Taking account of their personalities and the lives they led, there is
little to suggest comparison, except that they were soldiers and Senators,
who, each in his day, filled a foremost place in public affairs.
Aaron Burr, though well born and highly educated, was perhaps a
rudely-minded man. But he was no traitor. If the lovely woman, Theodosia
Prevost, whom he married, had lived, there is reason to believe that the
whole course and tenor of his career would have been altered. Her death was
an irreparable blow, as it were, a prelude to the series of mischances
that followed. The death of their daughter, the lovely Theodosia Alston,
completed the tragedy of his checkered life.
Born a gentleman and attaining soldierly distinction and high place, he
fell a victim to the lure of a soaring ambition and the devious experience
of a man about town.
The object of political proscription for all his intellectual and personal
resources, he could not successfully meet and stand against it. There was
nothing in the affair with Hamilton actually to damn and ruin him. Neither
morally nor politically was Hamilton the better man of the two. Nor was
there treason in his Mexican scheme. He meant no more with universal
acclaim than Houston did three decades later. To couple his name with that
of Benedict Arnold is historic sacrilege.
Jefferson pursued him relentlessly. But even Jefferson could not have
destroyed him. When, after an absence of four years abroad, he returned to
America, there was still a future for him had he stood up like a man, but,
instead, like one confessing defeat, he sank down, whilst the wave of
obloquy rolled over him.
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