Grappling with the Character Issue

Thomas Fleming. Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America. New York: Basic Books, 1999. xiii + 446 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $30.00 (cloth); $16.50 (paper).

Roger G. Kennedy. Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. xix + 476 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $30.00.

Over the long term, American national politics has followed predictable trends. Initially centering around character and personal alliances in the 1790s, and gradually shifting to a politics of party loyalty in the mid-nineteenth century, it has continued this ebb and flow over time, focusing us now, at the turn of the century, on "the character issue" above all else. In this political environment, it is not surprising that there has been a burst of character studies about America's founders. In the same way that we are currently trying to pierce the mystery of our presidential contenders--poking and prodding their pasts in search of underlying motives and character flaws--these popular historical studies rummage through the founders' life stories in the hope of exposing their innermost desires and explaining their fates.

Particularly challenging among these life stories is the eventful career of Aaron Burr, a founder who remains shrouded in mystery. In part, this was Burr's intention. Enigmatic by nature, he kept his motives and intentions to himself, leaving himself vulnerable to a host of suspicions and accusations, some of them true. Supposed seducer of countless women, alleged would-be Emperor of the American West, slayer of Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel, Burr left behind an ambiguous reputation that is a veritable gold mine for biographical sleuths in search of legends and mysteries to resolve. His curiously modern political methods are no less attractive to potential biographers, making him particularly accessible to modern readers. No high-flying political theorist, Burr was far more interested in the nuts and bolts of the political game; indeed, his brilliantly managed campaigning in New York City during the presidential election of 1800 helped raise Thomas Jefferson to the presidency, garnering Burr the vice presidency in the process. Much-maligned, twenty-first-century friendly, and devoted to politicking more than political theory, Burr's time has come.

Thus the rash of Burr-centric books, among them Thomas Fleming's Duel and Roger Kennedy's Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character. ¹ To differing degrees, the books share a similar mission: the redemption of Aaron Burr. Kennedy is particularly dedicated to this task, declaring that his purpose is to hasten Burr's "return from the exile on that shadowy periphery to which Jefferson consigned him" (p. xix). Character studies more than narratives, both works spiral in on their warring protagonists, sometimes proceeding chronologically, sometimes jumping across decades and even lifetimes to establish a point of character. While this strategy may be a natural mode of exploring personalities rather than events, it sometimes complicates the structure of both books, particularly Kennedy's, which forces the reader to wander down some long and twisting trails of argument.

The strengths of this type of character study are many, particularly in books aimed beyond a scholarly audience. Perhaps most important, their human dimension invites readers into strange and confusingly alien worlds; hard as it might be to identify with the denizens of the distant past, human emotion often bridges the gap. And such bridges are needed when examining early American politics, which is tantalizingly similar to our own. The mud-slinging, ambition, and general nastiness of the period's politics are hardly unfamiliar, but beneath these echoes of the present are important differences, central among them the tense and unstructured nature of the early national political world. In the fragile new American republic, small problems loomed large, and minor rumbles seemed to threaten disunion or civil war. A national political system was still in the process of becoming, making national politics a difficult and risky business. Particularly dangerous was...