Personality of Month

“The Duel”

On the morning of July 11, 1804 in Weekawken, New Jersey, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr stood on a narrow ledge twenty feet above the water. In an exchange of pistol shots Hamilton was struck in the side and died the following day. Aaron Burr was not shot but never recovered politically.

In history books we have read many facts about the American Revolution era and our founding fathers like Washington, Jefferson and Adams, but little is said about a significant day in history where a violent conflict took place among two of our founding fathers to defend our new young American republic. This duel was not about jealousies, conspiracies, or about the institution of dueling itself but rather about what was at stake at that particular moment in American history.

At the time, Burr was the Vice President of the Unites States representing the Republican Party and Hamilton was one of the most powerful figures in the Federalist Party. Hamilton believed Burr’s political actions and views were based on his greed for political power and the wealth that goes with it. At one point, Hamilton accused Burr as part of a plot to dismember the American republic to create a confederacy of northern states. Hamilton felt that the American experiment could not succeed without honorable and virtuous leaders. When Burr requested satisfaction in a duel to defend his political principles, Hamilton believed he could not decline. He was standing up for all the American generations present and future.

What is the true significance of this duel? It is not that two prominent statesmen fought in an ancient barbaric ritual, it is that they fought for the individual ideas of what the American republic should represent. Our nation was raw and vulnerable to the disease of corrupt and dishonorable politicians. Hamilton and Burr did not know, as we know today, that our country would flourish and become one of oldest republics in history. Even though Hamilton and Burr were never destined to become strong political figures as some of the other founding fathers, they knew in that moment on the ledge, that to die for their beliefs was an honorable thing to do. They could not let the American dream die; they were willing to die instead.

Just like that extraordinary moment when our founding fathers signed their name to the Declaration of Independence, two men in July 1804 carried on that determination to let the seed of democracy flourish. Today Americans defend on a daily basis to keep that seed growing whether it is a political dispute between two parties, a war overseas, or a political rally in D.C. against the war. * God Bless America!*

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