In Defense of Aaron Burr

With, I suspect, partial tongue in cheek, Tacitus writes:

Picture, if you will, a public ceremony in April 2065 honoring Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth — two men, patriots each in their own way, who just happened to have a fatal meeting on a fateful evening. Or perhaps citizens will gather in a plaza in Dallas in November 2163 to honor Lee Harvey Oswald and John F. Kennedy: two Americans, each with their own compelling vision, who just happened to have a fatal clash on a fateful afternoon. If this strikes you as ridiculous — and well it should — then we must stop to ask why the villainous Aaron Burr is being honored alongside Alexander Hamilton in this week, the two hundredth anniversary of the latter’s murder on the dueling field at Weehawken.

Tacitus goes on to point how Burr was a nasty critter, how he justly earned the hatred of both Jefferson and Hamilton (no mean task), how Hamilton fired his shot in the air, and how Burr gunned the Formidable Federalist down.

Burr was, no doubt, an S.O.B. Hamilton was a curmudgeonly character who challenged a number of opponents to duels before the meeting with Burr. Hamilton also made a positive contribution to the United States, while Burr did not. Still, I can’t agree that Burr was a murderer; Hamilton didn’t have to step out, and dueling was an accepted manner of conflict resolution in 1804. If anything, Hamilton was quite foolish in expecting civilized behavior from someone like Burr. I don’t see any moral equivalence between shooting an opponent in a mutually accepted duel and blowing a person’s head off at range while he drives by, or shooting a man in the back of the head while he’s watching a show.

In conclusion, I’m comfortable with Burr’s descendants adding “Not as bad as Oswald or Booth” to his epitaph. Please, Tac, don’t take that away from them.