored firearm to gain an unfair advantage in his duel with Hamilton, whose reputation has remained so untarnished that his portrait glances out from every sawbuck printed by the U.S. Mint. The association is distressed by this:
Burr’s supporters in the Aaron Burr Association since 1946 knew his character was not consistent with that of a villain, and have tried to convince history teachers that teaching children to hate an innocent person is wrong. We don’t need villains to be united. Attacking someone’s character does not make the attacker superior. The press destroyed Burr’s reputation, while Burr stood silent in Hamilton’s death. Hamilton’s biographers were hailed, while Burr’s were spurned. Burr could not prove the trick pistols were used, and took the blame for the duel. Throughout our history, we have rallied on the backs of those we condemn. 200 years after the duel, this negative behavior by our teachers and politicians must stop.
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