biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1756–1836)
|
| biography:
| US statesman, politician,and adventurer, born in Newark, New Jersey, USA. After serving with distinction in the American Revolution, he became a lawyer, engaged himself in some dubious land speculation, and was chosen a US senator (Democrat-Republican, New York, 1791–7). He was nominated in 1800 by the Democratic-Republican Party for vice-president, but because of the process then dictated by the Constitution, he ended up tied with Thomas Jefferson for the presidency. Refusing to concede the election, he forced the House of Representatives to 36 ballots before Jefferson won. As his vice-president (1801–5), Burr received little attention from Jefferson. Climaxing a 15-year public and private feud with Alexander Hamilton, he challenged, duelled with, and killed Hamilton (1804), and after first fleeing S to avoid indictments, he returned to Washington to finish his term as vice-president. He then became involved with James Wilkinson in a still little-understood conspiracy, the goal of which seemed to be to create a new country in the SW, with New Orleans as its capital. After escaping indictments three times in Kentucky and Mississippi Territory, he was arrested and tried in Virginia for treason, with Chief Justice John Marshall presiding. He was acquitted of treason and all other charges. Setting off for Europe in 1808, he continued to try to engage first Britain and then France in his schemes for ‘liberating’ the Spanish colonies in Mexico and America, but when this failed he returned to New York (1812) and began practising law. Always in need of money, at age 77 he married a wealthy widow, but she divorced him a year later. The last years of this problematic man were spent in relative obscurity. |
|
|
