Burr on Staten Island
As a dutiful son of Staten Island, I have been warmed to know that Aaron Burr died in September 1836 in a hotel in Port Richmond, on the island’s north shore. Port Richmond was a short sail across the Kill Van Kull from Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where Burr grew up. I like to think the old…
Read MoreBurr on Trial!
On Friday, November 11, Aaron Burr faced a panel of judges again. This time, though, AB (as he signed his letters) was portrayed by the irrepressible Prof. Ronald Collins, while the judges were an eminent group of Washington-based jurists of the 21st century: Chief Judge Andrew Effron of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…
Read MoreAll Burr, All the Time, No. 3
I seem to have stirred up a partisan hornet’s nest with a piece on Politico.com this morning, wondering whether Aaron Burr and Dick Cheney should be deemed our “most notorious VP.” (Hint: Cheney wins.) American Emperor got a sweet review as a “gripping new book” from Jeff Ayers of the Associated Press. So far, the…
Read MoreAll Burr, All the Time, No. 2
Just back from the first week of intense promotion of American Emperor, and the feeling out there was great: Started this week in Louisville at the Filson Historical Society, where the crowd topped a hundred and they were deep into the Burr story. Then on to the Atlanta History Center where 170 Georgians filed in…
Read MoreAll Burr, All the Time
After sailing into the marketplace on Tuesday, American Emperor picked up a terrific review from David Holahan at the Christian Science Monitor, which featured a great opening line: “If you feel that our contemporary politics are off the rails, you should read David O. Stewart’s vivid account of 19th-century American machinations.” The review goes…
Read MorePub Date!
No, it’s not the day we crawl from bar to bar, drinking heavily. It’s publication day, when American Emperor officially hits the bookstores and Amazon starts shipping. It’s one of those exciting days when the author passes people on the street and thinks, with a flitting sense of dismay, “They don’t even know that my…
Read MoreLewis Lapham Asks About Burr
Bloomberg.com has just posted a podcast of the interview I did with Lewis Lapham about American Emperor. Mr. Lapham (it wasn’t long enough to get on a first-name basis) no longer edits Harper’s, which he did for many years, but does put out Lapham’s Quarterly, in addition to doing this series of podcast interviews for…
Read MoreTreason: Too Dangerous To Be The Epithet du Jour
Over at Huffington Post, I argue that Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, and all the rest need to back off on the treason-slinging. Treason is an emotionally overpowering accusation that the Constitution limits to very specific circumstances. In Aaron Burr’s treason trial in Richmond in 1807, Chief Justice John Marshall aggressively enforced the limits on treason. …
Read MoreCalling Mr. Madison!
The current financial crisis surrounding Greece has the European Union (EU) reliving an American nightmare of the 1780s. Then, the Articles of Confederation bound the thirteen states together with ties that were both loose and clumsy, and that failed. The parallels are plain: A group of states join together for mutual advantage. History and pride…
Read MoreBurr's Boats, Part II
When Aaron Burr left the office of vice president in March 1805, his future was clouded. President Jefferson had dropped him from the Republican ticket the year before, then Burr lost a race for governor of New York. Winning his famous duel with Alexander Hamilton, former Secretary of the Treasury, landed Burr under indictment for…
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