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Aaron Burr, Part One: The Rise of a Guy Nobody Liked · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
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Speaker 1: Musical and our super producer, mister Max Williams. I'm Ben.
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Speaker 1: You always say you don't like it.
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Speaker 2: I enjoyed it, but I didn't enjoy it enough to
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Speaker 2: a little bit.
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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, and these things often occur in phases, right,
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Speaker 1: Alex Is the best. We're all so glad you tuned in, folks.
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Speaker 1: This week is a special two part episode. We're doing
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Speaker 1: that Hamilton reference entirely because of one of the tortured antagonists,
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Speaker 1: slash co protagonist Aaron Burr, whom our pal Max Williams
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Speaker 1: lovingly or just regularly refers to as America's drum uncle.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's fine. There was a an Orio I
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Speaker 2: think I mentioned this before, but there's an Oreo commercial
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Speaker 2: from way back in the day where it was like
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Speaker 2: a story in or something, and who was asked a
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Speaker 2: question of like who shot Alexander Hamilton And he's got
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Speaker 2: a mouthful of oreos and no milk, and he goes
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Speaker 2: and no one understands. And I can't remember what the
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Speaker 2: takeaway is that he comes off looking like an idiot
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Speaker 2: or he lost out on some sort of grant or something,
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Speaker 2: but I just I remember erber All. I remember.
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Speaker 3: It's funny because Aaron Burr is in many ways a
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Speaker 3: footnote in American history, which is funny because he came
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Speaker 3: up in that whole Founding Father's story and I was surprised.
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Speaker 3: I looked through our archives extensively. We had to have
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Speaker 3: done an episode on Aaron Burr.
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Speaker 2: We have not.
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Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, we have to because Aaron Burr, every
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Speaker 3: step of his life is just wild.
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Speaker 1: Yes, it very much is. It doesn't matter whether or
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Speaker 1: not you're a fan of Hamilton, really and nothing no
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Speaker 1: musical is for everyone. But there's just so much about
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Speaker 1: Burr that doesn't make it into the story because the
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Speaker 1: story's not Burr, it's Hamilton. So we've talked, like you said,
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Speaker 1: about other people who were considered influential Founding Father types
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Speaker 1: but never quite made it to potus level. Aaron Burr
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Speaker 1: is on that list, along with folks like William Jenny's
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Speaker 1: Bryant Henry Clay. Burr is a war hero, he's a senator,
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Speaker 1: he gets all the way to vice president, and at
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Speaker 1: the time of his demise he had money problems. He'd
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Speaker 1: been trying for treason, he'd alienated a lot of his friends,
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Speaker 1: or they had died, because that, you know, could very
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Speaker 1: much happen. But maybe we start, what do you think, well,
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Speaker 1: we start at the beginning, because, like r pal Max said,
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Speaker 1: this is a wild ride, right, I don't know why
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Speaker 1: I'm doing echoes.
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Speaker 2: It's okay, it's in the parlance of a hip hop.
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Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about his early life.
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Speaker 2: He was born, as you know, at this end, this
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Speaker 2: time in American history, you'd be hard pressed not to
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Speaker 2: be born into some kind of military circumstances. Your parents
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Speaker 2: either fought in the war or you grew up with
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Speaker 2: aspirations to be a soldier, whatever it might be. His father,
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Speaker 2: Aaron Burr, was a Presbyterian minister, and he was the
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Speaker 2: second president of the College of New Jersey, which later
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Speaker 2: became Princeton University. His mother, Esther, which is a lovely
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Speaker 2: name that you don't hear much anymore these days. I'm
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Speaker 2: a big fan of Esther. Esther Edwards Burr the daughter
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Speaker 2: of Jonathan Edwards, who was a theologian in his own right.
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Speaker 2: Aaron Burr was born February sixth, seventeen fifty six in Newark,
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Speaker 2: New Jersey. We're talking sopranos country. Burr's father sadly passed
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Speaker 2: when Aaron was only a year old, and then his
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Speaker 2: mother passed the following year, so he was orphaned by
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Speaker 2: the age of two. Out that's no good, and he
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Speaker 2: and his sisters moved, and thankfully they didn't have to,
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Speaker 2: you know, move into an orphanage. Their grandparents took took
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Speaker 2: care of them. But by the time Burr was four
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Speaker 2: years old, ah, jeez, you hate to hear it. His
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Speaker 2: grandparents died as well, so for much of his youth
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Speaker 2: he did spend living with an uncle by the name
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Speaker 2: of Timothy Edwards.
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Speaker 1: I don't know why that's a hilarious name to me,
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Speaker 1: it sounds it's one of those names that's hilarious if
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Speaker 1: someone is yelling it to indicate a person is in trouble.
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Speaker 1: Timothy Edwards.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's like for a last name first name,
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Speaker 2: first name. Yeah, it's like one of those first name
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Speaker 2: first name situations. Edward Edwards would be fun too. But Timothy,
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Speaker 2: Timothy hilarious like Tony Tony Tony. For the longest time,
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Speaker 2: I thought his name was pronounced Tony Tony tone like
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Speaker 2: the last one, you know, because it was like, you know,
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Speaker 2: he's got mad tone or whatever. But no, it's Tony
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Speaker 2: Tony's major major, major, minor, major, laser, all of the majors. Uh. So,
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Speaker 2: Timothy was a pretty successful fellow. Again, a very revered
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Speaker 2: profession at the time and still today, though maybe slightly
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Speaker 2: less revered, a little more reviled. He was a lawyer,
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Speaker 2: and he did spare no expense, as John Hammond of
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Speaker 2: Jurassic Park fame would say, in young Aaron's education, he
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Speaker 2: hired tutors from Princeton, or at least who had received
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Speaker 2: their education at the prestigious university, to educate him until
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Speaker 2: he himself could follow in the family legacy and the
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Speaker 2: tender Princeton University.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and even back then, of course, Princeton is a
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Speaker 1: big deal. He's eleven years old when he applies to
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Speaker 1: Princeton for the first time. He's turned away because Princeton,
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Speaker 1: you know, very reasonably, says, aren't you eleven years old?
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Speaker 1: So he waits for child right, right, He waits for
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Speaker 1: two years. Age thirteen, he reapplies and he is accepted.
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Speaker 1: He matriculates into Princeton, where he studies theology until he's
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Speaker 1: about nineteen years old.
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Speaker 2: Silly question, genter, Maybe I guess there are no silly questions.
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Speaker 2: We are a silly show. Fair. They didn't really have
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Speaker 2: the system of like elementary, middle and high school in
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Speaker 2: this era that we would note today, So you'd be
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Speaker 2: more likely it'd be sort of a gray area as
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Speaker 2: to when the appropriate age to go to higher university.
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Speaker 2: My higher education might be right.
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Speaker 1: You just have to have the money and be persuasive
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Speaker 1: that have the connection is you know, this is back
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Speaker 1: in the time where your higher schooling is like I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna go live with the guy in town who makes
8:12
Speaker 1: glass and I'm.
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Speaker 2: Much more last apprentice in master trades kind of situation.
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Speaker 1: So he studies theology, and at age nineteen, he says, I.
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Speaker 2: Don't believe in God.
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Speaker 1: God's fine, I guess I'm going to study the law.
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Speaker 1: So I'm moving to Connecticut. The constitution, state and the
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Speaker 1: colonial protests are happening around this time. You're getting reports
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Speaker 1: of the Continental Congress. And he's got an itch and
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Speaker 1: he's got an itchy foot on this. You know, he's thinking,
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Speaker 1: I should be stepping somewhere, I should be doing something.
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Speaker 1: How long can this unsustainable situation continue? He learns about
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Speaker 1: Lexington and Concord in seventeen seventy five, and so no
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Speaker 1: longer a theologian, no longer a law nerd Burr becomes
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Speaker 1: a soldier. Your quick props to American Battlefield Trust to
9:09
Speaker 1: go to their website battlefields dot org. You can donate
9:13
Speaker 1: or even become a member. But there's fabulous biographies of
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Speaker 1: a lot of great Americans, including Aaron Burr. And also,
9:21
Speaker 1: of course shout out to Britannica. There's solid Man Britannica
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Speaker 1: dot com as a source.
9:26
Speaker 2: Remember Encyclopedia Britannica. My physical ones, Yeah, yeah, you buy
9:30
Speaker 2: them from a salesman. They were wildly expensive, they really were,
9:33
Speaker 2: but it was almost like that was an investment in
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Speaker 2: your future. Now it's laughable because that's all like on
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Speaker 2: the internet for free.
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Speaker 1: It's still classy.
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Speaker 2: We had a set of Encyclopedia gilded text along the spines,
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Speaker 2: all that good stuff.
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Speaker 1: We had a set of encyclopedias way back in the day,
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Speaker 1: and I remember my dad telling me that these encyclopedias
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Speaker 1: were printed in this year.
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Speaker 2: Hm.
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Speaker 1: Our knowledge, therefore in this house goes to this year
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Speaker 1: and stopp because we're not buying another set of encyclopedia.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, sort of like how ridiculous history ends at apartheid?
10:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, mid nineties. We said, that's where we that's what
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Speaker 1: we consider history flexible though, you know, well, yeah, and
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Speaker 1: Burr at this point, to be fair, he had no
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Speaker 1: idea what was going to happen. As we mentioned, this
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Speaker 1: was a very dangerous time to be a soldier, especially
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Speaker 1: in the Well in general, but especially in the Continental Army.
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Speaker 1: His career there, however, was long and prosperous. He thrived.
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Speaker 1: He also served under a buddy of his who would
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Speaker 1: later become famous. Benedict Arnold became one of America's bad bends.
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Speaker 2: That's right, and then Ben Shapiro and in that bio
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Speaker 2: on Battlefields dot Org, they make the point that Benedict Arnold,
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Speaker 2: of course became sort of like brutus, you know, a
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Speaker 2: bit of a pejorative, like you, Benedict Arnold that means
10:55
Speaker 2: you're a trader, right, or Brudus Burr himself is sort
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Speaker 2: of to occupy that space, although you know, one could
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Speaker 2: argue that it's a little more complicated than that, as
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Speaker 2: it is with any of these folks. But the headline
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Speaker 2: is usually more interesting than the article.
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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you know, that's why you print the retractions
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Speaker 1: later in the paper.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, people, people usually skip right past the Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So I think that's an excellent point, man, because we
11:20
Speaker 1: do have to remember there's a lot more nuanced to
11:23
Speaker 1: these situations. We have the benefit of retrospects. We can
11:26
Speaker 1: look back and say, like, clearly, this guy, you know
11:29
Speaker 1: what I mean, it's like watching Cabin in the Woods again, right,
11:33
Speaker 1: and then you.
11:33
Speaker 2: Pick up on stuff all the things. Yeah, the Little Clues,
11:36
Speaker 2: the Little Eastern are watching any twist oriented film again,
11:40
Speaker 2: you know, you're kind of rewarded. It's actually kind of fun.
11:43
Speaker 2: I've been watching a lot of the back catalog of
11:46
Speaker 2: David Fincher lately.
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Speaker 1: He's a big fan of the twist sixth sense. That's
11:50
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis the whole time.
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Speaker 2: True, and that is and then that's Forrest Gump's little son.
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Speaker 2: It's actually a shared universe. Nobody, Nobody talks about it.
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Speaker 1: No one talks about that. But that is an episode
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Speaker 1: for another day. The stuff that Burr does during the war,
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Speaker 1: partially due to his better than average background and partially
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Speaker 1: due to his schooling, he quickly enters the inner circles
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Speaker 1: of the army, the halls of power. He becomes an
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Speaker 1: aide de camp, which I guess is just like your boy,
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Speaker 1: your sidekick, like the best.
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Speaker 2: Boy in your valet. Yeah, you know, yeah. He he marches.
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Speaker 2: He participates in this march along with a lot of volunteers.
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Speaker 2: Well actually he was one. Excuse me, in this situation.
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Speaker 2: He was a volunteer march three hundred and fifty miles
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Speaker 2: through the northern wilds of Quebec to invade Canada, which
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Speaker 2: I always just think is funny, you know, because we
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Speaker 2: think of Canada as just being our like, gentle, docile
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Speaker 2: neighbors to the north, and the idea of invading them
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Speaker 2: just seems mean. So apparently though, this was not a
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Speaker 2: particularly for two which is expedition for the American Army,
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Speaker 2: but it was a positive outcome for young Aaron Burr.
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Speaker 2: When the soldiers got to Quebec, Burr, as you said
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Speaker 2: was appointed General Richard Montgomery's aide de camp. Burr became
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Speaker 2: a quite storied, you know, army hero in the wake
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Speaker 2: of this battle, and there were reports that General Montgomery
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Speaker 2: had died in the arms of his best boy, young Burr,
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Speaker 2: and that Burr actually tried to save Montgomery's body, but
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Speaker 2: unfortunately the brutal winter conditions prevented him from doing so.
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Speaker 2: Another Hamilton member of the Hamilton Coterie, Theodore Sedgwick, wrote
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Speaker 2: a lot of letters to Burr, describing him as being
13:54
Speaker 2: this funny sounding now out of context, being young, gay
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Speaker 2: and enterprising in marsh Yeah, totally different, meaning now he's saying,
14:03
Speaker 2: you gotta go get him attitude, You're always in a
14:05
Speaker 2: good movie, thinking out of the box.
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Speaker 1: You're good at military minded. And then Burg goes and
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Speaker 1: works just for a bit with old straight seahorse teeth himself,
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Speaker 1: George Washington, who will later become President of the United States.
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Speaker 1: Burg gets he's not there too long because he likes
14:24
Speaker 1: being the best boy. So he goes to work with
14:27
Speaker 1: General Israel Putnam as his aide to come and he
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Speaker 1: becomes a this is weird. He becomes a crucial leader
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Speaker 1: in a famous retreat when the American forces have to
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Speaker 1: leave New York. He's one of the guys who's like
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Speaker 1: the best at running away, run.
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Speaker 2: Away in New York. He could and did become a
14:47
Speaker 2: new man. That's my only Camelton reference that I'm going
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Speaker 2: to drop. Maybe I could say not throwing away my shot.
14:53
Speaker 2: I know that one that's true.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that big that that long shout out to eminem.
14:57
Speaker 2: I think I only made it through like act one.
14:59
Speaker 2: And don't get me wrong, it is a marvel. It's
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Speaker 2: beautifully produced. I'm sure it doesn't in a case I
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Speaker 2: only it was. I think I was just distracted and
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Speaker 2: then never came back, or maybe there's somebody with me
15:09
Speaker 2: that didn't want to finish what I can't remember. I'm
15:11
Speaker 2: going to go back to it. Also, kind of watching
15:13
Speaker 2: Broadway stuff on TV, it just hits different than seeing
15:17
Speaker 2: it and ensure.
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Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, and it's I see what you're saying,
15:22
Speaker 1: because when it gets kind of in the weeds of politics,
15:25
Speaker 1: that's where it may lose a lot of people, right,
15:27
Speaker 1: but once it picks back up, it swells. It's epic.
15:31
Speaker 1: I think it's worth it. But also, let's be honest, folks,
15:35
Speaker 1: too much hype can kill anything.
15:37
Speaker 2: That may have been happened to you. I think so too,
15:40
Speaker 2: because I mean one of my favorite musicals, and just
15:42
Speaker 2: about any adaptation of it at all is a very
15:45
Speaker 2: into what is it? Turn off the Dark? Yeah, that
15:47
Speaker 2: one was a hit. No Les Miserabla, which is also
15:50
Speaker 2: a very in the weeds, military and kind of political piece.
15:54
Speaker 2: I just love it. I like the book, I love
15:57
Speaker 2: the music. It's I think I think for me, it's
15:58
Speaker 2: a it's a youth thing, like I I grew up
16:00
Speaker 2: hearing those songs. My mom was a singing teacher. But
16:03
Speaker 2: I really thought that the film adaptation they did where
16:06
Speaker 2: everyone sings there on stuff, you know, I thought that
16:08
Speaker 2: was really well done. And then that guy, of course
16:10
Speaker 2: went on to make Cats, which was not good.
16:13
Speaker 1: Are you serious?
16:15
Speaker 2: Get out? What do you mean?
16:16
Speaker 1: Nod it? Well, everybody loves a trade wreck.
16:20
Speaker 2: At least at least the cats didn't have buttholes like
16:22
Speaker 2: he originally wanted.
16:24
Speaker 1: You know, maybe that would have put it pushed it over.
16:28
Speaker 1: Best supporting actor is believe that we.
16:31
Speaker 2: Need more realism in these these anthropomorphic sex cats. Guys.
16:34
Speaker 1: We don't want to break the magic here. These need
16:38
Speaker 1: to be anatomically accurate anthropomorphized cat.
16:41
Speaker 2: I think they had to remove them in posts.
16:43
Speaker 1: They did added a huge cost in production, because it
16:47
Speaker 1: turns out, it turns out if you are video editor,
16:50
Speaker 1: you're deep in the CGI. There's not just a remove
16:53
Speaker 1: all buttholes button.
16:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, they need to add that to after effects.
16:57
Speaker 1: So Max is nodding vigorously.
16:59
Speaker 2: I am and as you guys have not said anything
17:00
Speaker 2: about my pants. I saw my.
17:02
Speaker 1: Pants, saw them, but we had to walk right in.
17:04
Speaker 1: I can't see your pants in set right down. Oh man,
17:08
Speaker 1: you monster, Max, you got your white pants on, you monster?
17:12
Speaker 1: You you rabble. So Burr is like, one day this
17:17
Speaker 1: is going to be part of a musical. My life
17:19
Speaker 1: is going to be part of a musical.
17:21
Speaker 2: However, though he probably didn't necessarily at this point think
17:23
Speaker 2: that he was going to be the villain. No no
17:26
Speaker 2: one ever does, though, do that, No one ever does, right, you.
17:29
Speaker 1: Know, like tamer Lane or Timer the Lamee was probably
17:34
Speaker 1: thinking I'm bringing the world together. Alexander the Great was like,
17:38
Speaker 1: look at my street name. I can't be that bad.
17:41
Speaker 2: Check out my white pants.
17:42
Speaker 1: Whole pot is like, you know, saloth Sar sounds a
17:46
Speaker 1: little evil. So I'm going to get more of a
17:48
Speaker 1: name that people will trust.
17:50
Speaker 2: Is it bad tho? Whenever I hear pull Pott, I
17:52
Speaker 2: just think pulled pork.
17:53
Speaker 1: No. Also, I think it's weird that his name sounds
17:56
Speaker 1: so villainous. Our pal Alex is not actually a sith.
18:00
Speaker 1: But if your name is Saloth Sar, he sounds straight
18:03
Speaker 1: out of Star Wars. Very true. You definitely have the
18:06
Speaker 1: Red Light singer. And so Burr again doesn't. He's doing
18:10
Speaker 1: his best. He I'm joking a little bit about the retreat,
18:15
Speaker 1: but what he figures out is pretty epic. He designs
18:19
Speaker 1: the safest route out of the city, and he guides
18:22
Speaker 1: five thousand people to safety. He salvages US artillery, which
18:28
Speaker 1: is incredibly important at this point, and because of this action,
18:32
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy seven, Washington says, Burr, You've earned it, Bud.
18:38
Speaker 1: You're officially a lieutenant colonel, which means you will be
18:41
Speaker 1: in command of more than three hundred men. He fights
18:44
Speaker 1: off these British raids into New Jersey. He defends a
18:48
Speaker 1: pass at Valley Forge during a really crappy winter in
18:52
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy seventeen.
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Speaker 2: Branch.
18:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's the Battle of Monmouth. He is
18:59
Speaker 1: defeated at the Battle of Monmouth, and he also gets
19:03
Speaker 1: some mounting health problems because he's been going hard in
19:06
Speaker 1: the paint for a while, so he resigns in seventeen
19:10
Speaker 1: seventy nine from the Continental Army. He makes another shift.
19:14
Speaker 1: He says, I remember I kind of like doing law stuff.
19:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, in New York, I can be in New I'm sorry.
19:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:23
Speaker 2: He passes the bar in seventeen eighty two, the New
19:25
Speaker 2: York State Bar opens up his lot. What they call
19:28
Speaker 2: it hanging out his shingle, and a's as they say,
19:31
Speaker 2: and that's probably where that term came from, you know.
19:32
Speaker 2: They say it in like better call saul, But it's
19:34
Speaker 2: probably an old timey legal term from when you'd literally
19:39
Speaker 2: have a practice and your little sign would be out
19:41
Speaker 2: front and it would be like in the form of
19:43
Speaker 2: a little shingle. So he's set up for a lawyer
19:46
Speaker 2: in and he marries a widow and the couple stays
19:51
Speaker 2: together until her death in seventeen ninety four. In seventeen
19:55
Speaker 2: eighty four and seventeen eighty five, he gets elected to
19:58
Speaker 2: the State Assembly, and in eighty nine, because we're in
20:01
Speaker 2: the seventeen, So I'm just going to say eighty nine
20:03
Speaker 2: he gets appointed Attorney General by Governor George Clinton, not
20:09
Speaker 2: of parliament funkadelic fame. Unfortunately, he could have add some
20:13
Speaker 2: funk in his soul though. By ninety one he has
20:16
Speaker 2: built a very successful political movement against General Philip Schuyler,
20:23
Speaker 2: who is the father in law of Ding Ding Ding
20:27
Speaker 2: Alexander Hamilton. Wait for wait for wait, who's then the
20:31
Speaker 2: Secretary of the Treasury.
20:32
Speaker 1: Yes, and he wins. Burr wins the election, as any
20:36
Speaker 1: fan of Hamilton knows, and Hamilton takes this personally. Burr
20:41
Speaker 1: runs for vice president in seventeen ninety six. He loses.
20:45
Speaker 1: You can read a lot about the US presidential elections,
20:49
Speaker 1: by the way, especially the election of eighteen hundred on
20:51
Speaker 1: Encyclopedia Virginia dot org. It's well worth the time. We're
20:55
Speaker 1: getting to that election in just a second. Here's what
20:58
Speaker 1: you need to know. Bur runs for vice president in
21:02
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety six. He loses. Ah boo. He kind of
21:08
Speaker 1: snowballs for him for a second.
21:10
Speaker 2: He doesn't go theme with this guy.
21:12
Speaker 1: He doesn't get re elected to the Senate. He loses
21:15
Speaker 1: to Shyler, and he spends the next two years deep
21:18
Speaker 1: in state politics, all the way until the eighteen hundred election.
21:25
Speaker 1: It's a grudge match. This is back when if you
21:29
Speaker 1: ran for president and you got second place, you would
21:32
Speaker 1: be the vice president to your basically your mortal enemy.
21:36
Speaker 1: So there's a rematch between Adams and Jefferson and they
21:42
Speaker 1: and they don't want to be in a situation where
21:44
Speaker 1: Jefferson is Adams VP. So the parties try to say,
21:49
Speaker 1: all of our teams, all of our electors. He got
21:52
Speaker 1: to be on one page, we got to be unified.
21:55
Speaker 1: On the federalist side. Adams is going to run with
21:58
Speaker 1: Charles Coatsworth, Uh, not a superpower name. And Jefferson is
22:04
Speaker 1: going to be running with you guessed it, folks, Aaron Burr.
22:09
Speaker 1: Oh and there's no popular vote at this point.
22:11
Speaker 2: Oh fun, right, fun? Yeah? So can I jump in?
22:14
Speaker 2: Real quick?
22:15
Speaker 1: Jump?
22:15
Speaker 2: Jump on in. I don't think I've told you guys
22:18
Speaker 2: this story. I think I was saving it for this episode.
22:21
Speaker 3: No I'm not, but this this is so the wedding
22:25
Speaker 3: I went to a Michigan that I wore these lovely
22:27
Speaker 3: white pants. They look good, they looked on They're amazing,
22:29
Speaker 3: and pants labor damp and you ragged on me. Ben's like, oh,
22:34
Speaker 3: maximally wants to talk about the white pants because he
22:35
Speaker 3: wants us to notice that that.
22:36
Speaker 2: He's working out.
22:37
Speaker 3: I heard, I heard everything you guys said, including that
22:40
Speaker 3: entire concert going on behind you.
22:41
Speaker 1: Good and great work on that, by the way, of course,
22:44
Speaker 1: of course.
22:45
Speaker 3: But so where I was sleeping at my aunt's house,
22:47
Speaker 3: like it's it's like she moved in this house recently.
22:50
Speaker 3: It's got she needs to do a lot of work.
22:52
Speaker 3: But there's this painting hanging. So her husband's grandfather painted
22:57
Speaker 3: really weird things, and no one understands the things he painted,
22:59
Speaker 3: but hanging watching me sleep every night was a painting
23:02
Speaker 3: of Aaron Burr, and no one understands why he picked
23:06
Speaker 3: Aaron Burr. Ah, And my uncle Dave is a character.
23:09
Speaker 3: He is just like this, a classic amazing character. And
23:12
Speaker 3: so being a character, he won't let my ane Jennifer
23:15
Speaker 3: take it down, but she wants to burn it because
23:16
Speaker 3: he's like, Aaron Burr sucks and it's weird.
23:19
Speaker 2: He needs to get Aaron burned. Yeah, that's very weird.
23:25
Speaker 2: That's an odd one. Usually, if you're gonna have a
23:27
Speaker 2: political portrait hanging up on the wall and be a
23:30
Speaker 2: Jefferson or a Washington or a Lincoln. Aaron Burr is
23:33
Speaker 2: a little bit of an odd choice, as we'll get
23:36
Speaker 2: to quite soon.
23:37
Speaker 1: Why yes, yeah, and no sense in standing on ceremony.
23:44
Speaker 1: Let's let's dig in here. At this time. The state
23:47
Speaker 1: legislatures appoint electors men of letters and learning the idea
23:52
Speaker 1: went will surely make the most informed and most advantageous
23:58
Speaker 1: or beneficial choice.
23:59
Speaker 2: So it's just like kind of an early form of
24:00
Speaker 2: the electoral college.
24:01
Speaker 1: Very similar, and also also it's intellectually fraudulent to pretend
24:06
Speaker 1: that that is the case. But the Democrats Republicans, that's
24:10
Speaker 1: Democrat dash Republicans sweep most of the South. They get
24:13
Speaker 1: all the electors from Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia,
24:18
Speaker 1: all the bits states, all the top ones, all the
24:21
Speaker 1: quality wines, all the smooth jazz. Adams is in contrast,
24:26
Speaker 1: he's doing very well in the Northeast. He gets all
24:29
Speaker 1: the votes from Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
24:33
Speaker 1: Rhode Island, Vermont. And because Burr is on the ticket
24:38
Speaker 1: and Burr is a New Yorker, Jefferson wins that state.
24:42
Speaker 1: If you look at the other states at the time, Carolina,
24:45
Speaker 1: the North Carolina, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, it's way more mixed.
24:50
Speaker 1: So the Federalists said, there might be a tie. We
24:53
Speaker 1: need to figure out, we need to figure out how
24:56
Speaker 1: to make sure that doesn't happen. No one wants a tie.
24:59
Speaker 1: Let's go to Rhode Island and we'll have one of
25:01
Speaker 1: our boys cast one vote for John Jay.
25:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. So all the Democratic Republican electors contrastingly cast their
25:11
Speaker 2: ballots for Jefferson and Burr. And since the electors couldn't
25:15
Speaker 2: indicate a presidential or vice presidential vote specifically, you just yeah.
25:23
Speaker 2: The result was a tie, and then the winner was
25:26
Speaker 2: going to be determined by a duel to the death.
25:29
Speaker 2: I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We'll get to that though. We'll
25:33
Speaker 2: get to that.
25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had. They eventually do get to some good dueling,
25:38
Speaker 1: as we'll see at this point, though the duel is
25:42
Speaker 1: a lot less physical and a lot more bureaucratic. Under
25:47
Speaker 1: the existing parliamentary rules that they applied, a tie had
25:51
Speaker 1: to be decided by the House of Representatives. Each of
25:54
Speaker 1: the sixteen states gets one vote per state. Problem being
25:59
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives is controlled by the lame duck
26:03
Speaker 1: federalist government. All the Federalists want to choose, in their mind,
26:07
Speaker 1: the lesser of two evils. They say, do you like Burr? No,
26:11
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't trust them, but he sure isn't Jefferson.
26:15
Speaker 1: And they're all like, yeah, beating here, Max. They're all like, yeah,
26:18
Speaker 1: that guy. Is it still the same way? Well, I
26:22
Speaker 1: feel like very similar. It seems like the electric cars,
26:25
Speaker 1: but there are there's a lot more work going on
26:30
Speaker 1: behind the scenes to prevent a tie.
26:31
Speaker 2: You know, right when we're talking all this stuff out loud,
26:34
Speaker 2: it sure sounds a hell of a lot like casino rules,
26:37
Speaker 2: you know, or rules from some for some esoteric you know,
26:40
Speaker 2: card game.
26:41
Speaker 1: Wait till we get to the double dout.
26:42
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's wild man. Sorry, I'm damaged from Vegas.
26:46
Speaker 2: Never be the same. So voting in the House of
26:49
Speaker 2: Representatives starts on February eleventh of eighteen oh one, and
26:52
Speaker 2: on the very first ballot, Jefferson wins as the choice
26:55
Speaker 2: of eight of the states, while Burr gets the support
26:58
Speaker 2: of six. So more than thirty additional votes are held
27:03
Speaker 2: over the next few days, with the same unfortunately tied results.
27:09
Speaker 2: A bit of a stemy kind of situation there Alas
27:12
Speaker 2: around thirty six ballots are then cast, with the Federalists
27:17
Speaker 2: and Marylyn and Vermont deciding to sit those out, giving
27:21
Speaker 2: those states to Jefferson, who is then elected with Burr
27:25
Speaker 2: as his VP on February seventeenth by a majority of
27:30
Speaker 2: ten states to four, and Delaware and South Carolina actually
27:34
Speaker 2: cast blank votes, which seems like what is that like a.
27:37
Speaker 1: Tight kind of a flex like they were very tarts
27:41
Speaker 1: at that point, you know it was it was a
27:43
Speaker 1: message about the dangers of government overreach.
27:47
Speaker 2: They're just being petty, right.
27:49
Speaker 1: No, they're being artistic, petty artistic, petty artistic.
27:53
Speaker 2: I'm going to cut you out.
27:54
Speaker 3: He he says, this going to be being petty, artistic, artistic, artistical,
27:58
Speaker 3: great power expensive, yeah.
28:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, on your side.
28:06
Speaker 2: You stole the wrong radio. This star.
28:08
Speaker 1: That's a reference for just a few people them. You
28:13
Speaker 1: know what what is not from Hamilton? Yes, in Max's
28:18
Speaker 1: defense as well, it is clearly a It is clearly
28:23
Speaker 1: a protest vote. It's clearly being the people who say, well,
28:27
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do anything, you know what I mean.
28:30
Speaker 1: It is somewhat petulant, but they probably felt they had
28:33
Speaker 1: no other option this election. Just the massive poop show
28:38
Speaker 1: of this whole thing is the origin point, the catalyst
28:43
Speaker 1: for the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in eighteen oh four.
28:47
Speaker 1: The Twelfth Amendment says, all right, electors, you're still voting,
28:52
Speaker 1: but you're casting separate ballots for president and vice president
28:56
Speaker 1: because those blank votes were just ridiculous. You guys were
29:00
Speaker 1: own ups. We're starting a new country. Anyway, We've got
29:11
Speaker 1: to get to the duel. And on the way to
29:13
Speaker 1: the duel, it is important to note that Burr was
29:18
Speaker 1: not a bad vice president. He had good judgment. Thomas Jefferson,
29:22
Speaker 1: like many many other people, did not trust Burr and said,
29:27
Speaker 1: keep that guy out of the White House politics, don't
29:30
Speaker 1: let him do his job.
29:31
Speaker 2: His story thus far seems to be one of pretty
29:34
Speaker 2: great competence. At the very least. You know, he was
29:38
Speaker 2: a smart guy. He was a brave guy, it would seem,
29:41
Speaker 2: you know, I.
29:42
Speaker 3: Will say, when it comes to researching Burr, it's interesting,
29:44
Speaker 3: at least from the sources I've found, ye was it's
29:47
Speaker 3: either all the way to like, hey, Aaron Burr was
29:49
Speaker 3: actually a very important person. To Hey, Aaron Burr was
29:52
Speaker 3: crazy there's no middle ground. It's really interesting, if weird
29:56
Speaker 3: of his story. But I mean it's like one of
29:58
Speaker 3: these things that you know, history is written with. It
30:00
Speaker 3: is sure, and we all kind of know where the
30:04
Speaker 3: story someone ends, and then when he continues to end
30:07
Speaker 3: further and further on, it's wilder and wilder. But it's
30:09
Speaker 3: it's interesting because, yeah, it looks like he was just
30:12
Speaker 3: gonna be in that list of people like founding fathers.
30:15
Speaker 3: This guy's very famous and awesome and successful.
30:17
Speaker 1: There is a Venn diagram between greatness and insanity. However,
30:21
Speaker 1: I would argue that many, many great people have a
30:25
Speaker 1: much higher likelihood of being what we would consider insane,
30:29
Speaker 1: but still touched. To be that ambitious totally, you have
30:32
Speaker 1: to you have to be able to envision that kind
30:35
Speaker 1: of larger than life pursuit for yourself, which means you
30:38
Speaker 1: basically hallucinate your way into success.
30:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then you've all depending on the outcome that
30:45
Speaker 2: can even be described as ambition or delusions of grandeur.
30:48
Speaker 2: You know, no one ever says someone who wins and
30:51
Speaker 2: does a good job and goes down in history had
30:54
Speaker 2: delusions of grandeur. No, it was just grandeur, and there
30:56
Speaker 2: were no delusions. They call it ambition, even if they
31:00
Speaker 2: have to step on a few toes, you know, to
31:02
Speaker 2: to break the eggs that make the omelet. That's how
31:04
Speaker 2: that expression goes.
31:05
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, you led the figure of speech to water
31:09
Speaker 1: that might drink waterboard. That's terrible. Adult waterboard yourselves, folks.
31:15
Speaker 1: It's not as fun as it sounds. And Burr is
31:20
Speaker 1: now part of a power divide.
31:22
Speaker 2: Right.
31:22
Speaker 1: Jefferson says, I don't like this guy. Keep him out
31:25
Speaker 1: of a white house, you know what I mean, Make
31:27
Speaker 1: him eat lunch in the back. And and Burr says,
31:29
Speaker 1: I'm going to run the Senate. And he's pretty good
31:32
Speaker 1: at it. He's a good he's a good diplomat. He
31:37
Speaker 1: plays the game of houses or dos de mars, they
31:40
Speaker 1: call it a wheel of time. He plays this very well.
31:43
Speaker 1: And he's able to grow people, to incentivize or disincentivize them.
31:49
Speaker 1: There's an impeachment trial that comes up for a justice, federalist,
31:54
Speaker 1: Justice Samuel Chase. This was back when bad justices, even
32:00
Speaker 1: court justices, could get in trouble.
32:03
Speaker 2: Those are the days, huh. Now they're bulletproof. I gotta
32:06
Speaker 2: add a really stupid aside. We've been talking about how
32:09
Speaker 2: you know, the Aaron, our boy Aaron ended up in
32:12
Speaker 2: some pretty chilly situations with the snow you know, where
32:16
Speaker 2: he had to potentially carry the body of his commanding officer,
32:20
Speaker 2: but it was too snowy, and then there was another
32:22
Speaker 2: snowy condition. His last name is Burr.
32:31
Speaker 1: That's worth it. And and he's bird. And it's weird
32:36
Speaker 1: too because he doesn't have a middle name, huh, or
32:41
Speaker 1: at least that we know of us history.
32:44
Speaker 2: But Jefferson has he has grown tired of this this Shenanigans,
32:49
Speaker 2: this power you know, these power hungry vultures of the judiciary,
32:54
Speaker 2: and he decided to try to limit Federalist influence on
32:59
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court by kicking Samuel Chase to the curb.
33:03
Speaker 2: And in order to do that, he had to exploit
33:05
Speaker 2: some of this gentleman's earlier shortcomings. Sure that were of
33:09
Speaker 2: course on the record. After the House voted to impeach Chase,
33:14
Speaker 2: get him out of here, get him gone. His impeachment
33:16
Speaker 2: was of course supposed to be decided by the Senate
33:20
Speaker 2: and then presided over by the VP, our guy Burb.
33:24
Speaker 1: And so Jefferson comes in in the background and he's like, look,
33:28
Speaker 1: I don't love you. You don't love me, but we
33:32
Speaker 1: are trying to be on the same team. Do me
33:35
Speaker 1: a solid here. Get this friggin sam guy out of office.
33:41
Speaker 1: And Burr says, you know, I hear you. And when
33:44
Speaker 1: people say I hear you, that means they acknowledge that
33:46
Speaker 1: you're speaking and they're not going to do squat. So
33:50
Speaker 1: he says, I hear you. But then he handles the
33:53
Speaker 1: case as judiciously as possible, and a newspaper that all
33:59
Speaker 1: read he kind of was beefed up with. Burr says
34:02
Speaker 1: the following he conducted the hearings with the dignity and
34:05
Speaker 1: impartiality of an angel, but with the rigor of a devil.
34:09
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, all right, so because of his impartiality, a
34:15
Speaker 2: Democratic Republican majority let chase off the hook. So this
34:23
Speaker 2: didn't sit well with Jefferson. Let's just say, yeah, but
34:26
Speaker 2: it did. I mean it was a success for Burr
34:29
Speaker 2: in that he made it happen, yes, but politically speaking,
34:34
Speaker 2: was probably not a smart move. I wonder what his
34:36
Speaker 2: calculations were. Why did he not see the forest for
34:39
Speaker 2: the trees and the Jefferson was going to be an
34:41
Speaker 2: important man? Did he think it was okay to piss
34:43
Speaker 2: him off because he wasn't going places. That seems like
34:46
Speaker 2: a miscalculation, right, Yeah, he was.
34:49
Speaker 1: Burr was very much a calculated dude, and if we
34:51
Speaker 1: had to guess his impetus or his reasoning was something like,
34:56
Speaker 1: I will prove that even to my political enemies, everyone
35:00
Speaker 1: gets a fair shot, which I'm.
35:02
Speaker 2: A man of Princeable.
35:03
Speaker 1: That's how it is supposed to work. It is, And
35:06
Speaker 1: Jefferson was like, heck, no, we're breaking up.
35:09
Speaker 2: That's right. And you can almost argue that Jefferson was
35:11
Speaker 2: being a little shady by saying ram it through what No,
35:15
Speaker 2: So that's you know, Okay, this is very interesting. So
35:19
Speaker 2: you know again, according to Aaron Burr's biography, this victory
35:22
Speaker 2: would kind of be Burr's last, at the very least
35:27
Speaker 2: last successful political maneuver.
35:29
Speaker 1: His last big ten to item. Yeah, because after this trial,
35:32
Speaker 1: Chase gets off and goes on his merry way. Just
35:35
Speaker 1: the scene round the land and Thomas Jefferson says, hear me,
35:40
Speaker 1: and hear me now, Aaron Burr will not be my
35:44
Speaker 1: running mate in the election of eighteen oh four. And
35:46
Speaker 1: they say, well, who's it going to be, mister Jefferson?
35:48
Speaker 1: And he goes, I don't care. And at the same point, concurrently,
35:54
Speaker 1: while Burr's navigating the halls of power, he is increasingly
35:58
Speaker 1: beefed up with his long time friend of Alexander Hamilton,
36:02
Speaker 1: and they are sniping each other back and forth. So
36:06
Speaker 1: there's not really a Twitter, right, there are just zines
36:10
Speaker 1: and there are broadsheets, publications, stuff like that. So these
36:14
Speaker 1: guys are firing shots at each other in the public sphere,
36:18
Speaker 1: in the world of print, and then in the world
36:19
Speaker 1: of oration all the time. In eighteen hundred, Burr publishes
36:24
Speaker 1: something called the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams esquile,
36:29
Speaker 1: President of the United States. This document is very, very
36:33
Speaker 1: critical of Adams because Adams is a Federalist, and Burr
36:38
Speaker 1: did not write this. By the way he obtained it,
36:42
Speaker 1: he purchased and published it. The author was Hamilton, and
36:47
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton is saying, Aaron abam bro I meant that
36:53
Speaker 1: for just us, this isn't supposed to go out to
36:57
Speaker 1: the whole town. I'm not supposed to go out to
37:00
Speaker 1: everyone in America who can read. And then Burr probably said, well,
37:04
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's like not a lot of people can.
37:06
Speaker 2: Read It's like the historical equivalent of copying the wrong
37:10
Speaker 2: people on an email where you're trash talking said people.
37:13
Speaker 1: And he did it on purpose.
37:14
Speaker 2: He did it not Yeah, it was the accidental text
37:16
Speaker 2: on purpose. Yeah, from Curb Yesody exactly.
37:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:19
Speaker 2: Episode.
37:20
Speaker 1: So this was very embarrassing to Hamilton, injured some of
37:25
Speaker 1: his relationships and networking. And then still then they they
37:30
Speaker 1: did not fight yet. There's just more and more tension, right,
37:34
Speaker 1: and the New York Governor's race occurs in eighteen oh four.
37:38
Speaker 1: This is when things get How did Olivia and John
37:42
Speaker 1: put it? Yeah, this is when things get physical.
37:45
Speaker 2: It was like trying to try to place that. I
37:48
Speaker 2: guess I think of her as in Greece, is it
37:51
Speaker 2: she is the one? Like Yeah, that was more like her. Yeah,
37:54
Speaker 2: that was like her kind of later like disco solo
37:56
Speaker 2: music careering as I just always think of her as
37:59
Speaker 2: as you know, in the Bobby socks and the poodle
38:02
Speaker 2: skirt and all of that stuff. But yeah, Burr thought
38:04
Speaker 2: that if he won in eighteen o four the New
38:07
Speaker 2: York Governor's race, that he could kind of rest back
38:11
Speaker 2: some of the power and some of the clout that
38:13
Speaker 2: he had lost in you know, crossing Jefferson right, And
38:18
Speaker 2: also obviously this accidental text on purpose didn't really bode
38:22
Speaker 2: well for him either, because these men Jefferson and Hamilton
38:25
Speaker 2: are very quickly well Jefferson already of course, but very quickly,
38:30
Speaker 2: you know, big leaguing Burr.
38:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Burr says, forget you, guys. I'm running as
38:37
Speaker 1: an independent, and if I win, if I can pull
38:41
Speaker 1: this off, then it's a whole new town baby, and
38:46
Speaker 1: Burr will be back in business. So it's a risk,
38:50
Speaker 1: it is a calculation, it's a heck of a gamble.
38:53
Speaker 1: And Hamilton is laying awake at night terrified about this idea. Oh,
39:00
Speaker 1: BurrH is in charge of New York. He's gonna ruin
39:03
Speaker 1: the whole thing at this point in my life, he
39:06
Speaker 1: says to himself, I despise and mistrust and hate Aaron Burr.
39:12
Speaker 1: He's a Burr in the shoe of America. And Hamilton
39:16
Speaker 1: tries to convince the Federalist in New York not to
39:19
Speaker 1: support Burr at all in any shape, form or fashion.
39:23
Speaker 1: He wasn't the main person who shut down the election,
39:26
Speaker 1: but he probably didn't help. And so Burr's campaign to
39:29
Speaker 1: be governor of New York fails.
39:30
Speaker 2: Do you think there was a generalized mistrust of birth
39:33
Speaker 2: this far because he seemed to be a bit of
39:35
Speaker 2: a double dealer, a bit of a you know.
39:37
Speaker 1: Two faced well maybe not two faced, but one hundred
39:41
Speaker 1: percent he was. I mean, not for nothing. Is there
39:44
Speaker 1: that talk less, smile more part in Hamilton? And I
39:47
Speaker 1: think you probably.
39:48
Speaker 2: Watched that part, right might I not? Can't recle Okay,
39:51
Speaker 2: well it's a good point. I neither conf there we go.
39:54
Speaker 1: And he was one of those guys. He was neither
39:56
Speaker 1: confirmed nor denied, dude. And that even when and you're
40:00
Speaker 1: behaving with principle, that means people are going to have
40:03
Speaker 1: a trust deficit with you. The winner of the election
40:06
Speaker 1: is Morgan Lewis, the New York Republican candidate. He is
40:10
Speaker 1: supported by George and de Witt Clinton, who, despite the
40:15
Speaker 1: name being de Witt, which feels very Appellachian to me,
40:17
Speaker 1: I can say it, it does. De Witt is one
40:20
Speaker 1: of the most powerful Republicans in New York.
40:23
Speaker 2: And they crush Yeah.
40:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to do like a dive into the
40:29
Speaker 3: to the New York Clinton family, because they're like one
40:32
Speaker 3: of the kind of like almost mob style families.
40:35
Speaker 2: In early America.
40:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we don't talk about but they controlled a
40:40
Speaker 3: lot of this country.
40:41
Speaker 1: And it's funny because they don't show up in a
40:44
Speaker 1: lot of national level grade school textbooks. You have to
40:49
Speaker 1: be from, you know, that specific part of the.
40:52
Speaker 2: Country, about the one with the building and the road
40:55
Speaker 2: named after them, you know, with the endowments. And it
40:59
Speaker 2: is funny though, like you exactly when you know, I
41:03
Speaker 2: was in Detroit recent then you probably can think of
41:05
Speaker 2: some of these names. Max. There were some buildings that
41:08
Speaker 2: were named after some people that were obviously very well
41:12
Speaker 2: known in the politics and the history of that part
41:14
Speaker 2: of the country that I have absolutely no knowledge of,
41:17
Speaker 2: and some really fun Midwestern East sounding names.
41:21
Speaker 1: Aaron Burr, you were going to rue the day you
41:24
Speaker 1: crossed the Clinton exactly. I'm sure that's how that patrician sounded. Yeah, this,
41:31
Speaker 1: this battle for New York is bad and on some level, Burr,
41:35
Speaker 1: despite his own miscalculations and his own warts and imperfections
41:40
Speaker 1: and ugly bumps of her career, he says, Hamilton is
41:48
Speaker 1: one of the big reasons I lost this election. Hold
41:51
Speaker 1: the phone. We are going to make this a two parter,
41:56
Speaker 1: which we discussed earlier in advance Illo.
41:58
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm doing.
42:00
Speaker 1: You're doing. We're not going to throw away a shot
42:02
Speaker 1: on the British accent.
42:03
Speaker 2: We shouldn't, we should, We never should, although there will
42:05
Speaker 2: come a point where one of our characters does have
42:08
Speaker 2: to run away to England and potentially adopt a fake
42:11
Speaker 2: British accent.
42:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that actually happens more than once in this series.
42:15
Speaker 1: So thank you as always for tuning in. Please join
42:19
Speaker 1: us Thursday for part two of Aaron Burr America's Drunk Uncle.
42:24
Speaker 2: We'll see next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
42:34
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
42:37
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.