Louisiana and Aaron Burr 325 



chief of the Democratic party, and Hamilton, the 

 greatest Federalist, ever possessed in common; for 

 bitterly though Hamilton and Jefferson had hated 

 each other, there was one man whom each of them 

 had hated more, and that was Aaron Burr. There 

 was not a man in the country who did not know 

 about the brilliant and unscrupulous party leader who 

 had killed Hamilton in the most famous duel that 

 ever took place on American soil, and who by a 

 nearly successful intrigue had come within one vote 

 of supplanting Jefferson in the presidency. 



In New York Aaron Burr had led a political 

 career as stormy and checkered as the careers of 

 New York politicians have generally been. He had 

 shown himself as adroit as he was unscrupulous in 

 the use of all the arts of the machine manager. The 

 fitful and gusty breath of popular favor made him 

 at one time the most prominent and successful politi- 

 cian in the State, and one of the two or three most 

 prominent and successful in the nation. In the State 

 he was the leader of the Democratic party, which 

 under his lead crushed the Federalists; and as a re- 

 ward he was given the second highest office in the 

 nation. Then his open enemies and secret rivals all 

 combined against him. The other Democratic lead- 

 ers in New York, and in the nation as well, turned 

 upon the man whose brilliant abilities made them 

 afraid, and whose utter untrustworthiness forbade 

 their entering into alliance with him. Shifty and 

 fertile in expedients, Burr made an obstinate fight 

 to hold his own. Without hesitation, he turned 



