The Burr Conspiracy

The Burr Conspiracy
Author: James E. Lewis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 726
Release: 2019-06-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0691191557

A multifaceted portrait of the early American republic as examined through the lens of the Burr Conspiracy explores the political and cultural forces that influenced public perception and how in spite of vague and conflicting evidence, the former Vice President was arrested and tried for treason. --Publisher.

Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr
Author: Buckner F. Melton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2001-11-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 047139209X

To shed new light on the conspiracy itself and on what led Burr to orchestrate it, Professor Melton traces Burr's career - from his early days as a New York attorney to his cunning political maneuverings, from his decades-long feud with chief rival Alexander Hamilton to his complex relationships with the other Founding Fathers, especially with Thomas Jefferson and his coconspirator, General James Wilkinson, Commander of the United States forces in the West.

The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr

The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr
Author: R. Kent Newmyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2012-09-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1107022185

The Burr trial pitted Marshall, Jefferson and Burr in a dramatic three-way contest that left a permanent mark on the new nation.

The Treason Trials of Aaron Burr

The Treason Trials of Aaron Burr
Author: Peter Charles Hoffer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

"Aaron Burr was an enigma even in his own day. Founding Father and vice president, he engaged in a duel with Alexander Hamilton, resulting in a murder indictment that effectively ended his legal career. And when he turned his attention to entrepreneurial activities on the frontier he was suspected of empire building - and worse." "In the first book dedicated to this important case, Peter Charles Hoffer unveils a cast of characters ensnared by politics and law at the highest levels of government, including President Thomas Jefferson - one of Burr's bitterest enemies - and Chief Justice John Marshall, no fan of either Burr or Jefferson. Hoffer recounts how Jefferson's prosecutors argued that the mere act of discussing an "overt Act of War" - the constitution's definition of treason - was tantamount to committing the act. Marshall, however, ruled that without the overt act, no treasonable action had occurred and neither discussion nor conspiracy could be prosecuted. Subsequent attempts to convict Burr on violations of the Neutrality Act failed as well."--BOOK JACKET.

The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr

The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr
Author: H. W. Brands
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307743284

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War—a fascinating portrait of one of the most compelling politicians in American history—a Revolutionary War hero, vice president of the United States, and the man who killed Alexander Hamilton. But as H. W. Brands demonstrates in this biography, Burr was a man before his time—a proponent of equality between the sexes well over a century before women were able to vote in the US. Through Burr's extensive, witty correspondence with his daughter Theodosia, Brands traces the arc of a scandalous political career and the early years of American politics. The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr not only dramatizes through their words his eventful life, it also tells a touching story of a father's love for his exceptional daughter, which endured through public shame, bankruptcy, and exile, and outlasted even Theodosia's tragic disappearance at sea.

Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson

Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson
Author: Roger G. Kennedy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2000-09-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199728224

This book restores Aaron Burr to his place as a central figure in the founding of the American Republic. Abolitionist, proto-feminist, friend to such Indian leaders as Joseph Brant, Burr was personally acquainted with a wider range of Americans, and of the American continent, than any other Founder except George Washington. He contested for power with Hamilton and then with Jefferson on a continental scale. The book does not sentimentalize any of its three protagonists, neither does it derogate their extraordinary qualities. They were all great men, all flawed, and all three failed to achieve their full aspirations. But their struggles make for an epic tale. Written from the perspective of a historian and administrator who, over nearly fifty years in public life, has served six presidents, this book penetrates into the personal qualities of its three central figures. In telling the tale of their shifting power relationships and their antipathies, it reassesses their policies and the consequences of their successes and failures. Fresh information about the careers of Hamilton and Burr is derived from newly-discovered sources, and a supporting cast of secondary figures emerges to give depth and irony to the principal narrative. This is a book for people who know how political life is lived, and who refuse to be confined within preconceptions and prejudices until they have weighed all the evidence, to reach their own conclusions both as to events and character. This is a controversial book, but not a confrontational one, for it is written with sympathy for men of high aspirations, who were disappointed in much, but who succeeded, in all three cases, to a degree not hitherto fully understood.

Burr

Burr
Author: Gore Vidal
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2011-08-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307798410

For readers who can’t get enough of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton,Gore Vidal’s stunning novel about Aaron Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel—and who served as a successful, if often feared, statesman of our fledgling nation. Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated—and misunderstood—figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist named Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler. Together, they explore both Burr's past—and the continuing civic drama of their young nation. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series, which spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to post-World War II. With their broad canvas and sprawling cast of fictional and historical characters, these novels present a panorama of American politics and imperialism, as interpreted by one of our most incisive and ironic observers.

Zebulon Pike, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

Zebulon Pike, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
Author: Matthew L. Harris
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2012-11-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806188448

In life and in death, fame and glory eluded Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779–1813). The ambitious young military officer and explorer, best known for a mountain peak that he neither scaled nor named, was destined to live in the shadows of more famous contemporaries—explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This collection of thought-provoking essays rescues Pike from his undeserved obscurity. It does so by providing a nuanced assessment of Pike and his actions within the larger context of American imperial ambition in the time of Jefferson. Pike’s accomplishments as an explorer and mapmaker and as a soldier during the War of 1812 has been tainted by his alleged connection to Aaron Burr’s conspiracy to separate the trans-Appalachian region from the United States. For two hundred years historians have debated whether Pike was an explorer or a spy, whether he knew about the Burr Conspiracy or was just a loyal foot soldier. This book moves beyond that controversy to offer new scholarly perspectives on Pike’s career. The essayists—all prominent historians of the American West—examine Pike’s expeditions and writings, which provided an image of the Southwest that would shape American culture for decades. John Logan Allen explores Pike’s contributions to science and cartography; James P. Ronda and Leo E. Oliva address his relationships with Native peoples and Spanish officials; Jay H. Buckley chronicles Pike’s life and compares Pike to other Jeffersonian explorers; Jared Orsi discusses the impact of his expeditions on the environment; and William E. Foley examines his role in Burr’s conspiracy. Together the essays assess Pike’s accomplishments and shortcomings as an explorer, soldier, empire builder, and family man. Pike’s 1810 journals and maps gave Americans an important glimpse of the headwaters of the Mississippi and the southwestern borderlands, and his account of the opportunities for trade between the Mississippi Valley and New Mexico offered a blueprint for the Santa Fe Trail. This volume is the first in more than a generation to offer new scholarly perspectives on the career of an overlooked figure in the opening of the American West.

The Pioneers

The Pioneers
Author: David McCullough
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501168681

The #1 New York Times bestseller by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story that’s “as resonant today as ever” (The Wall Street Journal)—the settling of the Northwest Territory by courageous pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would define our country. As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires, wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough’s subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them. Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. This is a revelatory and quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough’s signature narrative energy.