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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—New York / USAaron BURR
(1756-1836)
Senate Years of Service:
1791-1795; 1795-1797Party: Anti-Administration;
RepublicanBURR, Aaron, (cousin of
Theodore Dwight), a Senator from New York and a Vice President of
the United States; born in Newark, N.J., February 6, 1756;
graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University)
in 1772; studied theology but soon abandoned it for the law; during
the Revolutionary War entered the Continental Army 1775-1779;
admitted to the bar in 1782 and practiced in Albany, N.Y.; moved to
New York City in 1783; member, State assembly 1784-1785, 1798-1799;
attorney general of New York 1789-1790; commissioner of
Revolutionary claims in 1791; elected to the United States Senate
and served from March 4, 1791, to March 3, 1797; unsuccessful
candidate for reelection; president of the State constitutional
convention in 1801; in the presidential election of 1800, Burr and
Thomas Jefferson each had seventy-three votes, and the House of
Representatives on the thirty-sixth ballot elected Jefferson
President and Burr Vice President; challenged and mortally wounded
Alexander Hamilton in a duel fought at Weehawken, N.J., July 11,
1804; indicted for murder in New York and New Jersey but never
tried in either jurisdiction; escaped to South Carolina, then
returned to Washington and completed his term of service as Vice
President; arrested and tried for treason in August 1807 for
attempting to form a republic in the Southwest of which he was to
be the head, but was acquitted; went abroad in 1808; returned to
New York City in 1812 and resumed the practice of law; died in Port
Richmond, Staten Island, N.Y., September 14, 1836; interment in the
President’s lot, Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, N.J.
Bibliography
American National Biography; Dictionary of American
Biography; The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American
Law; Burr, Aaron. The Political Correspondence and Public
Papers of Aaron Burr. Edited by Mary-Jo Kline. 2 vols.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983; Parmet, Herbert S.,
and Hecht, Marie. Aaron Burr: Portrait of an Ambitious Man.
New York: Macmillan Press, 1967; Melton, Buckner F., Jr. Aaron
Burr: Conspiracy to Treason. New York: Wiley, 2002; Hoffer,
Peter Charles. The Treason Trials of Aaron Burr. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2008.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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