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Materials > Readings > Burr-Hamilton Correspondence |
Burr-Hamilton Correspondence
In the winter of 1803-1804, at a dinner party in Albany, Alexander Hamilton made some derogatory statements about long time political rival Aaron Burr. The remarks were overheard by Dr. Charles D. Cooper who documented them in a letter subsequently published in the Albany Register. According to the letter, Hamilton had claimed that Burr was "a dangerous man...who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government." The letter went on to note, vaguely but ominously, that the writer "could detail...a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." When he read this letter in the public print, Burr opened the correspondence that would lead he and Hamilton to the dueling grounds at Weehawken.
Aaron Burr to Alexander Hamilton
June 18, 1804
Sir,
I send for your perusal a letter signed Ch[arles] D. Cooper which, though apparently published some time ago, has but very recently come to my knowledge. Mr. Van Ness, who does me the favor to deliver this, will point out to you that clause of the letter [the reference to a "still more despicable" opinion] to which I particularly request your attention.
You must perceive, Sir, the necessity of a prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial of the use of any expressions which could warrant the assertions of Dr. Cooper.
I have the honor to be
Your Obdt st
A. Burr
Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr
June 20, 1804
Sir,
I have maturely reflected on the subject of your letter of the 18th instant, and the more I have reflected the more I have become convinced that I could not, without manifest impropriety, make the avowal or disavowal which you seem to think necessary.
The clause pointed out by Mr. Van Ness is in these terms, "I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." To endeavour to discover the meaning of this declaration, I was obliged to seek in the antecendent part of the letter for the opinion to which it referred as having already been disclosed. I found it in these words "General Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared, in substance, that they looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government." The language of Doctor Cooper plainly implies that he considered this opinion of you, which he attributes to me, as a despicable one, but he affirms that I have expressed some other still more despicable, without however mentioning to whom, when, or where. 'Tis evident that the phrase "still more despicable" admits of infinite shades from very light to very dark. How am I to judge of the degree intended? Or how shall I annex any precise idea to language so indefinite?
Between Gentlemen despicable and more despicable are not worth the pains of a distinction. When therefore you do not interrogate me as to the opinion which is specifically ascribed to me, I must conclude that you view it as within the limits to which the animadversions of political opponents, upon each other, may justifiably extend.... If so, what precise inference could you draw as a guide to your future conduct were I to acknowlege that I had expressed an opinion of you still more despicable than the one which is particularised? How could you be sure that even this opinion had exceeded the bounds which you would yourself deem admissible between political opponents?
But I forbear further comment on the embarrassment to which the requisition you have made naturally leads....
Repeating that I cannot reconcile it with propriety to make the acknowledgement or denial you desire, I will add that I deem it inadmissible on principle to consent to be interrogated as to the justness of the inferences which may be drawn by others from whatever I may have said of a political opponent in the course of a fifteen years competition. If there were no other objection to it, this is sufficient -- that it would tend to expose my sincerity and delicacy to injurious imputations from every person who may at any time have conceived the import of my expressions differently from what I may then have intended or may afterwards recollect.
I stand ready to avow or disavow promptly and explicitly any precise or definite opinion which I may be charged with having declared of any Gentleman. More than this cannot fitly be expected from me, and especially it cannot reasonably be expected that I shall enter into an explanation upon a basis so vague as that which you have adopted. I trust, on more reflection, you will see the matter in the same light with me. If not, I can only regret the circumstance and must abide the consequences....
I have the honor to be, Sir
Your obed. servt.
A. Hamilton
Aaron Burr to Alexander Hamilton
June 21, 1804
Sir,
Your letter of the 20th inst. has been this day received. Having considered it attentively I regret to find in it nothing of that sincerity and delicacy which you profess to value.
Political opposition can never absolve Gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honor and the rules of decorum. I neither claim such privilege nor indulge it in others.
The common sense of Mankind affixes to the epithet adopted by Dr. Cooper the idea of dishonor. It has been publicly applied to me under the sanction of your name. The question is not whether he has understood the meaning of the word or has used it according to syntax and with grammatical accuracy, but whether you have authorised their application either directly or by uttering expressions or opinions derogatory to my honor. The time "when" is in your knowledge but no way material to me as the calumny has now first been disclosed so as to become the subject of my notice and as the effect is present and palpable.
Your letter has furnished me with new reasons for requiring a definite reply.
I have the honor to be, Sir
Your Obdt St
A. Burr
Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr
June 22, 1804
Sir,
Your first letter, in a style too peremptory, made a demand in my opinion unprecedented and unwarrantable. My answer, pointing out the embarrassment, gave you an opportunity to take a less exceptionable course. You have not chosen to do it but by your last letter, received this day, containing expressions indecorous and improper, you have increased the difficulties to explanation intrinsically incident to the nature of your application.
If by a "definite reply" you mean the direct avowal or disavowal required in your first letter, I have no other answer to give than that which has already been given. If you mean any thing different admitting of greater latitude it is requisite you should explain.
I have the honor to be, Sir
Your obed Servt
A. Hamilton
[Editor's note: With matters at an impasse, Hamilton's second, Nathaniel Pendleton, drafted a statement that he hoped would assuage Burr's feelings.]
General Hamilton says he cannot imagine to what Doct'r Cooper may have alluded unless it were to a conversation at Mr. Taylor's in Albany last winter.... Gen'l H. cannot recollect distinctly the particulars of that conversation so as to undertake to repeat them without running the risk of varying or omitting what might be deemed important circumstances. The expressions are intirely forgotten, and the specific ideas imperfectly remembered, but to the best of his recollection it consisted of comments on the political principles and views of Col. Burr and the results that might be expected from them in the event of his election as governor without any reference to any particular instance of past conduct or to private character.
[Editor's note: By this point, however, Burr had tired of Hamilton's vague recollection of a single incident and suggested that perhaps Hamilton should disavow ever having said anything injurious to Burr's honor. Thus Burr's second, William P. Van Ness, recommended that Hamilton affirm the following statement.]
Being apprised that expressions are ascribed to me impeaching the honor and affecting the private reputation of Col. Burr, and perceiving that reports to this effect have been widely disseminated, I feel it due to my own honor as also to that of a gentleman thus traduced under the sanction of my name to remove such injurious impressions.
I therefore frankly and explicitly disclaim and disavow the use of any expressions tending to impeach the honor of Col. Burr. My own sincerity and candor require this declaration, and while I regret that my expressions have been misrepresented or misconstrued I can only account for the inferences which have been drawn from them by supposing that language I may have employed in the warmth of political discourse has been represented in a lattitude entirely foreign from my sentiments or my wishes.
Nathaniel Pendleton to William P. Van Ness
June 26, 1804
[Editor's note: Reacting to this statement, Hamilton's second, Nathaniel Pendleton, drafted the following reply to Burr's second, William P. Van Ness.]
Sir,
The expectations now disclosed...appear to [Gen'l Hamilton] to have greatly changed and extended the original ground of inquiry and instead of presenting a particular and definite case for explanation seem to aim at nothing less than an inquisition into his most confidential as well as other conversations through the whole period of his acquaintance with Col. Burr. While he was prepared to meet the particular case fully and fairly he thinks it inadmissible that he should be expected to answer at large as to any thing that he may possibly have said in relation to the character of Col. Burr at any time or upon any occasion. Though he is not conscious that any charges that are in circulation to the prejudice of Col. Burr have originated with him...he cannot consent to be questioned generally as to any rumours which may be afloat derogatory to the character of Col. Burr without specification of the particular rumours, many of them probably unknown to him. He does not however mean to authorise any conclusion as to the real nature of his conduct in relation to Col. Burr by his declining so loose and vague a basis of explanation, and he disavows an unwillingness to come to a satisfactory, provided it be an honorable, accommodation. His objective is to the very indefinite ground which Col. Burr has assumed in which he is sorry to be able to discover nothing short of predetermined hostility.
Presuming therefore that it will be adhered to, he has instructed me to receive the message which you have it charged to deliver. For this purpose I shall be at home and at your command tomorrow morning from eight to ten o'clock.
I have the honor to be respectfully
Your Obedient Servt.
Nath'l Pendleton
William P. Van Ness to Nathaniel Pendleton
June 27, 1804
Sir,
The letter which I had the honor to receive for you under date of yesterday states among other things that in Gen'l Hamilton's opinion Col. Burr has taken a very indefinite ground in which he evinces nothing short of predetermined hostility and that Gen'l Hamilton thinks it inadmissable that the enquiry should extend to his confidential as well as other conversations. To this Col. Burr can only reply that secret whispers traducing his fame and impeaching his honor are at least equally injurious with slanders publickly uttered, that Gen'l H. had at no time and no place a right to use any such injurious expressions, and that the partial negative he is desposed to give with the reservations he wishes to make are proofs that he has done the injury specified.
Col. Burr's request was in the first instance proposed in a form the most simple in order that Gen'l Hamilton might give to the affair that course to which he might be induced by his temper and his knowledge of facts. Col. B. trusted with confidence that from the frankness of a soldier and the candor of a gentleman he might expect an ingenuous declaration; that if, as he had reason to believe Gen'l H. had used expressions derogatory to his honor, he would have had the magnanimity to retract them and that if from his language injurious inferences had been improperly drawn he would have perceived the proprity of correcting errors which might thus have been widely diffused. With these impressions Col. Burr was greatly surprised at receiving a letter which he considered as evasive and which in manner he deemed not altogether decorous. In one expectation, however, he was not wholly deceived for the close of Gen'l Hamilton's letter contained an intimation that if Col. Burr should dislike his refusal to acknowledge or deny, he was ready to meet the consequences. This Col. B. deemed a sort of defiance and would have felt justified in making it the basis of an immediate message. But as the communication contained something concerning the indefiniteness of his request, as he believed it rather the offspring of false pride than of reflection, and as he felt the utmost reluctance to proceed to extremities while any other hope remained, his request was repeated in terms more explicit. The replies and propositions on the part of Gen'l H. have in Col. B's opinion been constantly in substance the same.
Col. Burr disavows all motives of predetermined hostility. A charge by which he thinks insult is added to injury, he feels as a gentleman should feel when his honor is impeached or assailed and without sensations of hostility or wishes of revenge he is determined to vindicate that honor at such hazard as the nature of the case demands.
The length to which this correspondence has extended only tending to prove that the satisfactory redress earnestly desired cannot be obtained, he deems it useless to offer any proposition except the simple Message which I shall now have the honor to deliver.
I have the honor to be with great respect
Your obt & very hum Servt,
W.P. Van Ness
Hamilton's Mea Culpa
[Editor's note: The challenge to duel having been issued and accepted, Hamilton drafted the following letter to be opened in the event of his death.]
On my expected interview with Col. Burr, I think it proper to make some remarks explanatory of my conduct, motives, and views.
I was certainly desirous of avoiding this interview for the most cogent reasons:
1. My religious and moral principles are strongly opposed to the practice of Duelling and it would ever give me pain to be obliged to shed the blood of a fellow creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws.
2. My wife and children are extremely dear to me, and my life is of the utmost importance to them in various ways.
3. I feel a sense of obligation towards my creditors who in case of accident to me by the forced sale of my property may be in some degree sufferers. I did not think myself at liberty as a man of probity lightly to expose them to this hazard.
4. I am conscious of no ill-will to Col. Burr distinct from political opposition, which as I trust has proceeded from pure and upright motives.
Lastly, I shall hazard much and can possibly gain nothing by the issue of the interview.
But it was, as I conceive, impossible for me to avoid it. There were intrinsick difficulties in the thing and artificial embarrassments from the manner proceeding on the part of Col. Burr.
Intrinsick -- because it is not to be denied that my animadversions on the political principles, character, and views of Col. Burr have been extremely severe and on different occasions I, in common with many others, have made very unfavourable criticisms on particular instances of the private conduct of this Gentleman.
In proportion as these impressions were entertained with sincerity and uttered with motives and for purposes which might appear to me commendable would be the difficulty (until they could be removed by evidence of their being erroneous) of explanation or apology. The disavowal required of me by Col. Burr, in a general and indefinite form, was out of my power, if it had really been proper for me to submit to be so questions, but I was sincerely of opinion that this could not be and in this opinion I was confirmed by that of a very moderate and judicious friend whom I consulted. Besides that Col. Burr appeared to me to assume in the first instance a tone unnecessarily peremptory and menacing and in the second positively offensive. Yet I wished as far as might be practicable to leave a door open to accommodation. This, I think, will be inferred from the written communications made by me and by my direction and would be confirmed by the conversations between Mr. Van Ness and myself which arose out of the subject.
I am not sure whether under all the circumstances I did not go further in the attempt to accommodate than a puntilious delicacy will justify. If so, I hope the motives I have stated will excuse me.
It is not my design by what I have said to affix any odium on the conduct of Col. Burr in this case. He doubtless has heard of animadversions of mine which bore very hard upon him, and it is probable that as usual they were accompanied with some falsehoods. He may have supposed himself under a necessity of acting as he has done. I hope the grounds of his proceeding have been such as ought to satisfy his own conscience.
I trust at the same time that the world will do me the justice to believe that I have not answered him on light grounds or from unworthy inducements. I certainly have had strong reasons for what I may have said, though it is possible that in some particulars I may have been influenced by misconstruction or misinformation. It is also my ardent wish that I may have been more mistaken than I think I have been and that he by his future conduct may shew himself worthy of all confidence and esteem and prove an ornament and blessing to his Country.
As well because it is possible that I may have injured Col. Burr, however convinced myself that my opinions and declarations have been well founded, as from my general principles and temper in relation to similar affairs -- I have resolved, if our interview is conducted in the usual manner and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire and thus giving a double opportunity to Col. Burr to pause and to reflect.
It is not however my intention to enter into any explanations on the ground. Apology, from principle I hope rather than Pride, is out of the question.
To those who with me abhorring the practice of Duelling may think that I ought on no account to have added to the number of bad examples, I answer that my relative situation, as well in public as private appeals, inforcing all the considerations which constitute what men of the world denominate honor, impressed on me (as I thought) a peculiar necessity not to decline the call. The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular.
A.H.
Alexander Hamilton to Nathaniel Pendleton
July 4, 1804
I thank you My Dear Sir for your friendly offices in this last critical scene, if such it shall be. Excuse me for having inserted your name as Executor. I fear it may not be in your power to do much good to my family. But I am sure you will do all the good you can.
Yrs. truly,
A.H.
My most interesting papers in regard to my pecuniary affairs will be found:
1. In the upper apartment of excrutory or secretary in the country
2. In a box with pigeon holes in the room I occupy as an office
3. In the drawer of press bestead in my house in town
Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton
July 4, 1804
This letter my very dear Eliza will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortality.
If it had been possible fo rme to have avoided the interview, my love for you and my precious children would have been alone a decisive motive. But it was not possible without sacrifices which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem. I need not tell you of the pangs I feel from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. Nor could I dwell on the topic lest it should unman me.
The consolations of religion, my beloved, can alone support you, and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your Gad and be comforted. With my last idea, I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world.
Adieu best of wives and best of women. Embrace all my darling children for me.
Ever yours,
A.H.
Aaron Burr to Theodosia Burr Alston
July 10, 1804
Having lately written my will and given my private letters and papers in charge to you, I have no other direction to give you on the subject but to request you to burn all such as if by accident made public would injure any person. This is more particularly applicable to the letters of my female correspondents. All my letters and copies of letters of which I have retained copies are in six blue boxes. If your husband or any one else (no one, however, could do it so well as he) should think it worth while to write a sketch of my life some materials will be found among these letters.
Tell my dear Natalie [a French refugee adopted by Burr] that I have not left her anything for the very good reason that I had nothing to leave to any one. My estate will just about pay my debts and no more -- I mean if I should die this year. If I live a few years it is probable things may be better....
Burn immediately a small bundle tied with a red string which you will find in the little flat writing-case -- that which we used with the curricle. The bundle is marked "Put."
The letters of Clara (the greatest part of them) are tied up in a white handkerchief, which you will find in a blue box No. 5. You may hand them to Mari if you please. My letters to Clara are in the same bundle. You and by-and-by Aaron Burr Alston may laugh at gamp when you look over this nonsense....
I am indebted to you, my dearest Theodosia, for a very great portion of the happiness which I have enjoyed in this life. You have completely satisfied all that my heart and affections had hoped or even wished. With a little perseverence, determination, and industry, you will obtain all that my ambition or vanity had fondly imagined. Let your son have occasion to be proud that he had a mother. Adieu. Adieu.
A. Burr
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