Into this web of intrigue walked the late Vice-President of the United States, leisurely journeying through the Southwest in the summer of 1805.
Aaron Burr is one of the enigmas of American politics. Something of the mystery and romance that shroud the evil-doings of certain Italian despots of the age of the Renaissance envelops him. Despite the researches of historians, the tangled web of Burr's conspiracy has never been unraveled. It remains the most fascinating though, perhaps, the least important episode in Jefferson's administration. Yet Burr himself repays study, for his activities touch many sides of contemporary society and illuminate many dark corners in American politics.
According to the principles of eugenics, Burr was well-born, and by all the laws of this pseudo-science should have left an honorable name behind him. His father was a Presbyterian clergyman, sound in the faith, who presided over the infancy of the College of New Jersey; his maternal grandfather was that massive divine, Jonathan Edwards. After graduating at Princeton, Burr began to study law but threw aside his law books on hearing the news of Lexington. He served with distinction under Arnold before Quebec, under Washington in the battle of Long Island, and later at Monmouth, and retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1779. Before the close of the Revolution he had begun the practice of law in New York, and had married the widow of a British army officer; entering politics, he became in turn a member of the State Assembly, Attorney-General, and United States Senator. But a mere enumeration of such details does not tell the story of Burr's life and character. Interwoven with the strands of his public career is a bewildering succession of intrigues and adventures in which women have a conspicuous part, for Burr was a fascinating man and disarmed distrust by avoiding any false assumption of virtue. His marriage, however, proved happy. He adored his wife and fairly worshiped his strikingly beautiful daughter Theodosia.
Burr throve in the atmosphere of intrigue. New York politics afforded his proper milieu. How he ingratiated himself with politicians of high and low degree; how he unlocked the doors to political preferment; how he became one of the first bosses of the city of New York; how he combined public service with private interest; how he organized the voters--no documents disclose. Only now and then the enveloping fog lifts, as, for example, during the memorable election of 1800, when the ignorant voters of the seventh ward, duly drilled and marshaled, carried the city for the Republicans, and not even Colonel Hamilton, riding on his white horse from precinct to precinct, could stay the rout. That election carried New York for Jefferson and made Burr the logical candidate of the party for Vice-President.