DUELS

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about

Burr-Hamilton duel

Burr-Hamilton duel, duel fought between U.S. Vice Pres. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, former first secretary of the U.S. Treasury, on July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey, that resulted in the death of Hamilton the following day. The two men had long been political rivals, but the immediate cause of the duel was disparaging remarks Hamilton had allegedly made about Burr at a dinner.

Hamilton and Burr had an acrimonious relationship that dated to 1791, when Burr defeated Hamilton’s father-in-law, Gen. Philip John Schuyler, for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Burr incurred the enmity of Hamilton, who subsequently tried to thwart his political aspirations on numerous occasions. A notable example occurred during the 1800 presidential election, in which Burr was Thomas Jefferson’s vice presidential running mate on the Democratic-Republican ticket. 

Due to quirks in the election process, Burr tied with Jefferson in the electoral college vote, and he chose to vie with Jefferson for the top office. As a result of Hamilton’s influence on his fellow Federalists, however, Burr lost. He became vice president but was marginalized by Jefferson. 

In an attempt to revitalize his political career—it had become clear he would not be renominated for vice president—Burr switched parties and sought the nomination as the Federalist candidate for governor of New York in early 1804. Again, Hamilton used his influence to block the ambitions of Burr, who subsequently ran as an independent and lost badly in April 1804.

That month a newspaper published a letter in which Dr. Charles D. Cooper claimed that at a dinner party Hamilton had called Burr “a dangerous man.” In Cooper’s words, Hamilton also expressed a “more despicable opinion” of Burr. In June the aggrieved Burr wrote a letter to Hamilton, calling for an explanation. The two men engaged in a correspondence that ultimately resulted in Burr demanding that Hamilton deny that he had ever spoken ill of him. 

Hamilton felt that he could not comply without sacrificing his own political career, and although he opposed the practice of dueling—his eldest son Philip had died in a duel three years earlier—he accepted Burr’s challenge. Duels were illegal in both New York and New Jersey but were dealt with less harshly in New Jersey, so Burr and Hamilton agreed to meet at Weehawken on a secluded ledge above the Hudson River, a spot that had become a popular dueling ground; it had been the site of Philip’s fateful duel.

and as always have a chilled day from the Viking