| Bio |

Who they were

Aaron Burr was born on 6 February 1756 in Newark, New Jersey^[2], the son of a Presbyterian minister who also served as president of the College of New Jersey, the school now known as Princeton^[3]. He lost both parents and his grandparents while still a small child, and grew up orphaned, raised mainly by an uncle^[2]. He proved a strong student despite this unsettled start: he entered the college his own father had once led, and graduated with honors at just sixteen years old^{[4, p. 405]}. He briefly studied theology and law before the American Revolution interrupted his plans.

Burr abandoned his law studies to join the Continental Army, volunteering for Benedict Arnold's grueling winter expedition against British-held Quebec in 1775^{[1, p. 192]}. He served through several campaigns before ill health forced him to resign his commission and resume the study of law. Admitted to the New York bar, he built a fast-moving legal and political career in New York City, serving as the state's Attorney General before winning election to the United States Senate in 1791 — where he defeated General Philip Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton's own father-in-law^[5], an early sign of a rivalry that would come to define both men's careers.

Burr's defining year was 1800. As Thomas Jefferson's chosen running mate for the Democratic-Republicans, he unexpectedly tied Jefferson exactly in the Electoral College — the original system did not yet let electors cast separate votes for president and vice president^{[1, p. 192]}. The tie threw the election into the House of Representatives, which deadlocked for thirty-six ballots before Jefferson finally won, partly because Hamilton judged Burr the more dangerous man of the two^[2]. Four years later, escalating hostility between Burr and Hamilton ended in a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey, where Burr mortally wounded his old rival^[6].

The duel effectively ended Burr's political career, even though dueling between political rivals was not unusual among the era's leading men^{[7, p. 31]}. He later traveled west and was arrested and tried for treason over an alleged scheme involving Spanish territory; he was acquitted^{[8, p. 5]}, but his reputation never recovered. He spent years abroad and in relative obscurity before quietly resuming legal practice in New York. He died on 14 September 1836 at Port Richmond, on Staten Island^[5], largely written out of the founding generation's story.

Burr's 1800 tie with Jefferson exposed a genuine flaw in the Constitution's original election machinery: because electors could not yet cast separate votes for president and vice president, two candidates from the same party could accidentally deadlock the whole system. Congress fixed the flaw directly — the process that became the Twelfth Amendment obliged electors to vote separately for each office specifically so 1800 could not happen again^[9]. In that sense, Burr's accidental tie reshaped how every American presidential election has been run since 1804, even though his own name rarely gets credit for the change.

Burr's final marriage was as dramatic as the rest of his life: at around 77 years old, deep in debt, he married the wealthy widow Eliza Jumel, who filed for divorce within months. The divorce was formally granted on 14 September 1836^{[8, p. 29]} — the very same day Burr died.

| Legacy & Reputation |

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