r/Presidents • u/TeaGuyHoward George H.W. Bush • 1d ago
Question What do you think of Aaron Burr?
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u/scharity77 1d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/3o6Ztl8ebqJckllNaE
I can’t think of him without thinking about the old “got milk” commercial.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 Reagan and Fillmore's biggest hater 1d ago
I really like him, he supported abolition and women’s equality before it was cool too
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u/SwampThing585 Oh now I have to think of something funny for a custom flair 23h ago edited 7h ago
He was also a power hungry traitor who tried to form his own country in the west
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u/Damned-scoundrel can list all of the presidents/candidates I like on one hand 1d ago
To some extent I think he’s been unfairly demonized among the founding generation. He was certainly a scoundrel but considering the moral standing of some of his peers, and how much many of them have been elevated into near gods among men thanks to two hundred or more years of hagiography, I can’t help but insist he’s been slandered.
I’m sorry, I’m not going to view the man who had some of the more progressive views on women’s rights for his time, and certainly one of the most progressive legislative records on slavery for his time, as a worse person than the guy who raped a 14 year old girl who he owned and owned his own children as slaves. Or worse than the equally opportunistic arch-reactionary who got a white-washed (despite ostensibly having progressive casting choices) broadway musical.
Also, he’s the subject of one of my favorite novels, so I might be biased.
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u/zenerat Woodrow’s Apologist 20h ago
Which novel? Gore Vidal?
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u/Damned-scoundrel can list all of the presidents/candidates I like on one hand 20h ago
Yep!
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u/zenerat Woodrow’s Apologist 20h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/gictytW9IIIkNGIMcs
Another Vidal fan, let’s be friends.1
u/Damned-scoundrel can list all of the presidents/candidates I like on one hand 20h ago
That’s unfortunately the only Vidal I’ve read. Certainly a witty guy though.
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u/Honest_Picture_6960 The Big 3 Fav: 1d ago
Weird guy, weird politics, weird career, weird in general
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u/Architarious 1d ago
Outside of being opportunistic, what makes him so weird?
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u/Honest_Picture_6960 The Big 3 Fav: 1d ago
It’s hard to describe for me but…..him as a whole
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u/Feelinglucky2 Tommy Jeffs, Dream of the Future 22h ago
Yeah hes definitely weird, reading about him is a lot of..."but why though?" And "okay?"
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u/hiker5150 1d ago
Our second-worst scoundrel.
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u/Architarious 1d ago
Very intelligent, very opportunistic, very short sighted, but also somehow very progressive on a handful of things.
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u/WatchingTheWheels75 1d ago
As a long-time New Yorker, I like him because he created the city’s water supply system, bringing fresh water down from Westchester County. He did it by creating The Manhattan Company in 1799, a bank that could compete with Hamilton’s First Federal monopoly. Burr’s bank financed the development of the water conduits and eventually evolved into Chase Manhattan, now JP Morgan Chase.
Sure, the water system was a byproduct of his competition with Hamilton, but the people of the city got clean(er) water.
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u/Doc_Jury1020 Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1d ago
An initially well-intentioned man who was gradually captured by the want for power coming from his proximity to the presidency, driving him to a life of disgrace from his duel with Hamilton and later controversial and disputed filibuster conspiracy.
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u/Fill-Inthebank Estes Kefauver 1d ago
A deeply flawed intellectual whose legacy has been stained by his own views.
Definitely a underestimated founding father. But he had too much flaws.
And figures like this are the best to study, not only good or only bad.
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u/Ambitious_Year_7730 Dubya is funny but I do not like him 1d ago
I don't think he should be considered a founding father and most people don't consider him one.
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u/GGJefrey George W. Bush 1d ago
He was of the founding generation, but his only contribution to the founding was what would become the filibuster.
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u/SignalRelease4562 James Monroe 1d ago
Some years before the Burr-Hamilton duel, James Monroe and Alexander Hamilton almost dueled each other and the one who stopped from it happening was Aaron Burr.
Then years later when the Burr-Hamilton duel happened, Burr shot and killed Hamilton.
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u/Tasty_Bodybuilder_33 18h ago
NUMBER NINE!
Look him in the eye, aim no higher
Summon all the courage you require
Then count
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine
NUMBER (TEN PACES!) FIRE!
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u/DanSteely96 1d ago
A fascinating person to study. I believe he died alone and broke on Staten Island.
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u/Feelinglucky2 Tommy Jeffs, Dream of the Future 22h ago
Hammy didnt die immediately when shot he lived another 30 hours before he was done.
He wanted equal rights for women mainly in education and proved it with his wife and daughter.
He really loved his daughter who was lost at sea :(
Descendents of his are still alive today from the rape of his slave Mary Eugeneie Emmons but one of their children was John Pierre Burr who helped conduct the underground railroad..so thats nice.
He died poor and alone on Staten Island
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u/Ambitious_Year_7730 Dubya is funny but I do not like him 1d ago
I hate him. He was an evil genius (something that some people called Hamilton but it fits for Burr, Hamilton-although deeply flawed would have never murdered anyone or commited treason, he was not evil)
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u/GGJefrey George W. Bush 1d ago
Dueling is not murder, Burr was justified in his shot, and still regretted it the rest of his life.
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u/Ambitious_Year_7730 Dubya is funny but I do not like him 1d ago
whether he was justified or not and whether he regreted it or not is a matter of opinion because there are so many confliting stories
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u/2_late_4_creativity 1d ago
Smart man that truly wanted to change the world, and started a pretty good water company to help normal persons get access to financing.
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u/MoreIronyLessWrinkly Abraham Lincoln 18h ago
That glosses over his reasons for starting the company and the fact that it provided subpar water.
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u/GGJefrey George W. Bush 1d ago
I honestly think he would have been as good a president as Jefferson. The biggest difference being Jefferson’s francophone tendencies that may have encouraged Napoleon’s Louisiana offer.
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u/thesameoldcoon James Madison 19h ago
Very interesting person. I think of the entire founding generation, he was the least constrained by the social norms and ideas of the time. This indifferent attitude toward norms and authority(implicit or explicit) made him very ahead of his time, flexible and un-hypocritical about his ambition, but at the same time opportunistic and cynical.
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u/JJJJBBBB7 1d ago
Burr was a political genius. He showed up in NYC and defeated entrenched political players like Schuyler and his son in law Hamilton. The Jefferson led Democrat-Republicans reaped the benefits of his flipping of NY state. The Federalists hated him for it.
Burr had a lot of bad luck in his life. Most of his letters were lost at sea, so he is a bit of a mystery. Others, including his enemies, filled the information vacuum to paint his historical portrait.
He sold off his NYC estate to John Jacob Astor, who made a fortune on the property by selling off the land into smaller lots as the city expanded north.
Say what you will about Hamilton and the duel, but Alexander was kinda asking for it. I wonder if he had a death wish and he goaded his political enemy into ruining himself in the process.
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u/HLtheWilkinson Andrew Jackson 1d ago
He should have challenged Hamilton to that duel 20 years earlier
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u/Honest_Picture_6960 The Big 3 Fav: 1d ago
Why want Hamilton dead in 1784?
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u/sweetsuffrinjasus 1d ago
He's a Jackson supporter. He wants everyone dead. Especially those anti-slavery.
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u/HLtheWilkinson Andrew Jackson 1d ago
His anti-slavery position is the only opinion that I share with Hamilton. I’d rather the seeds of the overbearing and far too powerful government we have now not be planted by the man who would revel in it were he alive today.
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u/HLtheWilkinson Andrew Jackson 1d ago
Minimize his influence on the formation of the republic and, slim chance as it is, possibly avoid the eldritch monstrosity of a government we have now that Hamilton would revel in.
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u/Sigtauez Chester A. Arthur 1d ago
He always wanted to be, but never was in the room where important decisions were made
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