An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr

“I am not so young,” says he, to one who mentions him as in the morning of his years – “I am not so young but what I have commanded a brigade, sir, on a field of stricken battle. My rank was that of colonel! You will oblige me by remembering the title.”

In view of the gentleman’s tartness, it will be as well perhaps to hereafter drop the “young”; for no one likes to give offense. Besides, our tart gentleman is married, and a father. Still, “colonel” is but a word of pewter when no war is on. “Aaron” should do better; and escape challenge, too, that irritating “young” being dropped.

As Aaron runs his glance along the front of the town’s affairs, he notes that in commerce, fashion, politics, and one might almost say religion, the situation is dominated of a quartette of septs. There are the Livingstons – numerous, rich. There are the Clintons, of whom Governor Clinton is chief. There are the Jays, led by the Honorable John of that ilk. Most and greatest, there are the Schuylers, in the van of which tribe towers the sour, self-seeking, self-sufficient General Schuyler. Aaron, in the gossip of the coffee houses, hears much of General Schuyler. He hears more of that austere person’s son-in-law, the brilliant Alexander Hamilton.

“I shall be glad to make his acquaintance,” thinks Aaron, when he is told of the latter. “I met him after the battle of Long Island, when in his pale eagerness to escape the English he had left baggage and guns behind. Yes; I shall indeed be glad to see him. That such as he can come to eminence in the town possesses its encouraging side.”

There is a sneer on Aaron’s face as these thoughts run in his mind; those praises of son-in-law Hamilton have vaguely angered his selflove.

Aaron’s opportunity to meet and make the young ex-artilleryman’s acquaintance, is not long in coming. The Tories, whom the war stripped of their property and civil rights, are praying for relief. A conference of the town’s notables has been called; the local great ones are to come together in the long-room of the Fraunces Tavern. Being together, they will consider how far a decent Americanism may unbend toward Tory relief.

Aaron arrives early; for the Fraunces long-room is his favorite lounge. The big apartment has witnessed no changes since a day when poor Peggy Moncrieffe, as the modern Ariadne, wept on her near-by Naxos of Staten Island, while a forgetful Theseus, in that same longroom, tasted his wine unmoved. Aaron is at a corner table with Colonel Troup, when son-in-law Hamilton arrives.

“That is he,” says Colonel Troup, for they have been talking of the gentleman.

Already nosing a rival, Aaron regards the newcomer with a curious black narrowness which has little of liking in it. Son-in-law Hamilton is a short, slim, dapper figure of a man, as short and slim as is Aaron himself. His hair is clubbed into an elaborate cue, and profusely powdered. He wears a blue coat with bright buttons, a white vest, a forest of ruffles, black velvet smalls, white silk stockings, and conventional buckled shoes.

It is not his clothes, but his countenance to which Aaron addresses his most searching glances. The forehead is good and full, and rife of suggestion. The eyes are quick, bright, selfish, unreliable, prone to look one way while the plausible tongue talks another. As for the face generally: fresh, full, sensual, brisk, it is the face of a flatterer and a politician, the face of one who will seek his ends by nearest methods, and never mind if they be muddy. Also, there is much that is lurking and secret about the expression, which recalls the slanderer and backbiter, who will be ever ready to serve himself by lies whispered in the dark.

Son-in-law Hamilton does not see Aaron and Colonel Troup, and goes straight to a group the long length of the room away. Taking a seat, he at once leads the conversation of the circle he has joined, speaking in a loud, confident tone, with the manner of one who regards his own position as impregnable, and his word decisive of whatever question is discussed. The pompous, self-consequence of son-in-law Hamilton arouses the dander of Aaron. Nor is the latter’s wrath the less, when he discovers that General Schuyler’s self-satisfied young relative thinks the suppliant Tories should be listened to, as folk overharshly dealt with.

As Aaron considers son-in-law Hamilton, and decides unfavorably concerning that young gentleman’s bumptiousness and pert forwardness, the company is rapped to order by General Schuyler himself. Lean, rusty, arrogant, supercilious, the general explains that he has been asked to preside. Being established in the chair, he announces in a rasping, dictatorial voice the liberal objects of the coming together. He submits that the Tories have been unjustly treated. It was, he says, but natural they should adhere to King George. The war being over, and King George beaten, he does not believe it the part of either a Christian or a patriot to hold hatred against them. These same Tories are still Americans. Their names are among the highest in the city. Before the Revolution they were one and all of a first respectability, many with pews in Trinity. Now when freedom has won its battle, he feels that the victors should let bygones be bygones, and restore the Tories, in property and station, to a place which they occupied before that pregnant Philadelphia Fourth of July in 1776.

All this and more to similar effect the austere, rusty Schuyler rasps forth. When he closes, a profound silence succeeds; for there is no one who does not know the Schuyler power, or believe that the rasping word of the rusty old general is equal to marring or furthering the fortunes of every soul in the room.

The pause is at last broken by Aaron. Self-possessed, steady, his remarks are brief but pointed. He combats at every corner what the rusty general has been pleased to advance. The Tories were traitors. They were worse than the English. It was they who set the Indians on our borders to torch and tomahawk and scalping knife. They have been most liberally, most mercifully dealt with, when they are permitted to go unhanged. As for restoring their forfeited estates, or permitting them any civil share in a government which they did their best to strangle in its cradle, the thought is preposterous. They may have been “respectable,” as General Schuyler states; if so, the respectability was spurious – a mere hypocritical cover for souls reeking of vileness. They may have had pews in Trinity. There are ones who, wanting pews in Trinity, still hope to make their worldly foothold good, and save their souls at last.

As Aaron takes his seat by Colonel Troup, a murmur of guarded agreement runs through the company. Many are the looks of surprised admiration cast in his young direction. Truly, the newcomer has made a stir.

Not that his stir-making is to go unopposed. No sooner is Aaron in his chair, than son-in-law Hamilton is upon him verbally; even while those approving ones are admiringly buzzing, he begins to talk. His tones are high and patronizing, his manner condescending. He speaks to Aaron direct, and not to the audience. He will do his best, he explains, to be tolerant, for he has heard that Aaron is new to the town. None the less, he must ask that daring person to bear his newness more in mind. He himself, he says, cannot escape the feeling that one who is no better than a stranger, an interloper, might with a nice propriety remain silent on occasions such as this. Son-in-law Hamilton ends by declaring that the position taken by Aaron, on this subject of Tories and what shall be their rights, is un-American. He, himself, has fought for the Revolution; but, now it is ended, he holds that gentlemen of honor and liberality will not be guided by the ugly clamor of partisans, who would make the unending punishment of Tories a virtue and call it patriotism. He fears that Aaron misunderstands the sentiment of those among whom he has pitched his tent, congratulates him on a youth that offers an excuse for the rashness of his expressions, and hopes that he may live to gain a better wisdom. Son-in-law Hamilton does himself proud, and the rusty old general erects his pleased crest, to find himself so handsomely defended.

The rusty general exhibits both surprise and anger, when the rebuked Aaron again signifies a desire to be heard. This time Aaron, following that orator’s example, – talks not to the audience but son-in-law Hamilton himself.

“Our friend,” says Aaron, “reminds me that I am young in years; and I think this the more generous on his part, since I have seen quite as many years as has he himself. He calls attention to the battle-battered share he took in securing the liberties of this country; and, while I hold him better qualified to win laurels as a son-in-law than as a soldier, I concede him the credit he claims. I myself have been a soldier, and while serving as such was so fortunate as to meet our friend. He does not remember the meeting. Nor do I blame him; for it was upon a day when he had forgotten his baggage, forgotten one of his guns, forgotten everything, in truth, save the English behind him, and I should be much too vain if I supposed that, under such forgetful circumstances, he would remember me. As to my newness in the town, and that crippled Americanism wherewith he charges me, I have little to say. I got no one’s consent to come here; I shall ask no one’s permission to stay. Doubtless I would have been more within a fashion had I gone with both questions to the gentleman, or to his celebrated father-in-law, who presides here today. These errors, however, I shall abide by. Also, I shall content myself with an Americanism which, though it possess none of those sunburned, West Indian advantages so strikingly illustrated in the gentleman, may at least congratulate itself upon being two hundred years old.”

Having returned upon the self-sufficient head of son-in-law Hamilton those courtesies which the latter lavished upon him, Aaron proceeds to voice again, but with more vigorous emphasis, the anti-Tory sentiments he has earlier expressed. When he ceases speaking there is no applause, nothing save a dead stillness; for all who have heard feel that a feud has been born – a Burr-Schuyler-Hamilton feud, and are prudently inclined to await its development before pronouncing for either side. The feeling, however, would seem to follow the lead of Aaron; for the resolution smelling of leniency toward Tories is laid upon the table.

CHAPTER X – THAT SEAT IN THE SENATE

WHILE Aaron, frostily contemptuous, but with manners as superfine as his ruffles, is saying those knife-thrust things to son-in-law Hamilton, that latter young gentleman’s face is a study in black and red. His expression is a composite of rage colored of fear. The defiance of Aaron is so full, so frank, that it seems studied. Son-in-law Hamilton is not sure of its purpose, or what intrigue it may hide. Deeply impressed as to his own importance, the thought takes hold on him that Aaron’s attack is parcel of some deliberate design, held by folk who either hate him or envy him, or both, to lure him to the dueling ground and kill him out of the way. He draws a long breath at this, and sweats a little; for life is good and death not at all desired. He makes no effort at retort, but stomachs in silence those words which burn his soul like coals of fire. What is strange, too, for all their burning, he vaguely finds in them some chilling touch as of death. He realizes, as much from the grim fineness of Aaron’s manner as from his raw, unguarded words, that he is ready to carry discussion to the cold verge of the grave.

Son-in-law Hamilton’s nature lacks in that bitter drop, so present in Aaron’s, which teaches folk to die but never yield. Wherefore, in his heart he now shrinks back, afraid to go forward with a situation grown perilous, albeit he himself provoked it. Saving his credit with ones who look, if they do not speak, their wonder at his mute tameness, he says he will talk with General Schuyler concerning what course he shall pursue. Saying which he gets away from the Fraunces long-room somewhat abruptly, feathers measurably subdued. Aaron lingers but a moment after son-in-law Hamilton departs, and then goes his polished, taciturn way.

The incident is a nine-days’ food for gossip; wagers are made of a coming bloody encounter between Aaron and son-in-law Hamilton. Those lose who accept the sanguinary side; the two meet, but the meeting is politely peaceful, albeit, no good friendliness, but only a wider separation is the upcome. The occasion is the work of son-in-law Hamilton, who is presented by Colonel Troup.

“We should know each other better, Colonel Burr,” he observes.

Son-in-law Hamilton seems the smiling picture of an affability that of itself is a kind of flattery. Aaron bows, while those affable rays glance from his chill exterior as from an iceberg.

“Doubtless we shall,” says he.

Son-in-law Hamilton gets presently down to the serious purpose of his coming. “General Schuyler,” he says gravely, for he ever speaks of his father-in-law as though the latter were a demi-god – “General Schuyler would like to meet you; he bids me ask you to come to him.”

Colonel Troup is in high excitement. No such honor has been tendered one of Aaron’s youth within his memory. Wholly the courtier, he looks to see the honored one eagerly forward to go to General Schuyler – that Jove who not alone controls the local thunderbolts but the local laurels. He is shocked to his courtierlike core, when Aaron maintains his cold reserve.

“Pardon me, sir!” says Aaron. “Say to General Schuyler that his request is impossible. I never call on gentlemen at their suggestion and on their affairs. When I have cause of my own to go to General Schuyler, I shall go. Until then, if there be reason for our meeting, he must come to me.”

“You forget General Schuyler’s age!” returns son-in-law Hamilton. There is a ring of threat in the tones.

“Sir,” responds Aaron stiffly, “I forget nothing. There is an age cant which I shall not tolerate. I desire to be understood as saying, and you may repeat my words to whomsoever possesses an interest, that I shall not in my own conduct consent to a social doctrine which would invest folk, because they have lived sixty years, with a franchise to patronize or, if they choose, insult gentlemen whose years, we will suppose, are fewer than thirty.”

“I am sorry you take this view,” returns son-in-law Hamilton, copying Aaron’s stiffness. “You will not, I fear, find many to support you in it.”

“I am not looking for support, sir,” observes Aaron, pointing the remark with one of those black ophidian stares. “I do you also the courtesy to assume that you intend no criticism of myself by your remark.”

There is an inflection as though a question is put. Son-in-law Hamilton so far submits to the inflection as to explain. He intends only to say that General Schuyler’s place in the community is of such high and honorable sort as to make his request to call upon him a mark of favor. As to criticism: Why, then, he criticised no gentleman.

There is much profound bowing, and the meeting ends; Colonel Troup, a trifle aghast, retiring with son-in-law Hamilton, whose arm he takes.

“There could be no agreement with that young man,” mutters Aaron, looking after the retreating Hamilton, “save on a basis of submission to his leadership. I’ll be chief or nothing.”

Aaron settles himself industriously to the practice of law. In the courts, as in everything else, he is merciless. Lucid, indefatigable, convincing, he asks no quarter, gives none. His business expands; clients crowd about him; prosperity descends in a shower of gold.

Often he runs counter to son-in-law Hamilton – himself actively in the law – before judge and jury. When they are thus opposed, each is the other’s match for a careful but wintry courtesy. For all his courtesy, however, Aaron never fails to defeat son-in-law Hamilton in whatever litigation they are about. His uninterrupted victories over son-in-law Hamilton are an added reason for the latter’s jealous hatred. He and his rusty father-in-law become doubly Aaron’s foes, and grasp at every chance to do him harm.

And yet, that antagonism has its compensations. It brings Aaron into favor with Governor Clinton; it finds him allies among the Livingstons. The latter powerful family invite him into their politics. He thanks them, but declines. He is for the law; hungry to make money, he sees no profit, but only loss in politics.

In his gold-getting, Aaron is marvelously successful; and, as he rolls up riches, he buys land. Thus one proud day he becomes master of Richmond Hill, with its lawn sweeping down to the Hudson – Richmond Hill, where he played slave of the quill to Washington, and suffered in his vanity from the big general’s loftily abstracted pose.

Master of a mansion, Aaron fills his libraries with books and his cellars with wine. Thus he is never without good company, reading the one and sipping the other. The faded Theodosia presides over his house; and, because of her years or his lack of them, her manner toward him trenches upon the maternal.

The household is a hive of happiness. Aaron, who takes the pedagogue instinct from sire and grandsire, puts in his leisure drilling the small Prévost boys in their lessons. He will have them talking Latin and reading Greek like little priests, before he is done with them. As for baby Theodosia, she reigns the chubby queen of all their hearts; it is to her credit not theirs that she isn’t hopelessly spoiled.

In his wine and his reading, Aaron’s tastes take opposite directions. The books he likes are heavy, while his best-liked wines are light. He reads Jeremy Bentham; also he finds comfort in William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.

He adorns his study with a portrait of the lady; which feat in decoration furnishes the prudish a pang.

These book radicalisms, and his weaknesses for alarming doctrines, social and political, do not help Aaron’s standing with respectable hypocrites, of whom there are vast numbers about, and who in its fashion and commerce and politics give the town a tone. These whited sepulchers of society purse discreet yet condemnatory lips when Aaron’s name is mentioned, and speak of him as favoring “Benthamism” and “Godwinism.” Our dullard pharisee folk know no more of “Benthamism” and “Godwinism” in their definitions, than of plant life in the planet Mars; but their manner is the manner of ones who speak of evils tenfold worse than murder. Aaron pays no heed; neither does he fret over the innuendoes of these hypocritical ones. He was born full of contempt for men’s opinions, and has fostered and flattered it into a kind of cold passion. Occupied with the loved ones at Richmond Hill, careless to the point of blind and deaf of all outside, he seeks only to win lawsuits and pile up gold. And never once does his glance rove officeward.

This anti-office coolness is all on Aaron’s side. He does not pursue office; but now and again office pursues him. Twice he goes to the legislature; next, Governor Clinton asks him to become attorney general. As attorney general he makes one of a commission, Governor Clinton at its head, which sells five and a half million acres of the State’s public land for $1,030,000. The highest price received is three shillings an acre; the purchasers number six. The big sale is to Alexander McComb, who is given a deed for three million six hundred thousand acres at eight-pence an acre. The public howls over these surprising transactions in real estate. The popular anger, however, is leveled at Governor Clinton, he being a sort of Cæsar. Aaron, who dwells more in the background, escapes unscathed.

While these several matters go forward, the nation adopts a constitution. Then it elects Washington President, and sets up government shop in New York. Aaron’s part in these mighty doings is the quiet part. He does not think much of the Constitution, but accepts it; he thinks less of Washington, but accepts him, too. It is within the rim of the possible that son-in-law Hamilton, invited into Washington’s Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, helps the administration to a lowest place in Aaron’s esteem; for Aaron is a priceless hater, and that feud is in no degree relaxed.

When the national government is born, the rusty General Schuyler and Rufus King are chosen senators for New York. The rusty old general, in the two-handed lottery which ensues, draws the shorter term. This in no wise weighs upon him; what difference should it make? At the close of that short term, he will be reëlected for a full term of six years. To assume otherwise would be preposterous; the rusty old general feels no such short-term uneasiness.

Washington has two weaknesses: he loves flattery, and he is a bad judge of men. Son-inlaw Hamilton, because he flatters best, sits highest in the Washington esteem. He is the right arm of the big Virginian’s administration; also he is quite as confident, as the rusty General Schuyler, of that latter personage’s reelection. Indeed, if he could be prevailed upon to answer queries so foolish, he would say that, of all sure future things, the Senate reelection of the rusty general is surest. Not a cloud of doubt is seen in the skies.

And yet there lives one who, from his place as attorney general, is watching that Senate seat as a tiger watches its prey. Noiselessly, yet none the less powerfully, Aaron gathers himself for the spring. Both his pride and his hate are involved in what he is about. To be a senator is to wear a proudest title in the land. In this instance, to be a senator means a staggering blow to that Schuyler-Hamilton tribe whose foe he is. More; it opens a pathway to the injury of Washington. Aaron would be even for what long ago war slights the big general put upon him, slights which he neither forgets nor forgives. He smiles a pale, thin-lipped smile as he pictures with the eye of rancorous imagination the look which will spread across the face of Washington, when he hears of the rusty Schuyler’s overthrow, and him who brought that overthrow about. The smile is quick to die, however, since he who would strip his toga from the rusty Schuyler must not sit down to dreams and castle building.

Aaron goes silently yet sedulously about his plans. In their execution he foresees that many will be hurt; none the less the stubborn outlook does not daunt him. One cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs.

In his coming war with the rusty Schuyler, Aaron feels the need of two things: he must have an issue, and he must have allies. It is of vital importance to bring Governor Clinton to the shoulder of his ambitions. He looks that potentate over with a calculating eye, making a mental catalogue of his approachable points.

The old governor is of Irish blood and Irish temper. His ancestors were not the quietest folk in Galway. Being of gunpowder stock, he dearly loves a foe, and will no more forget an injury than a favor. Aaron shows the old governor that, in his late election, the Schuyler-Hamilton interest was slyly behind his opponent Judge Yates, and nearly brought home victory for the latter.

“You owe General Schuyler,” he says, “no help at this pinch. Still less are you in debt to Hamilton. It was the latter who put Yates in the field.”

“And yet,” protests the old governor, inclined to anger, but not quite convinced – “and yet I saw no signs of either Schuyler or his son-in-law in the business.”

“Sir, that is their duplicity. One so open as yourself would be the last to discover such intrigues. The young fox Hamilton managed the affair; in doing so, he moved only in the dark, walked in all the running water he could find.”

What Aaron says is true; in the finish he gives proof of it to the old governor. At this the latter’s Irish blood begins to gather heat.

“It is as you tell me!” he cries at last; “I can see it now! That West Indian runagate Hamilton was the bug under the Yates chip!”

“And you must not forget, sir, that for every scheme of politics ‘Schuyler’ and ‘Hamilton’ are interchangeable.”

“You are right! When one pulls the other pushes. They are my enemies, and I shall not be less than theirs.”

The governor asks Aaron what candidate they shall pit against the rusty Schuyler. Aaron has thus far said nothing of himself in any toga connection, fearing that the old governor may regard his thirty-six years as lacking proper gravity. Being urged to suggest a name, he waxes discreet. He believes, he says, that the Livingstons can be prevailed upon to come out against the rusty Schuyler, if properly approached. Such approach might be more gracefully made if no candidate is pitched upon at this time.