Citation Needed - The Burr-Hamilton Duel

Episode Date: August 12, 2020

The Burr–Hamilton duel was a duel fought at Weehawken, New Jersey, between Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, the former Secretary of the Treasury. It occurred early in the morning of July 11, 1804[1] and was the culmination of a long and bitter rivalry between the two men. Burr shot Hamilton, while Hamilton's shot broke a tree branch above and behind Burr's head. Hamilton was carried to the home of William Bayard Jr. where he died the next day. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

So then I explained that it's just her mom's funeral and she doesn't need to freak out about it. How'd that go? Okay, do you want to hear how I got the burn or not? Okay, all right. What up fam? Jesus. What? What is all this shit?

Cecil, we're just following up on Heads, ballerideeat dudes. We got a strike this podcast where the iron is hot. Cecil, quick, do this TikTok with me. Yeah. What, no, get off me. I'll get off me. Don't stop, body rock baby blow my speakers up. What?

Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, what's up? What's up? What's up? I'll look at this guy being all modest. Hamilton is hot right now. So hot. Yes.

But you got to keep going, dude. Check it out. Tom and I are going to drop 1,000 razors into this vat of Mentos and Coca-Cola smash that like and subscribe. But yeah, James Charles, trouble alert. Guys, guys, I didn't choose the Burhamilton duel because it's hot right now. I chose it because it's an interesting topic from history.

And if anything, the musical does a disservice to its complex story. No. So you weren't trying to hit the hot new trends? I was not. No. So just to be clear, I learned about James Charles for no reason.

I guess so, yeah. Good for him. Good for him. Yep, that tracks. Who's James Charles? Hello and welcome to Citation Needed. The podcast where we choose a subject, we read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Noah and I'll be a middle-aged white guy tonight, but you can't exactly do podcasting with only one middle-aged white guy so I brought along some more. First up, two men who would have shot each other over the last

donut of dueling were still legal he and top okay. Yeah, I did the marshmallow experiment it ended in a hostage situation. I don't care of dueling his legal or not. Heath if you try to take my fucking donut I'm gonna shoot that is 100% higher in clarity. And also joining us tonight, two men whose fatal lovers quarrel will be about whether or not their lovers, C-hole and ELA. I heard my name, but who else are we talking about again? Who is that? This is why I'm going to murder.

Now, before we get started, I wanted to remind everybody that the entire universe is on fire, but we're still here making dick jokes for you. And if you'd like to learn how to really show your appreciation be sure to stick around to the end of the show and with that out of the way tell us Eli what person plays think concept phenomenon or event what we'd be talking about today. We'll be talking about the burr Hamilton duel. Okay and heath you heromfully corrected the musical are you ready to reenact that for the listeners? No, just read a book about the ears and the thing that caused the duel that you're talking about in your musical.

It's fine. We had to talk him out of doing cats, people. So you should be careful. That's not the most important. I don't even walk on two legs. All right, so what was the Burr Hamilton duel? The Burr Hamilton duel was a pistol duel in 1804 between the vice president of the United States, The Burr Hamilton Dool was a pistol duel in 1804 between the vice president of the United

States, Aaron Burr, and the guy who made sure he didn't become president Alexander Hamilton. It was the culmination of a long political feud between the two founding fathers that involved a whole bunch of campaign ruining, the fact that New York City wasn't a big enough town for both of them, and most importantly, an aggressive series of strongly worded letters. So basically, it was an old timey Twitter war that ended with a literal gun fight. Oh, no one? Okay, I'll say it. I missed the good old days.

That sounds better. Yeah. I'm a better system. So in the end, Hamilton was killed, but Burr was immediately hated by everyone, like even more than he already was, and his political career was destroyed forever. So Hamilton kind of won the game by dying,

and he got a musical. There's a musical? Did you guys hear about this? Okay. That's it. Yeah, but if you think about it, that's super fucked up, because if you just go by rhyme ability of name, Burhad a huge star with this.

All right, so before we get into the details of the feud, here's a quick background of the two gunfighting elder statesman, starting with the lose winner of the duel, Alexander Hamilton. He was one of the most influential founding fathers, although he never held a high elected office. He was one of the most influential founding fathers, although he never held a high elected office. He was a military commander during the revolution. He was an architect of the Constitution. He wrote the majority of the Federalist papers that argued to get it ratified. He created the Federalist Party. He founded the Coast Guard and he started the New York Post newspaper.

Oh, the list was going so well up until that last man. I like the sports section, but most importantly, as the first treasury secretary, he engineered the entire American banking system. Now, that might sound like a bad thing, but he's basically the reason you never have to carry around wheelbarrows of money to buy stuff. Yeah. Now, I'd love to talk about all the econ or details, but that's not for everyone. So TLDR, the Fed is a giant Ponzi scheme

that's been working for 230 years. I'm just leaning into it. And that brings us to the win loser of the duel, Aaron Burr. He was born in New Jersey, minutes from Eli's house, like really fucking close. Really close. And that pretty much tells the whole story everyone hated him

He smelled weird and he wanted so badly to be a real New Yorker, but he never was And he was just all around We're just gonna roll past the smelling partly. There's no explanation on that. Just I said he was born in New Jersey That first time around. That's on May. Coming. All right. Come on. It's an answer. Yeah. So I come in from Gary Indiana, Tom. Just put in our context. Contact. Thank you very much. Thanks. So, Ber was born into a rich family.

You went to Princeton where his dad was a former president of the university, the college of the time, and he became a real estate developer in New York. And besides the rich dad and the Ivy League neptism and the whites only real estate thing, he also made it to the White House without getting the most votes. Crazy. So basically, he made a blueprint for Donald fucking Trump. Jesus Christ. Over the course of his political career as a New York assemblyman, a US senator, the vice president, and candidate for governor of New York, he became known as the original creator

of American dirty politics. Among other things, or was the guy who turned Tamini Hall from a New York social club for immigrants into a giant political corruption machine? Yeah, but grab the Al-Bethan pussy went over way better back then because in old time from a new art social club for immigrants into a giant political corruption machine. Yeah, but grab the al-Bethan pussy went over way better back then because an old-timey print pussy looks like puffy. Pussy, that's the highest-brow,

low-brow joke ever written. He's so well done. All right, well, all that being said, to Aaron Verne's credit, he was definitely intelligent. So he might have actually earned his way into Princeton if he had to. He didn't have to, but he might have done that. He got accepted at age 13 and graduated with distinction at age 16. And apparently, he was also a feminist.

At least as much as that was possible at the time. He was a big fan of the writer Mary Wolstoncraft, the mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, and Wolstoncraft is most famous for writing a vindication of the rights of woman in 1792, which is known as the manifesto of American feminism. Burr actually had a painting of Wolstoncraft on his mantle, and he made sure his daughter received a top notch education almost like she was a boy. So okay, but before you're too impressed by the college at 13, think remember that at the time, all you had to do to graduate Princeton was not die of milk.

So it's not, and it's even easier since milk leg is a condition of follows childbirth. Nobody attending Princeton had a whole lot to worry about. All right. So before his political career started, just like Hamilton, were served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and worked directly for George Washington. They both did. But unlike Hamilton, he also worked for the notorious trader Benedict Arnold.

And big pin in that treason thing for later, we'll circle back to that. Okay, but I'm going to admit right now, I am at least a little bit comforted to know that Trump is gonna be the villain of the German. And we're also founded the Manhattan company, which eventually became JP Morgan Chase. And not surprisingly, the whole thing was a giant scam. In 1799, he took advantage of the yellow fever epidemic and asked the state of New York to let him start a company that would deliver clean water.

And he got New York to grant him a financial loophole in the existing laws that effectively let him start a bank without actually being a bank. The company barely delivered any water. They just did the bank thing, but in order to keep their loophole going, they would ceremoniously pump some tiny bullshit amount of water through like a pipe to nowhere. And they actually kept that going until 1921. What the fuck? Just pumping water to nothing and to China down. A tiny bullshit amount to nowhere is how the marketing team at Chase promotes their mortgages. So I just I love that it stopped in 1923. It's just some guy like, hey, anyone notice our water bill is really high.

Like, was there a toilet running for 123 years or just 20 jiggle all the lovers? Around jiggle. So back to the origin of the duel. The grudge between Burnt Hamilton started in 1791 when Burnt got elected to the US Senate. The guy he beat was Hamilton's father-in-law who was going to be helping Hamilton with the Ponzi scheme. So Burnt Hamilton started feuding and it got really bad during the presidential election

of 1800. The incumbent was John Adams of Hamilton's Federalist Party, and Burr was running along with Thomas Jefferson on the Democratic Republican ticket, the rival party. The rules of the Electoral College, at that point, gave each elector two votes. First place would be President, and second place would be Vice President, and the Democratic Republicans knew they had 73 electors, which was enough to win, and they planned to have 72 of them vote for Jefferson and Burr with the last elector only voting for Jefferson.

So Jefferson would be President and Burr would be Vice President. But somehow the electors fucked up that very simple fucking plan and it ended with a tie of 73 votes each. And that meant there was a tie breaker vote in the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Federalists who hated Thomas Jefferson. But Hamilton explained that he super duper extra-hated Aaron Burr

and convinced the House to make sure Jefferson won. Apparently they voted 35 times in a row, all ending in each act. What? What? Then on ballot number 36, they finally just barely voted for Jefferson. So, Burby came the VP in a murderous rage wanting to kill him. So, how much seraptitious winking has to happen during those 35 times. It's like 14 hours into a rock paper scissors tournament,

just like sweating profusely. You fucking throw scissors against Steve. God damn it, scissors. That's four to row scissors. That's insane. That's insane. Madness. So the feud kept ramping up.

And the next big moment happened in 1804, when Bird decided to run for governor of New York and he once again failed thanks to the efforts of Hamilton. So Bird was still the vice president in his first term at that point But he was such a giant asshole that Jefferson was dropping him from the ticket for the reelection campaign So Bird announced his new plan and the Albany Register newspaper immediately published a letter written by a politician named Charles Cooper that mentioned a dinner party where Alexander Hamilton

talked all about how Burr is a dangerous asshole who should never be in charge of anything. Cooper also added, I could describe in detail an even more despicable opinion which Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr. And that last part sent Aaron Burr into another murderous rage. So he immediately started rage drafting a letter.

Clearly doing that thing where you have to hear the pen and really scrape along paper and grunting along with your thoughts to emphasize your point. And the letter was written to Hamilton directly, not like Cooper or the newspaper, right? To Hamilton, it said, more despicable, I demand a prompt and unqualified acknowledgement or denial of the use of any expression that would warrant that assertion from Mr. Cooper. You tell me right now the worst thing you can think of me or else. Right. Right. Right. All right, so Elton got this letter from Aaron Burr's dedicated angry letter delivery guy that he had. And he wrote a response explaining that he can't be held responsible for Cooper,

adding that he'll abide the consequences if Burr is still unsatisfied. And apparently they went back and forth like this for weeks with Burr's angry letter guy walking around New York City with analog tweets in all accounts on parchment paper, being Burr's house and Hamilton's house. Burr kept demanding answers about the laws of gentlemanly honor and decorum and Hamilton kept responding with, okay, I already answered 19 times all these questions. There's no new information. We're done.

You said he was a federalist, but he's so not shlony sure he wasn't a glibiterian. How dare you. Super. Super. Super. Super. Super. How dare you as Super. Super. Super. Super. Super. Super.

How dare you as good as Ellen. So finally, Aaron Burr had no other recourse to issue a gun fight challenge. And Hamilton accepted game the fuck on. Are we sure he had no other? No other recourse. All right. That's a lot of other recourse is available.

Well, quick, before you know my social media history shows up to prove I can't actually condemn this behavior. We're gonna pause for a quick break and a little apropos of nothing All right gentlemen, I have shocking news. The presidential election is a tie. A tie? Yes, yes, yes, it's true. Are we shall now cast our ballots again? Okay, everyone, it is a tie again. Did everyone just vote the same way? Okay, I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm just not answering it. Somebody's actually gonna take a shirt. Yeah, all right. I think we should just take him forever. Okay, okay.

It seems two people changed their votes. So that leaves us with another tie. So we need an odd amount of people to change their vote. Odd. Got it. Oh, I want you to be a guy. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. They're vote Odd got it like one Okay Vote number 22

Is another tie seriously people what the fuck is happening We should vote again, right? Oh, Kyle, you think so? That's what we should vote again? Yes? Okay. Vote 30. Still a tie. Tell you what, why doesn't everyone just shout out their votes?

So the last person can change theirs if there's a tie. I want to vote for TIG Hug and I hate all of you. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUT And we're back when we last left off. We were learning what the next step after Godwin is. So he's, tell us. What happened to the few from here? So the duel that killed Hamilton, that's obviously the famous one. But that actually wasn't the first time Burren Hamilton were involved in a dueling situation together.

There was actually another one, seven years earlier. In 1797, a newspaper published a story about how Hamilton got caught giving money to a guy named James Reynolds who was in jail for forgery. Heard that the money was a bribe so that Reynolds would keep quiet about Hamilton having an affair with his wife during that jail term. And Hamilton was certain that the story was leaked to the paper by his political rival, James Monroe, who went on to be the fifth president. So Hamilton found Monroe and started yelling at him, which eventually led to a dual challenge.

And Monroe chose Aaron Burr to be his second. That's the dueling caddy who also handles the negotiators. And Burr managed to talk down Monroe and Hamilton before any guns got fired. Yeah, second is also your own personal referee that you brought along with you to make sure everything was fair. So just like back then,

we only know that patriots have their own referees. So that's all. Okay, wait, you have to bring... Heath, you missed your calling. So we are agreed. The gentleman shall fire on three. Yep, yep, fire on three. My guy's gonna count to three and then fire.

No, no, they shall count simultaneously, sir. I don't know, my guy's a super fast counter. Okay, look, look, look, look. Look, look. Then an outsider shall do the counting to make sure can't look. Look, look, look. Look, look. Then an outsider, she'll do the counting to make sure things are fair. Cool, no, okay, okay, I get that. So I'll do the count.

Red, red, red, I'm gonna do the count. You know, you know, you can't do the count. You're ready? You cannot, sir, you cannot do the count. You're entangled, sir. You said someone not doing, I'm someone not doing. Look, I like one cat. What did you go?

What? Nice, good job buddy, when you go. One, two, three. Nice. Good job, buddy, you got him. Thank you. That's like a hate losing. I'm not doing. That's too. That's too. That's too.

That's too. That's too. That's too. That's too. That's too. That's too. And that brings us to the famous duel. It happened on the morning of July 11th, 1804.

Hamilton and Burr each got in a boat on the West Side of Manhattan, New York and rode across the Hudson River to a popular dueling area. That was a thing that existed, popular dueling areas. It was in Weehawk in New Jersey right across the river. Dueling was illegal in both states, but New Jersey wasn't prosecuting the gunfighters very actively,

so they figured it was less trouble there. And just to be sure that all the witnesses had plausible deniability, that it had a bunch of absolute nonsense. That includes having everyone turn their backs to the duel when it actually started. I'm not a started. These men are both attorneys, by the way. But to be fair, though, what's that over there? Defes wouldn't be dismissed from law until 1990.

They agreed on 7am as the meeting time in Weehawken on the bank of the Hudson River, which means they scheduled a gun fight to happen in a giant cloud of fog. Yep. And this little strip of land is exactly where Alexander Hamilton's oldest son Philip was killed in a duel in 1801. So that's fun, same place.

And apparently Hamilton decided they should use the same pistols from that sun-killing duel. Just walking through his living room. You know it'll be fun. You know it'll be fun. Yeah, like who buries their kid? It's like, you know, I should keep a souvenir. I did a souvenir. So you might remember from our episode about the Code Duelo, the rules of dueling, that before they start a duel, the seconds for each dueler have to do a bunch of negotiating about technicalities.

For example, sometimes the guy who issues the challenge has to let the other guy fire first, which seems like a pretty big advantage. Right. It's a weird system. But they went with the simultaneous opening system with both duolers, free to shoot right away. They work out all the rest of the details. Hamilton's second wins the coin toss and gets to be the person who says go and the two

guys take their spots about 15 feet apart, which seems small to me. I don't know. I think it was 15 feet apart, which seems small to me. I don't know. I think in my head it was 15 feet. And God damn it. At this point on, there's some controversy about exactly what happened. Mostly because everyone turned their backs in order to legally cancel out witnessing a murder.

Jesus Christ. All of this. What? That's what happened. Fuck. But all the first thing that counts, I did agree on a few things. Now, why are you there? I did.

Okay. Complete nonsense. I just want to hear a complete nonsense, but they agreed on a few things. First of all, this is when Hamilton and Burr both started rhyming, like really clever time. So after a bunch of amazing poetic taunts, the catty says go. There were two shots fired within a few seconds

and Hamilton gets hit in the stomach and he ended up dying the next day. And his dying words and that's a rap would inspire musical history generation later. So according to the account of Hamilton's second, Judge Nathaniel Pendleton, Hamilton fired first, but he intentionally missed in order to be honorable. But if that's true, Hamilton did it in literally the dumbest way possible, because if you're going for the honor of miss, you're supposed to fire into the ground, like probably next to you to be clear about it,

but Hamilton fired right over the burrs head, hitting a tree branch about seven feet away from burrs face. And, you know, it's kind of hard to be confident that somebody didn't just shoot a gun at you when that happens. Mostly because they just shot a gun at you. Right, yeah. So, burr obviously returned fire regardless of whatever honor plan either one of them had going in. Just Hamilton shooting near him

seraptitiously winking in a fog storm using his son's curse gun. That actually does sound a lot like the US Treasury. I said psych, Aaron. Did you not hear me? I said psych. So if I don't later, that the bullet fractured one of Hamilton's ribs and lodged in his spine and he immediately collapsed. According to Pendleton, that's when Aaron Burr started walking toward Hamilton in a, quote, speechless manner that Pendleton deemed as regretful, possibly after bird deciphered the very confusing honor miss.

But before Pendleton could ask any questions about that, the other caddy was pulling Burroway and hiding him behind an umbrella. What? Because the doctor was about to show up, and again, plausible, the liability of him, Burrowas, was a little bit's okay. Maybe the doctor was going to do a rain day. So you know, right?

Right before I guess they're birds going like, okay, okay, but you got to admit, nobody expects you to miss missing, dude. That's what happened up. So the big argument among historians is about the intentions of each duel or going into the duel. But really just Hamilton's intentions. Burrs were super duper clear. He wanted to kill the guy who made fun of him at a dinner party. Who wouldn't? Some of the evidence for that includes when Burr was quoted later that day as saying,

I'm really glad I shot that guy this morning. I would have shot him in the heart instead of the abdomen if it wasn't so fucking foggy, 7am next to the river was super dumb. Almost exact words. I also got confirmation from British philosopher Jeremy Bentham after Burr told him like four years later when they met up, Burr said, yeah, I totally knew I was going to kill that guy. That's what Aaron Burr volunteered when he met with the philosopher who basically invented modern ethics. Bent them later reported, wow, that guy's fucking evil. Again, almost his act works for men. Burr's just like, so yeah, then I shot him.

Totally dead. Hey, what are you writing there, Jeremy? I'll just use something for a book. It's just not so. It's not so. So yeah, murder for hate was definitely Burr's plan, pretty clear. In terms of Hamilton's intention, it wasn't as obvious, except, yes, it was. Also murder for hate, very clearly, both of them.

But one big piece of evidence that brings that into question was a letter that Hamilton wrote before the duel. It was titled Statement on Impending Duel with Aaron Burr by Alexander Hamilton, which kind of makes the whole plausible deniability thing a moot point. So in the letter, Hamilton explained that he was opposed to dueling for both religious reasons and also, you know, bullet-based reasons, but he couldn't just back out. So he wrote that he was intending to throw away his first fire or not fire at all, like for honor.

But he didn't tell Burr about the letter or ascending to him or publish it in a way that Burr would know. And even if he did, the letter didn't explain that throw away my first shot means fire like seven feet away from your face. That'll be how I honorably throw it away. Which is weird, because I heard he's not throwing away his shot.

Is what that song is about. Yeah. I feel like I promise not to shoot you. If you promise not to shoot meme letters, our best deliver before the duel, right? That's set it up before it happens. That's a second really like involved in it. Yeah, right.

I feel like you can best the agreement. You can just skip the duel. Yeah, Really like involved in it. Yeah, right. But I feel like in that the agreement, you can just skip the duel. Yeah, I guess so, man. Oh, okay. So we can just like not wake up early that day. Sleep in. Oh, I'm gonna go to Jersey. Oh, we're gonna go all the way out to Jersey.

Get a ride of boat. So hate the spot. This is everything I just mentioned. Some historians think that Burr actually shot first and Hamilton really was planning to throw away a shot and that Hamilton only fired by accident after getting hit by Burr. But that's fucking stupid. If you're planning to shoot your gun into the ground, just right to the side of you or

not shoot at all, and then you get shot in the stomach Your body's reflex probably doesn't involve aiming your gun almost at the other guy's head and firing right next to him You know what I've made this say for all this a lot easier is like if they had some of the witnesses that weren't like Children hiding their heads under blankets, so the dueling monster, right? Also according to several accounts when they were taken their places, Hamilton started doing a bunch of very aggressive, like, murdery taunting. At one point, he called a timeout on the setup proceedings. He pointed his pistol toward Burr and started slowly and repeatedly siding along the top

of the gun to make sure his aim was just right to taunt him and make it very aggressively clear what was about to happen. So Hamilton was very obviously lying in the letter which was just a way to make burr look extra evil if burr won the duel and it worked super smart move by Hamilton actually. Alexander Hamilton inventor of banking and saying you had to hold back because your karate makes you too deadly. Yeah, I know you said it's a smart move, but like the smarter move would have been to shoot burr. Like that would have been way smarter. But this is a good backup plan in case.

Yeah. So when burr heard about that letter after the duel would have been better before, good point. But yet he heard about it after, he responded, contemptible, if true. And shit, in my favorite moment from Aaron Burr, he pointed out that Hamilton's plan was technically a violation of the code duet. What?

What? Which it was actually. And- No, with a pistol. No, with a pistolons. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha a guy to death was a violation of New York law. So Burga charged with murder in both states, but neither charge ever made it to trial. He actually finished out his term as vice president, and nothing ever happened. Inograting a long American tradition of vice presidents getting away with shooting people. Even if he was impeached by the house, like you said, nothing would have happened.

That doesn't matter. Yeah, you actually posed for a portrait in front of Duwela brand dueling pistol. So, we're left his VP office in 1805 with pretty much the whole country hating him, but he'd also just learned that laws don't count for him, which is kind of exciting. So he moved out West and tried to steal the Louisiana purchase. His plan was to make a whole bunch of that land into his own personal country. He got in touch with General James Wil Mason of sick of the u.s. army to help them out at which point general willkinson sent a letter to president thomas jiberson and burga to immediately arrested for treason but apparently willkinson had his back turned

during their meeting and the day. see the trees. So burga to credit of all the charges. I don't understand. And then following the trees and thing, Berh moved to York for a while and then eventually back to New York, where he spent the rest of his life as a lawyer and apparently a serial womanizer. There's actually a book of Aaron Berh, Eurotica, that was published after he died.

This is real. Entitled the Amorous Intrigues and Adventures of Aaron Burr. And all the womanizing actually led to a tragically funny divorce. When his second wife left him in 1836, she hired Alexander Hamilton Jr. as her divorce teacher. Fuck you, that's amazing. Hamilton Jr. as her divorce. No, fuck you. That's amazing. That is fucking amazing for a bunch of his stuff by the son of the guy he murdered with

a gun. And on September 14th, 1836, the exact day that divorce was finalized, Aaron Burk died. All right. So if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? Uh, the vice president of the United States and walk out onto Fifth Avenue, take 42nd Street over the Hudson, row across the river, kill a guy in the garden, finish his office president, try to steal a piece of the country and never got prosecuted for anything. Oh, what's all this new?

Did you hear that, Mike Pence? Sure. Okay, Heath, but what did you learn about the topic of your essay? Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Hamilton's musical was wrong. All right, so Heath, are you ready for the quiz? Ready to go.

All right, Heath, what's a better name for Aaron Burz, erotic memoir? Hey, it burns when I pee. What's your name, boy? That's fine. The Louisiana Ferkis. Ah! Ah! For C,

Oh, it was good. Aaron Burz, good. A lifetime of shooting onto stomachs. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Oh, man, I know. Good a lifetime of shooting onto stomachs Oh man, I know it's so hard to choose Louisiana for kisses so fun

But it's got to be see a lifetime of shooting onto stomachs Very obvious all right, heath What are the advantages to living in an honor culture? Hey Sometimes you get gut shot and die. That's it. It's a is the that's it. I think it's a Tom fixed Twitter. Yeah, that nail. Keith, what political party is best known for its lack of dueling prowess? A, the gangrene party.

B, the squibreterians. C, the amputee party. Or D, next of kin dependent. Kin dependent. All right, I'm a huge fan though of squibreterians, despite all the other different. Yeah, squibreterians is too little. That is not correct. it is next up,

Ken dependent, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm sorry. Oh, yes. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! All right, well, it looks like despite a very impressive

effort by Heath, Cecil did best of today. So Cecil gets to be next week's host. Let's do, I'm sure another musical topicil gets to be next week's host. Let's do a sure another musical topic. Tom is next week's episode. That's it. All right, well, we have an essay on Cat Buttholes to look forward to. All right, well, for Tom, Cecil Eli and Heath,

I'm Noah, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then, Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can find more of us that let's face it, the podcast you are already listening to when you heard about this one. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can go and go and go to Per Episode

and you should at patreon.com. So, this is CitationPod, or leave us a Pipe Show review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes, be sure to check out CitationPod.com. Alright, my friends after 36 votes, the presidential election has been decided, Thomas Jefferson,

is the winner! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

Oh, God! in the fucking face. Do you hear? I will kill you, dead. Okay. Okay.