Word: burrs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Aaron Burr seems particularly pertinent. The Burr-Jefferson Electoral College tie in 1800 led to the Twelfth Amendment, which revised the process of electing the President and Vice President.* After killing Alexander Hamilton in the Weehawken duel in 1804, Burr became the first Vice President to be indicted-a precedent that has lately been dusted off by constitutional experts...
...Burr dealt with the indictment by leaving town. There followed his premature adventures in empire building and manifest destiny in the Southwest. These eventually led to a charge of treason brought by President Jefferson, a trial that saw Jefferson invoke Executive privilege to withhold documents. The far-reaching effect of Burr's eventual acquittal was to help define what constitutes a treasonable...
Besides being a revolutionary, Burr was a New York lawyer, and his ideas on education, especially for women, were far ahead of his time. Yet enlightened views did not stop him, at age 77, from marrying a rich widow and selling her assets under property laws that had been written for and by husbands. Burr always had his way with women. In addition to fathering one legitimate, beautiful and brilliant daughter, he has been credited with numerous "foundlings." Though there is no evidence, it was even whispered that the eighth President, Martin Van Buren, was an adulterous plum...
...Schuyler is, according to the author, a young opportunistic journalist "based roughly on the obscure novelist Charles Burdett." This is a flimsy bit of deception. Burdett was so obscure a novelist that he is not listed in any of the standard literary references. Historians, however, readily identify him as Burr's adopted-possibly natural...
Charlie Schuyler's memoirs are considerably more omniscient than those of his obscure model. For they include Burr's own memoirs as dictated to Charlie, his would-be biographer. The Burr sections are Vidal's skillful précis of Aaron Burr's actual letters and diaries, containing intimate justifications for his adventures and intrigues. Burr, the sardonic wit, constantly sees through labels like Republican and Federalist to such common denominators as hunger for glory, power and the preservation of privilege. He talks of Washington's "eerie incompetence" as a military leader, while admiring...