Since it is the 250th anniversary if the US I have set about re-acquainting the American people with the original Founding Father with a series dedicated to Thomas Paine.
I am always amazed to see any Right winger use Paine as some sort of icon for their beliefs….it is humorous for if they knew anything about Paine they would realize that he stood for damn near everything they hold dear.
…
The only thing Paine liked less than monarchical rule was its enablers, anyone who relinquished their freedom willingly to an aspiring tyrant.
This is not only wrong, Paine insists, but against nature, since all of us are created equal.
But even that’s not the worst part. Those who sacrifice their own freedom on the altar of monarchy also sacrifice that of future generations. Their “unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool.” Ouch.
“Most wise men,” Paine adds, “in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.”
It was Paine that chided Americans to throw off the yoke of Britain….
“In ‘Common Sense,’ Thomas Paine defines common sense as the fundamental ability of all people to reason and discern truth, regardless of social standing or education. He argues that this innate capacity, when applied to political matters, reveals the absurdity of hereditary monarchy and the necessity of self-governance based on the consent of the governed. Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ is a call to action, urging colonists to reject British rule and embrace republicanism, a system of government where power resides in the people.” (To discern the truth….something Americans have lost)
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What was Paine’s specific vision for human society? Long after the successful defeat of British colonialism in “the colonies,” he wrote this passage in “Rights of Man, Part the Second”: “When it shall be said in any country in the world that my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the friend of its happiness—when these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and its government.”
…
“Anyone needing to be reminded of core Enlightenment beliefs—that government can only be empowered by its citizens; that such citizens are born with certain natural rights; that none are born superior to any other; that all will be treated equally before the law; and that the state has a duty to help the neediest of its people—reading Paine offers a political and spiritual inspiration, one that has driven men and women to achieve greatness across history. Of Paine’s many reasons for daring to publish work for which he could have been hanged or guillotined in the United Colonies, the United Kingdom, or France, this legacy is his glory.”
The US resistance movement fighting the Trump regime’s effort to destroy everything Thomas Paine stood for and fought for, and more, will be stronger if we raise him up more and more over the coming months as we approach the 250th anniversary on July 4th next year of the issuing of the Declaration of Independence. There’s no question which side he would be on if he was alive today.
(znetwork.org)
This is something I wrote a couple of years ago about Thomas Paine….
I have been a fan of Paine since I was 14 when my grandfather gave me a copy of Common Sense….it was eye opening and profound….we need another Thomas Paine to bring some light to the darkness that now engulfs our nation…..we need Thomas Paine.
I shall forego the “Dump’ for this Saturday to bring you some history as we are beginning our celebration of the birth of America, 250 years and counting.
As a political historian I always like to look at cause and effect and the publication of Commonsense, was cause that lead a bunch of wealthy white guys to declare independence from Mother England.
Some believe that the DoI was the beginning of our struggle for independence….I disagree. It began with Thomas Paine and the publishing of his pamphlet ‘Commonsense’ on 10 January 1776.
Common Sense made a clear case for independence and directly attacked the political, economic, and ideological obstacles to achieving it. Paine relentlessly insisted that British rule was responsible for nearly every problem in colonial society and that the 1770s crisis could only be resolved by colonial independence. That goal, he maintained, could only be achieved through unified action.
Hard-nosed political logic demanded the creation of an American nation. Implicitly acknowledging the hold that tradition and deference had on the colonial mind, Paine also launched an assault on both the premises behind the British government and on the legitimacy of monarchy and hereditary power in general. Challenging the King’s paternal authority in the harshest terms, he mocked royal actions in America and declared that “even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their own families.”
Finally, Paine detailed in the most graphic, compelling and recognizable terms the suffering that the colonies had endured, reminding his readers of the torment and trauma that British policy had inflicted upon them.
(jackmillercenter.org)
The Constitution of the United States as proposed by Thomas Paine in Common Sense
Since Paine’s contribution is mostly overlooked by Americans here is the full text of Commonsense….
But for those lazy amongst us….these are the main ideas within Commonsense….
Monarchies Violate Laws of Nature and Religion
Thomas Paine believes monarchies are an invalid form of government because they violate the laws of nature and religion. Paine argues all people are born as equals, which is a function of nature. No person or family is better than another. That line of reasoning concludes there shouldn’t be a ruling class. Paine also thinks those who do rule should not be able to pass their position to their next of kin. Nature doesn’t grant one family superior intelligence or leadership abilities, and it’s very possible the next person in line for the job will lead his or her followers into ruin. Monarchal rule and hereditary succession violate the very laws of nature.
Monarchies also violate the word of God. Paine points out there were not any kings in the early days of humanity (at least according to scripture) and there weren’t any wars. Paine implies these two are related. He contends the devil invented kings, which were first adopted by the heathens, as a tool to promote idolatry. Both Gideon and Samuel warn their followers about the dangers of worshiping someone other than God. In Samuel’s case the Israelites don’t listen, and they are smitten for disobedience. Paine believes this biblical evidence proves God is the only true king.
Independent, Democratic America
Paine insists the British government doesn’t have the colonists’ best interest at heart. It cares only about its own profit and success, and it treats the colonists as second-class citizens. Americans do not have the same rights as those who live on British soil and are unfairly punished when they try to uphold their interpretation of the British Constitution. The grievances between the two parties, as well as the bloodshed and destruction caused by the British army, are too great to repair. The only answer is for the colonies to separate themselves from Great Britain.
To those who quaver in fear of losing the protection and benefits afforded by the British government, Paine points out Great Britain is much too far away to protect the colonists from any imminent danger, and it is much too small of an island to govern a territory as large as the American colonies. Though he admits there have been benefits to British rule, he contends life in the colonies would perhaps have been even more pleasant and fruitful had Great Britain never controlled them at all.
An independent America will need a government of its own. Paine has already proven monarchical rule is unsuitable for the success of a nation and the happiness of its people, so he suggests a representative government elected by the people. This structure is in line with what he believes nature intended, as each person’s voice will be represented equally. The law will be king in America, not a monarch.
The Fight for Independence Cannot Be Postponed
Paine urges his readers to take up the cause of independence now. The tensions between Great Britain and the American colonies are only going to get worse, and the damage done at the battles of Lexington and Concord and during the Siege of Boston cannot be repaired. If anything, the situation will worsen. Waiting for a better time would mean the loss of experience gained during the French and Indian War (1754–63), which would decrease the colonists’ chances of victory. Delaying the push for independence could mean being tethered to Great Britain indefinitely, and as Paine points out, a country dependent on another is weak in the eyes of the world.
America may be a young country, but it has a lot of assets, including its youth. “Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals,” he writes. Developing continental unity now will be much easier than 50 years down the road when individual colonies are deeply entrenched in their own ways of life. Colonies are not yet at their peak populations, which means there aren’t too many people or ports to protect, yet there are still enough men to form a robust army. People haven’t yet developed strong roots in their communities, nor have they made their family fortunes in business. Unlike British civilians, who may carry the weight of wealth and family tree, the colonists have little to lose by going to war. That will surely change if efforts for independence are postponed, which will make it harder to raise a capable army.
American Independence Benefits the World
Paine argues American independence will help all friendly nations thrive, especially those who engage with trade. Separating the colonies from Great Britain will create open and free trade. That means the colonists decide to whom they will sell and for what price, which will help the American economy grow and which will benefit other, primarily European, economies as well. When no longer bound by Great Britain’s trading laws, they will be free to import goods from other countries, such as Spain and France, as well as to import goods to them, all of which will improve the international economy. Paine doesn’t leave out England—he thinks open trade will benefit the British government and its citizens alike.
Trade isn’t the only part of international relations that will improve with American independence. The colonies will be able to maintain strong and friendly relationships with other countries even if those countries are quarreling with Great Britain. As subjects of the British government, the colonies often found themselves in the middle of disagreements with other nations, and there was always the risk of going to war over matters that didn’t pertain to those living in North America. Freedom from Great Britain allows the colonies to declare neutrality during international conflicts, which preserves existing relationships and protects the American citizens, their property, and their economy.
Now after reading that who was the original Founding Father?
Sixteen years ago I wrote this piece doing my part to give Thomas Paine his due….something this country has never been able to bring itself to do.
That time again to look at history when debating the wealth inequality these days.
I for one do not think that this massive inequality is good for the nation or its people….but that is just me.
Let’s look to the Founders of this once great nation….
As the United States reaches its 250th year, the widening gulf between the very rich few and the rest of us has become glaringly apparent. In 2024, the richest 10% held over 67% of household wealth in the U.S., while the bottom half held just 2.4%. This wealth increasingly entitles one to power and privilege: there are numerous billionaires in key positions in the Trump Administration, and some (including the President) have used their public offices for financial gain.
The Founders would be horrified by these developments because they believed great wealth in politics would corrupt and destroy the republic. Those beliefs were shaped by a range of influences: the widely read works by Roman historians who blamed the empire’s decline on a widening gap between rich and poor; radical Protestants who called for a Godly republic with limits on property or even its redistribution in a Great Jubilee every 50 years; James Harrington’s 1656 novel Oceana, describing an island country with a constitution that gave land to all and placed explicit limits on income and wealth; Enlightenment philosophers, particularly John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1689), which argued “all Men by Nature are equal” and that individuals should not hoard surplus wealth; and Cato’s Letters, a series written by British “radical Whigs” in the 1720s who, angered by the infamous South Sea Bubble, called for reforms while bitterly criticizing the corrupting ties between wealth and politics.
By the mid-18th century, Anglo-Americans generally believed in the virtues of a “rough” economic equality, that a republic needed to avoid concentrated wealth and great poverty in order to maintain the public good and prevent corruption. These ideals held particular power because they reflected the experiences of most British Americans. Widespread property ownership among white settlers meant that in every province a far higher percentage of white adult men could vote than in England. Even the wealthiest Southern planters needed the political support of their poorer—yet still property-holding—neighbors.
The widespread embrace of these ideas can be glimpsed in the publication of Cato’s Letters in the BostonIndependent Advertiser in 1748. The very first selection included the warning that when a man’s wealth “become immeasurably or surprising great,” the community “ought to make strict Enquiry, how they came by them, and oblige them” to surrender part of their riches. “But, will some say, is it a Crime to be rich? Yes, certainly. At the publick expence, or to the Danger of the Publick.” The Advertiser was edited by Samuel Adams for artisans and laborers fired up by their successful resistance to impressment—the Navy’s effort to grab men for forced service—and concerned about rising poverty in the postwar depression. Sixteen years later, Adams would organize those artisans and laborers into the Sons of Liberty to resist British imperial measures.
Our Founders were a smart lot….they were well educated and could see what damage the concentration of wealth in few hands could do to this country and the people.
We should learn from their guidance….but will we? (kinda doubtful)
And the destruction of the middle class continues….
We have all heard the threats by one candidate to ‘go after’ his opponents before private and public critics…..and the country, well at least some of the country, has taken that to heart and taken him at his word.
But this threat and possible action is nothing new.
And yes this is another of the old professor’s history lessons…..
On a hot July day in 1798, Luther Baldwin spent the afternoon in his local tavern in Newark, New Jersey, tossing back mugs of hard cider.
Suddenly there was a commotion outside—shouts and cannon fire. Baldwin stumbled out of the tavern to see a parade making its way down the main thoroughfare. It was led by President John Adams and his wife Abigail, who were passing through Newark on their way home to Massachusetts from the capital in Philadelphia. A crowd had gathered to cheer the president, but not Baldwin.
Adams was a Federalist, and Baldwin—a veteran of the Continental Army who worked on a garbage dinghy—was a Democratic-Republican, the opposition party led by Vice President Thomas Jefferson. Adams had just signed into law the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, including a law that made it a crime to criticize the federal government.
As 16 cannons sounded another salute, one of Baldwin’s drinking buddies joked that the cannons should be aimed at Adams. Baldwin loudly replied that he “did not care if they fired thro’ his arse!”
The tavern owner, John Burnet, reported Baldwin’s drunken comment to the authorities, and before he knew it Baldwin was charged and convicted for speaking “seditious words.” He was fined $150 (a small fortune today) and jailed until he could pay it.
“This drunk guy was actually jailed for sedition for making a bad joke about the president,” says Terri Halperin, author of The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: Testing the Constitution. Baldwin’s case sparked national uproar against the Alien and Sedition Acts, unconstitutional laws that restricted free speech in the name of national security.
Today is the day that we celebrate the signing (not actually on this day) of the Declaration of Independence which would not have been possible without Thomas Paine’s influence. A day that is special in the hearts of Americans….but why?
I am sure I can get all kinds of responses to that question….but let’s take a short look at what transpired….
By the 1760s, colonists began to push back against what they saw as unfair British control and taxation. The colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, leading to protests with the slogan, “no taxation without representation.” After the British Parliament placed new tariffs on a variety of imported goods, tensions erupted in violence. During the Boston Massacre of 1770, British soldiers shot into a crowd of a few hundred angry colonists, killing five.
In 1773, Boston colonists dumped an entire shipment of taxed tea into the harbor. Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by passing the Intolerable Acts. These acts punished Massachusetts by taking away the colony’s charter and limiting its self-governance.
Great Britain had hoped this would discourage any more protests or rebellions. It did the opposite. The Congress published a list of the colonies’ grievances and called for a boycott of British goods. It also petitioned the king, who rejected the colonies’ demands. The Congress also petitioned the king, who rejected its demands.
As the Revolutionary War began, the Second Continental Congress met in 1775 and discussed breaking away from British rule. In 1776, Congressional delegates drafted and passed the Declaration of Independence.
This Declaration expressed several of the new nation’s principles and values, including:
Natural rights — people are born with certain rights that should not be violated
Popular sovereignty — a government gets its power from the people it governs
Social contract — people agree to give up power to their governments in exchange for protection of their freedoms
Rule of law — the laws of the land apply to everyone, and no one is above them
Far too many Americans have lost sight of what this country set out to do and unfortunately it appears as if the great experiment is failing.
Sadly that historical snapshot is losing ground….the four main points are slowly being eaten away by bickering and partisan politics.
The government, including all three branches is destroying the very things that help give America its freedom from Mother England.
Will the original ideas ever return to the nation and its people?
This will probably be my only post today for Sue and I want to spend the day doing whatever we like.
Please if you are celebrating this day be very careful and always….Be Well and Be Safe….
Happy 4th my friends.
Until tomorrow when I will return with more stuff.
I love these Right wing d/bags….they just cannot help themselves….
Pretty much every Americans knows that quote by Patrick Henry before he was hanged by the British….
It seems that Radical Right winger Josh Hawley, senator from Missouri is so enamored with Patrick Henry that he used another of his quotes in one of Hawley’s 4th of July stump stops.
The quote goes like this….
“Patrick Henry: ‘It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.’,”
How lovely….but it is total bullshit!
The catch: Founding Father Patrick Henry — a slave owner most famous for his declaration, “Give me liberty or give me death,” — never said the quote Hawley tweeted.
Nor did any of the other Founding Fathers.
The line was reportedly originally published in a white nationalist publication in 1956 — 157 years after the founding father’s death.
It is similar to all those quotes by Jefferson that the Right are always throwing about…..the problem there as well he made none of those quotes….like…”My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government”
Jefferson never said that!
There is a wealth of spurious quotes by Jefferson…..read some the others.
Cherry picking quotes and even making up quotes from the Founding Fathers has fed the misinformation fire.
Politicians, pundits and angry uncles all enjoy sharing quotes from the Founders. But they often don’t particularly care if Jefferson, Madison or others actually wrote what they claim they did. Invoking the words of key figures from the Founding period is a rhetorical strategy that aims to mobilize the intellectual giants of American history to support modern-day political positions.
It is the very opposite of what history should be. Serious scholars begin with questions and then seek answers in historical sources. Politicians (both the professional and the amateur variety) do the opposite. They begin with answers — their preferred political positions on an issue of the present-day — and then seek out a short, pithy quote from the Internet to help bolster their argument.
The Internet, I think we’ve all learned over the past few years, is not the most reliable source. Cyberspace is awash with bogus quotations from the Founders and other key historical figures, like Abraham Lincoln. You can easily shop around to find Washington or Theodore Roosevelt espousing a 21st century political cause that would have been completely unimaginable to them in their own time; Alexander Hamilton did not go on the record about his views on cryptocurrency. The danger to our political discourse, though, is that many of these fraudulent quotes are all too easy to believe when you’re looking to confirm what you’ve already decided.
This is from the “Learn Some Damn History” files…….
Most Americans pretend to know the Constitution but the truth is they know very little about the most important document in the world…..the best they can muster is 2 or 3 of the amendments….there are over 20 contained in the Constitution.
Let’s take a historic look at the document that established this country…..
For instance where did the opening of “We the people…” originate?
Was it Jefferson? Maybe Franklin? How about John Adams?
None of those people came up with the opening…..
Then who?
There are lots of famous Founding Fathers who receive deserved acclaim for the work they did to shape the United States of America. Just think of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams — even Alexander Hamilton had a Tony-winning musical made about him.
But there are plenty of other politicians who made real contributions at the Constitutional Convention, yet aren’t as well remembered. Gouverneur Morris is one such founding father. Haven’t heard of him? You’re not alone: This politician and lawyer from Pennsylvania isn’t necessarily well covered in most U.S. history textbooks. But that doesn’t make his work any less important. Morris was integral to the creation of the Constitution as we know it today. Sometimes called the Penman of the Constitution, Morris was the editor and shaper of the Constitution from its rough draft to its final, polished form, according to the Constitution Center.
Among the lines he revised? The most well-known of all: that starting preamble, “We the People of the United States.”
A New York native, Gouverneur Morris was a pretty smart cookie (via Yahoo! News). He graduated college at only 16 years old, and later became a lawyer and constitutional delegate. Morris’s life wasn’t necessarily easy; he faced multiple health problems during his life, including a deformed right arm due to a childhood accident (via Penn Today). He used a peg leg after his left leg was irreparably damaged and then amputated after a run-in with a carriage (via the Constitution Center). Later in his life, Morris wrote that he also experienced gout.
I will close out my weekend posting with a bit of history….American history that few know anything about…..
We all know that most GOPers hold Thomas Jefferson in high regard….which in itself is confusing…..most GOPers are ‘religious’ at least when in the public eye…….and their hero was not….he made his own New Testament without all the ‘miracles…..it is called the “Jefferson Bible”……
Had he lived during the Inquisition, Thomas Jefferson would have been burned at the stake. His ideas about Jesus and Christianity were far from orthodox. A product of the Enlightenment, Jefferson believed that everything, including religion, should be examined in the light of reason.
When Jefferson examined the Gospels he came away with a strongly divided opinion. “I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence,” he wrote in an 1820 letter to William Short, “and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.”
“In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson delivered a Confidential Message to Congress on Indian Policy explaining a strategy to dispossess Indian Tribes of their territories in part by assimilation,” the report said.
According to the report, Jefferson believed “a policy of assimilation would make it easier and less costly in lives and funding for the United States to separate Indian Tribes from their territories.”
Executed alongside the assimilation policy would be a process to encourage Native Americans to make purchases with credit. The hope, according to the report, was that they would fall into debt, meaning Indian tribes would have to “cede their land” to the US.
“To promote this disposition to exchange lands which they have to spare & we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare & they want, we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good & influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop th[em off] by a cession of lands,” Jefferson wrote in his letter to Congress.
Jefferson had even more ideas on how to screw the NAs…..
Even the so-called ‘pillars’ of our nation were deep down racist pigs.
Plus the vitriol that is part of the American political scene is nothing new…..it goes all the way back to the very beginning of our political process….
John Adams, a hermaphrodite who is secretly trying to marry the American Presidency to the British Crown? Thomas Jefferson, an atheist and anarchist who supports incest? These are just some of the attacks hurled in the election of 1800. You didn’t think the early republic was some golden age of political decorum, did you?
So you see nasty insults are nothing new in America.
As yet another election approaches I thought since political parties are all the rage I would take a look at the beginning of the American experiment…..
In the beginning (all great sagas begin with that intro) our Founding Fathers while I may not agree with some of their thoughts did have the right idea about the possible rise of political parties, factions if you will…..
Today, it may seem impossible to imagine the U.S. government without its two leading political parties, Democrats and Republicans. But in 1787, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in Philadelphia to hash out the foundations of their new government, they entirely omitted political parties from the new nation’s founding document.
This was no accident. The framers of the new Constitution desperately wanted to avoid the divisions that had ripped England apart in the bloody civil wars of the 17th century. Many of them saw parties—or “factions,” as they called them—as corrupt relics of the monarchical British system that they wanted to discard in favor of a truly democratic government.
“It was not that they didn’t think of parties,” says Willard Sterne Randall, professor emeritus of history at Champlain College and biographer of six of the Founding Fathers. “Just the idea of a party brought back bitter memories to some of them.”
George Washington’s family had fled England precisely to avoid the civil wars there, while Alexander Hamiltononce called political parties “the most fatal disease” of popular governments. James Madison, who worked with Hamilton to defend the new Constitution to the public in the Federalist Papers, wrote in Federalist 10 that one of the functions of a “well-constructed Union” should be “its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.”
Then there is Jefferson who liked the idea of factions….
Thomas Jefferson, who was serving a diplomatic post in France during the Constitutional Convention, believed it was a mistake not to provide for different political parties in the new government. “Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties,’’
With Jefferson as secretary of state and Hamilton as Treasury secretary, two competing visions for America developed into the nation’s first two political parties. Supporters of Hamilton’s vision of a strong central government—many of whom were Northern businessmen, bankers and merchants who leaned toward England when it came to foreign affairs—would become known as the Federalists. Jefferson, on the other hand, favored limited federal government and keeping power in state and local hands. His supporters tended to be small farmers, artisans and Southern planters who traded with the French, and were sympathetic to France.
And so it began!
Fast forward to the 21st century…..
This country has become the embattled nation the Founders feared….
America has now become that dreaded divided republic. The existential menace is as foretold, and it is breaking the system of government the Founders put in place with the Constitution.
Though America’s two-party system goes back centuries, the threat today is new and different because the two parties are now truly distinct, a development that I date to the 2010 midterms. Until then, the two parties contained enough overlapping multitudes within them that the sort of bargaining and coalition-building natural to multiparty democracy could work inside the two-party system. No more. America now has just two parties, and that’s it.
The theory that guided Washington and Adams was simple, and widespread at the time. If a consistent partisan majority ever united to take control of the government, it would use its power to oppress the minority. The fragile consent of the governed would break down, and violence and authoritarianism would follow. This was how previous republics had fallen into civil wars, and the Framers were intent on learning from history, not repeating its mistakes.
Sadly this nation is far from finding a solution to this chaos….if it ever will is still debatable….my thought is that it is doomed….parties will bring ruination to this country….that and the corruption that goes hand in hand with parties.
Another weekend and another history lesson (is that an eye roll I hear?)……since many Americans are woefully ignorant about our history I feel I must try to correct that lack of knowledge.
All the hoopla around the theatrical production of ‘Hamilton’ (No I have not seen this production (there is something repugnant, to me, about history reduced to song and dance) but the life of Hamilton got me to thinking about a ‘founder’ that was interesting to me in my college years and that is the dude that shot and killed Hamilton during a duel, Aaron Burr.
I feel I need to set the story straight for I think the Burr, granted he was an arrogant tool, has been left out of history because he was in opposition to Jefferson and as we all know he is a god among some scholars.
There is so much more to Burr than our measly history texts give….ore than his duel or his vice-presidency, his war of words with Jefferson and Hamilton or his supposed treason.
Learn about the person before you condemn….
Aaron Burr Jr. (1756-1836), was thought to be one of the most brilliant students graduated from Princeton in the eighteenth century. Woodrow Wilson said he had `genius enough to have made him immortal, and unschooled passion enough to have made him infamous.” His father was Princeton’s second president; his maternal grandfather, Jonathan Edwards, was Princeton’s third president. The younger Aaron Burr was left an orphan when he was two years old, his father and mother (and both maternal grandparents) having died within a year. He did not respond well to the discipline of his austere uncle, Timothy Edwards, several times running away from home and attempting to go to sea. He entered the sophomore class at Princeton at the age of thirteen and graduated with distinction at sixteen in 1772, a year after James Madison and Philip Freneau. He was a member of the Cliosophic Society and for his Commencement Oration chose the prophetic topic `On Castle Building.”
Burr studied theology for a while and then law. After the Revolutionary War, in which he served with distinction as a field officer, he took up the practice of law in New York City and entered politics, serving as a member of the New York state assembly, attorney general of New York, and United States senator. In the presidential election of 1800, he received the same number of electoral votes as Thomas Jefferson, but the tie was broken in the House of Representatives in Jefferson’s favor, and Burr became vice-president.
Many see him as a traitor for his supposed attempt to establish his personal empire in the American West…..but was he or was he just a victim of a smear campaign?
In the summer of 1807, the city of Richmond, Virginia, played host to one of the most remarkable trials in early American history. The case involved several legal luminaries, but its undisputed star was the defendant, 51-year-old Aaron Burr. The New Jersey native had only recently served as Thomas Jefferson’s vice president, but since then his reputation had been marred by political intrigue and his participation in a duel that had left Alexander Hamilton dead. Burr now stood accused of one of the gravest crimes in American law: treason. According to one account, he had been at the heart of a “deep, dark, and wicked conspiracy” against the young United States.
What was the nature of the plot that had seen Burr charged with treason? Even today, many details of the scheme remain hazy. “Too many people told too many different stories, and too many people had things to hide,” historian Buckner F. Melton has written. What is known is that Burr worked to raise a small army on the American frontier. He may have hoped to lead an independent campaign against Spanish-held territories in Texas and Mexico, but it’s also possible that he planned to wrest a portion of the newly acquired frontier from the United States. According to some contemporaries, Burr had designs on founding a new western nation with himself as its emperor.
Learn the particulars and not the ramblings of those that tend to demonize for whatever reason.
Americans needs to learn more about Burr….beyond he shot and killed Hamilton….there is always more to the story than that of academics trying to make a name for themselves.
Suggested Further Reading:
Fallen Founder: Life Of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg
Burr Conspiracy by James E. Lewis, Jr
Memoirs Of Aaron Burr, Complete Edition by Mathew L. Davis
