Burr still had his defenders. The most important was, unquestionably, Secretary Gallatin, who had grown alarmed by the machinations in New York and wrote Jefferson a provocative letter, in September 1801, in response to the controversy over Davis’s appointment. What is striking about this letter is Gallatin’s willingness to push and prod Jefferson about Burr, and the future of the party. Other than Madison, no one was quite so fearless (and uncensored) in voicing his concerns to Thomas Jefferson.
Wondering aloud, the trusted Gallatin asked the president point-blank: Do the Republicans “eventually mean not to support Burr as your successor, when you shall think fit to retire? Do they mean not to support him at the next election for Vice-President?” Anticipating Jefferson’s response, he acknowledged that Madison was “the only one” who loomed as a desirable alternative; but being a Virginian, Madison could never run for vice president without inviting sectional jealousy. Gallatin understood Jefferson’s plans for a succession. He simply wanted confirmation of the president’s thought process, by which Burr had to be sacrificed—no matter what—if Secretary of State Madison was to have the way clear to move up the ranks to chief executive.17
Gallatin acknowledged that the election tie had hurt Burr. Not because he had tried to steal the election; it was rather the perception of “diffidence” toward him than anything more devious. The treasury secretary was baiting his president, saying that if the concerns raised in 1801 had been raised in 1800, “I would have been wise enough never to give my consent in favor of [Burr’s] being supported last election as Vice-President.” What Gallatin really wanted to know, and what the preceding statement neglected to ask, was whether the Virginians had merely concealed their distaste for Burr long enough to win the election. Or was their subsequent resentment toward Burr cooked up and exaggerated so as to prevent the New Yorker from wresting the presidency from Virginia? In either case, Gallatin made clear, any lingering uncertainty or indecision “will produce much embarrassment” for the Republican Party in the buildup to election year 1804. Gallatin was thinking ahead because he knew that Jefferson was thinking ahead.18
Gallatin was certain that Jefferson had not fully assessed the viciousness of New York state politics. His point was simply this: Vice President Burr was at this point the leader of a majority of New York Republicans, and the “selfish” and unrepresentative coalition of Clintonians and Livingstons, “who hate Burr,” would sooner run the Republican Party into the ground than adhere to the principles that best represented Jefferson’s democracy. Gallatin trusted Burr’s men far more than he trusted the circle of cronies swarming about Clinton or Armstrong. Furthermore, Chancellor Livingston, John Armstrong, and George Clinton all struck Gallatin as unremarkable—certainly when compared with Burr. The chancellor, Gallatin wrote, “is in that State only a name, and there is something which will forever prevent [Armstrong] from having any direct influence with the people.” These men were not real (or popular) democrats. Without mentioning DeWitt Clinton, who had not yet achieved the stature he would later on, Gallatin observed that the aging Governor Clinton (four years older, and less healthy, than President Jefferson) was past his prime. Burr was the only genuine democratic leader in the fractious Empire State.19
Jefferson was thinking of a different brand of politics. He probably saw it as safer, for him, to risk schism in New York than to allow Burr to continue as the Republican leader in that state, as he had been before 1801. Burr alone, among the party faithful, might mount a northern challenge to Virginia’s preeminence among Republicans nationwide. By refusing to grant an appointment to Burr’s close associate Matthew Livingston Davis, Jefferson was sending a powerful message. It would be seen by Burr, Gallatin concluded, as a “declaration of war”; it would be seen by Burr’s enemies as proof of the vice president’s shrinking role in the administration. “There is hardly a man who meddles with politics in New York,” Gallatin certified, “who does not believe that Davis’s rejection is owing to Burr’s recommendation.” Most revealing, perhaps, is the fact that Jefferson never answered Gallatin’s questions, at least not in writing. The writing was on the wall, however, as to what his attitude toward Burr would be from this moment on.20
“AARON BURR!”
As the battle over patronage raged, Burr came under attack from a different quarter entirely. Early in May 1801, a handbill appeared entitled “Aaron Burr!” It not only called Burr a “Cataline . . . confessed in all his villainy,” but added a “NEW TRAIT” that the public needed to be aware of—though not so new if one was a correspondent of Alexander Hamilton—and that was Burr’s “abandoned profligacy.” As for proof, all one had to do was to travel about New York City to discover the numerous “wretches” whom the vice president had seduced; many of these had become celebrated courtesans, while others had allegedly fallen victim to disease, infamy, and death.21
The author of these charges was intending to mock Burr’s pretensions to leadership: having taken a sacred oath of office, the lusty Burr had been unable to restrain himself from preying on the female population of the nation’s capital as well. Jefferson had been critiqued as a dangerous atheist, and now his second-in-command was being labeled a deviant: “Is that party at whose head is this monster, who directs all their motions and originates all their nefarious schemes[,] worthy of your SUPPORT?” A public warning was now in order, so that citizens could see the new administration in its true light.22
Burr casually dismissed the handbill, writing offhandedly to his friend William Eustis of Boston that his political enemies had nothing better to do: “To vilify A.B. was deemed of so much Consequence, that packages of [handbills] were sent to various parts of the Country.” His friends wished to issue a printed denial, but Burr felt that to do so would be “degrading.” Honor needed no defending under such absurd conditions. With confidence, he turned to one of his favorite aphorisms: “I always presume that my friends will treat as false, every thing, said of me, which ought not to be true.” Although Burr knew to expect Federalists of being behind this most recent slander, he was unmoved; to his way of thinking, such attacks always backfired: Republicans would only become more indignant and Federalists would end up retreating into “shame & confusion.” All in all, he assured Eustis, “we extract good from evil.”23
Burr’s reaction was characteristic. He resisted bad-mouthing his political rivals, and under ordinary circumstances tried to deflect abuse that was directed at him. And at this moment, of course, he could not have foretold the damage his reputation would suffer in the not too distant future. From this point on, however, all depictions of Burr would in some way invoke his sexuality. This is not to say that his actual behavior was being monitored by those who saw fit to describe it sexually; rather, the sexualized image of Burr was principally a function of political rivalry. Just as Hamilton’s embarrassing affair with Maria Reynolds came to light when he was most frustrating to Republicans, and the rumors concerning Jefferson’s slave concubine, Sally Hemings, would shortly surface at the height of the president’s popularity, Burr’s sex life was easily used to tar him as a libertine at just that time when certain people were whispering that he might be in a position to succeed Jefferson.
Given how vicious early American politics was, we still have to ask: How did Burr’s personal life—false rumors aside—contribute to the attacks on his character? Why has this image persisted and obscured the other important parts of his life? Why is Aaron Burr to this day still known principally as a rake? In the sexual world of elite men, was Burr, in fact, less unusual than he has been made to appear?
Men and women of the foundering generation were no more puritanical in their sexual tastes than their descendants. Prostitution was a common feature of cities. In 1794, the Frenchman Moreau de Saint-Méry was shocked to discover that New York, though a relatively new city compared to the ancient urban centers in Europe, already had “whole sections of streets given over to street-walkers for the plying of their
profession” and “many houses of debauchery.” Prominent people drew attention, but rarely moral censure, when they indulged their sexual appetites. In 1801, when William Wister, an extremely wealthy bachelor, died at the age of fifty-six, Dr. Benjamin Rush described the Philadelphia Quaker as “kind, charitable, generous, friendly,” observing that his life was marred by only one vice: “an unlimited commerce with women.” At death, he had not one but four mistresses. As a lawyer, while his wife was still alive, Burr took up the defense of Anne Livingston, who had accused her husband of having a mistress for three years and was now suing for divorce. Burr’s longtime friend Marinus Willett had an illegitimate son during his first marriage, but this only became an issue when his name was put forward for a patronage post in Jefferson’s first term.24
In Philadelphia, one could buy condoms at a local bookstore, which indicates that both reading and sex were genteel pastimes. That Burr himself rented, in 1798, what he described as a “bachelor’s” retreat in Philadelphia, suggests that he pursued amours there. He encouraged his uncle Pierpont (who already had one mistress) to visit his new place, offering “a bed for you & bachelor’s fare, with the certain advantage of freedom from restraint.” It seems clear how the two men planned to spend their time at Burr’s home away from home.25
Politicians were not shy about discussing sexual pleasure, even as a matter of state business. During Jefferson’s second term, when the ambassador from Tunis arrived in Washington, he requested that the secretary of state make his stay complete by providing him and his entourage with concubines. Madison (generally portrayed as prim and proper) charged the ambassador’s pleasure to the government, listing “Georgia a Greek,” as one of the expenses among “appropriations for foreign intercourse.” He made light of the incident in a letter to Jefferson, noting the double meaning of “foreign intercourse.”26
Mature bachelors dotted the political landscape. Thomas Jefferson had been a widower for nineteen years when he became president; seven years had passed since Burr lost Theodosia. James Madison did not marry until he was over forty, and it is hard to imagine that he spent his entire early life in a state of celibacy. Only in satires such as “The Old Bachelor’s Masterpiece,” published in 1797, were such unmarried men portrayed as social misfits, requiring attentive wives to remind them of the social graces. More typical is the reputation of the New York Federalist congressman Egbert Benson, described as an “invincible bachelor” because he lived to the age of eighty-seven and never wed; no morose outcast, he was well known for his conviviality and Epicureanism. In fact, there is little evidence that unmarried older men suffered any stigma among the social elite.27
Eighteenth-century elites employed a series of euphemisms in describing sexual encounters outside of marriage, such as “gallantry,” “intrigue,” and “adventure.” The first could encompass old-fashioned adultery; the latter two were more likely words for the more salacious act of seduction or a visit to a prostitute, of which America’s cities had a considerable number. One of the Livingston clan came to own more than a dozen brothels. Thus, despite the fact that Chancellor Robert Livingston had been the highest legal authority in New York State, his younger brother John became (without apparent embarrassment) a noted whoremaster.28
The nation was simply not as virtue-bound as we would like to imagine. Philadelphia was a raucous city, in which many residents engaged in casual sexual encounters. Men and women had extramarital affairs in their homes, wives consorted with boarders, husbands with servants, and some couples even had dalliances on the ferries along the Delaware River. In 1797, when Sally McKean, daughter of Pennsylvania’s governor, learned of a visiting diplomat’s scandalous intrigue, she promptly conveyed the details to her best friend, Dolley Madison. The diplomat in question was well past his prime. He had been discovered, in the middle of the day, in the act of fornication with the wife of a servant; the husband had come home and “caught the old goat, with his wife, and in not the most decent situation—so the fellow very politely took him by the nose and saluted him with ki[c]ks till the corner of the street.” The whole town was laughing at the diplomat’s expense.29
Washington then was a town of no more than 3,000 inhabitants, where few politicians brought their wives to live. Most elected officials lodged in crowded boardinghouses; privacy was rare and rumors traveled fast. Congressmen regularly dined together, and slept just down the hall from their colleagues; indiscretions were hard to contain, and the humorous misadventures of politicians kept the city’s populace buzzing. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the Federalists’ vice-presidential candidate in 1800, was seventy-two in 1818 when he was “accidentally” arrested. As Massachusetts Federalist Harrison Gray Otis told the story to his wife, Pinckney, a widower, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A local storeowner had been robbed, and in the course of the ensuing manhunt, the police spotted Pinckney sneaking out of an abandoned house where he had arranged to meet a prostitute. Everything was cleared up when the statesman was recognized; but even in the absence of a tabloid reporter, the septuagenarian Don Juan became the subject of gentle gossip in affectionate letters home. So, even New England Federalists were not particularly shocked by the sexual permissiveness of their colleagues.30
We can piece together Burr’s relationships with women in the years after the death of his wife, although much of his correspondence with women was destroyed (protectively, we must assume) by Matthew Livingston Davis, who compiled these papers in the year of Burr’s death. From what remains, a pattern emerges: the three people with whom Burr felt comfortable discussing his sexual affairs were his uncle Pierpont Edwards, his Revolutionary comrade William Eustis, and his married daughter, Theodosia. His choice of confidants made perfect sense. First of all, he seemed to unburden himself easily with Pierpont, whether the subject was speculative ventures, sexual intrigues, political ambitions, or personal sorrows. More like brothers than uncle and nephew, they had been raised in the same household; Pierpont was only six years older than Aaron, which helps to explain their fraternal bond.31
Burr cultivated a similar kind of relationship with Eustis. As middle-aged men, the two shared a similar nature as bon vivants. Three years his senior, Eustis had a reputation for urbanity and charm; he was a bachelor whose tastes matched the New Yorker’s fascination with smart, accomplished women. A physician who graduated from Harvard, Eustis was an army surgeon in New York during the Revolution, when he met and befriended Lieutenant Colonel Burr. They renewed their friendship during the politically combustible 1790s, and his fellow Republican literally became an informal member of Burr’s family. He was close to Theodosia, a kind of older, avuncular friend, whom Burr trusted enough to give the delicate assignment of sizing up her prospective husband. In 1800, Burr implored Eustis to “analyze and anatomize him Soul & heart & body,” making sure the South Carolinian was a worthy companion for his beloved daughter. Eustis was one of the few friends to attend Theodosia and Joseph’s small wedding—another sign of his intimate, almost familial, bond with Burr.32
It is true that Burr had an unusual relationship with his daughter, but this was mainly because he educated her to think like a man. There was nothing “unfeminine” in her being a formidable intellect, as her mother was, though the sometimes too glib Robert Troup scoffed at her, describing Theodosia’s education as “wholly masculine,” which supposedly rendered her “an utter stranger to the use of the needle, and quite unskilled in the different branches of domestic economy.” Troup would have been horrified if he had known the full extent of Mary Wollstonecraft’s authority in the Burr household. On the matter of sexual knowledge, the late eighteenth-century feminist believed that women should know as much as men; she despised the false delicacy that kept women ignorant of their own bodies, and proposed that men and women should “speak of the organs of generation as freely as we mention our eyes or our hands.” Thus, Theodosia did not enter marriage blinded by convention; she probably knew as much about sex as
her husband-to-be. After becoming a wife and, in 1802, a mother, Theodosia took on the unofficial role as her father’s adviser; she freely expressed her opinions as to how he should conduct his courtships as well as less serious amours. Such intimate involvement in each other’s lives apparently had no negative effect, insofar as Burr was just as open in his communications with Alston.33
Theodosia’s marriage may have prompted Burr to search for a new wife. In his letters to her during his vice presidency, he mentioned several prospects, concealing their true identities with playful code names: “Celeste,” “La Planche,” “Madame G.” (also “La G.”), and “Inamorata.” His letters to Theodosia typically mingled serious suggestions to help her improve her mind with lighter musings that gave hints about his private thoughts, and these included bits of gossip as well as his romantic mishaps. Burr remained a keen observer of his social world, and he especially liked to comment on the comings and goings of females in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. After visiting a friend of Theodosia’s, for instance, he lamented that the young woman had married a man who was “cold, formal, monotonous, repulsive.” The outcome he envisioned for such an ill-conceived marriage—in words a trusted daughter would excuse—was that the pitiable wife should “break her pretty little neck. Yet, on second thought, would it not be better that he break his?” Lighthearted ridicule was a side dish, and sometimes the entrée, in Burr’s correspondence with Theodosia.34
Burr employed clever allusions when speaking of his courtships: It was his “great love for the finer arts, especially sculpture” that he wanted Theodosia to know about, when he was really telling her about his love of women. In Washington, after failing to meet a woman suited to his taste, he joked: no “busts or statues,”—“is there nothing in that line found in South Carolina?” Rousseau’s Emile was the immediate source for this particular metaphor, but its original meaning derived from the Greek myth of Pygmalion. Burr reminded Theodosia of the French philosopher’s story about the “man who once gave life to marble,” and then he provocatively asked: “Why may not this be done again?” For Burr, the quest for the perfect companion was apparently as interesting as the attributes of the quarry. Over and over again, he wrote about himself as a man who could not do without the delight that the company of accomplished women excited in him.35
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