Aaron Burr

• Vice President to:       Thomas Jefferson - Democratic-Republican, from Virginia.
  
  
• Dates Served: Burr served as Vice President from 1801 - 1805.
  
• Political Party: Burr was a Democratic-Republican, from New York.
  
• Born: 1756.
  
• Died: 1836, at the age of 80.
  
• The presidential opponents during the 1800 campaign were:
  
  
  • John Adams - Federalist - Incumbant President
    
    
  • Thomas Jefferson - Democratic-Republican - Incumbant Vice President
    
    
• Campaign issues in 1800:
  
  
  • Much the same as the previous campaign, a strong Central Government vs. power shared by the States. This campaign was more personal, however, with the Federalists's campaign slogan being "God and a religious President, or Jefferson and no God". Adams lost this time, by a wider Electoral margin than his previous victory. Jefferson called it "the second American Revolution".
    
    
  
  
• Notable Facts about Aaron Burr:
  
  
  • Religious affiliation: Aaron Burr was raised in a Presbyterian household, and his father was a Presbyterian minister. As a young adult he briefly considered studying theology, but soon changed his mind and sold his soul to practice Law. As an adult, religion appeared to be the least of his concerns. On his deathbed he was offered, but refused, Communion.
    
    
  • Burr was orphaned as an infant and was raised by his uncle.
    
    
  • Burr studied law briefly before serving with distinction as an officer in the Revolutionary War.
    
    
  • After the war he returned to his law practice briefly before entering politics, being elected to the US Senate, representing New York from 1791 - 1797.
    
    
  • He ran with Jefferson in the Presidential campaign in 1800 due to him being a strong member of the same Party, the Democratic-Republicans.
    
    
  • During the Presidential campaign in 1800 Burr and Jefferson both got an equal number of Electoral votes for President, even though Burr had been running for Vice President. He refused to concede the election to Jefferson, so it went to the House of Representatives for a vote. Jefferson won only after the House voted on it 36 times. It made for a strained relationship with Jefferson during Burr's Vice Presidency.
    
    
  • Since Burr and Jefferson didn't exactly get along cozily, Burr was dumped during Jefferson's re-election campaign, being replaced by George Clinton. So Burr decided to run for Governor of New York against Alexander Hamilton, but lost.
    
    
  • During the New York campaign, Alexander Hamilton insulted Burr's character in a speech so Burr, naturally, challenged him to a duel. They met in Weehawken, New Jersey on July 11, 1804, faced off with their shiny new dueling pistols, and Burr ended up killing Hamilton. Burr was charged with murder as a result of the duel, (since, at the time, dueling was usually a verbal sparring and a ritualistic exchange of angry letters, rarely reaching the point of actual trigger-pulling) but he was at the time still Vice President. After initially fleeing south, he secretly returned to Washington DC and resumed his Vice Presidential duties presiding over the Senate. He was safe there since none of the states had any jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. The charges were eventually dropped.
    
    
  • After his trial, Burr fled New York and spent several years wandering around out West in the Louisiana Territory, then being governed by Spain in lieu of France. During this time, and probably while he was still Vice President under Jefferson, Burr devised a plan whereby he would raise up an insurrection and incite a war with Spain, attack Mexico, seize the Louisiana Territory, and drive the Spanish out of Florida. He would then declare the Louisiana Territory an independent nation with himself as its president.
    
    However, he was betrayed by one of his co-conspirators who squealed, and Burr was arrested in 1807 while leading a group of followers down the Mississippi river. He was tried for treason and during his trial he called on Thomas Jefferson as a witness in his defense. But Jefferson declined, being the first President to invoke the "executive privilege". Burr was found not guilty, due to the conclusion that there weren't enough witnesses in court to convince the jury that Burr had actually planned any "overtly treasonous" acts. (The law required 2 witnesses, and the prosecutors could only find one who would talk).
    
    
  • He spent the next several years in self-imposed exile in Europe, and returned to New York in 1812 where he opened a law practice. Shortly after returning he got re-married, to an ex-prostitute who was rumored to have been one of the richest women in America at the time. However she eventually divorced him, under the charge of adultery (his). The divorce became final on the day Burr died, age 80, alone and flat broke, living in a hotel on Staten Island, New York.
    

Notable events during his Vice Presidency:

• President Jefferson repealed Washington's federal tax on liquor shortly after taking office in 1800. He also let Adams' Alien and Sedition Act lapse without renewing it in 1800.
  
  
• Tripolitan War, 1801 - 1805. A confederation of sorts existed between privateers (a politically correct word for pirates) from Tripoli, Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. This jolly lot liked to spend much of their time harassing ships in the Mediterranean, looting the cargo from ships of any nations that didn't pay them annual tribute. The US payed their dues every year and on time, but in 1801 Tripoli raised their rates and demanded more money. Jefferson told them where to go, and as a result Tripoli declared war on America. Jefferson dispatched US Naval ships to the area but, given America's weak naval capabilities at the time, nothing much happened.
  
  Until one day in 1803, Tripolitan pirates seized the American ship "The Philadelphia", and used its guns to fire on other American ships. A force of US sailors went to the shores of Triploi, where The Philadelphia was being kept, and burned it down, making the pirates very upset. Jefferson then sent every available ship to the area and made life very uncomfortable for the pirates, until eventually in 1805 the pirates cried uncle and retracted their demands for tribute. The US did pay them $60,000 for the return of the crew from The Philadelphia, and continued to pay tribute money to the other remaining "Barbary States", until 1815 when they stopped for good.
  
  
• The first Comic Book is published, on July 7, 1802 by Robert Rusticoat in Hudson, New York. Title, "The Wasp".
  
  
• The Louisiana Purchase in 1803, where Jefferson bought the entire Louisiana Territory from the French for $15 million - almost all land between the Mississippi river and the Rocky Mountains - doubling the size of the nation.
  
  The purchase was the deal of a lifetime. Jefferson had originally intended on only trying to purchase New Orleans and west Florida, both of which were owned by France. But, at the time, France was being ruled by Napoleon, who was busy trying to take over the world. He was very un-neighborly, with his favorite hobby being impolitely invading neighboring countries and annexing them to France. He was also having trouble with some of France's Caribbean colonies, most notably their colony then known as San Domingue, soon to be renamed Haiti, which was in the midst of their own revolution.
  
  France hadn't done much with their territory in North America, beyond sending a small expedition of soldiers to the area only that previous year. However, most of these solidiers got sick and died shortly after arriving. Due to this, and due to the possibility that Haiti was about to win its revolutionary war with France, Napoleon decided that the Louisiana Territory wasn't worth owning without their colony San Domingue/Haiti to support it. So Napoleon decided to let Jefferson have the whole lot for the bargain price of $15 million, or just 3 cents per acre. As a result, farmers in Kansas today speak English instead of some American variant of French, like those people up there in Quebec.
  
  
• The Lewis & Clarke Expedition, from 1804 - 1806.
  
  
• Ohio was admitted into the Union, in 1803.
  
  
• The 12th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1804, which let Electors vote separately for President and Vice President, in response to the Jefferson/Burr tie-vote.