Talk:Aaron Burr

Burr is remembered

I think the lead needs some reworking. Saying he is remembered for a single event when he did many things to shape the US is problematic (including being vice president). On top of the way that this statement impacts the balance of the lead it is problematic to say remembered like this because WP:WTW and it begs by whom? Burr is remembered for his famous is also just bad writing if someone is remembered for events 200 years ago then the events are famous.

I think the lead balance is also disturbed by As a New York assemblyman in 1785, he supported a bill to end slavery, despite having owned slaves himself. The body only discusses this in a single sentence.

This highlights the lack of coverage on his first term in the New York assembly the only statement is about his unsuccessful bill and no discussion of what he did do or who he ran against.

In Burr's last year of being a senator, opposed Washington's foreigner policy in his what does this mean? Czarking0 (talk) 16:35, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

@Czarking0! Glad to see you again! I'll get to work on these. Thank you.

For the last point you mentioned, it means what it appears to be. In 1797, Burr spoke out against Washington's foreigner policy. Do you believe it needs to be reworded? Ali Beary _(talk!) 17:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Nice to see you too!

Well if he spoke out against it say he spoke out against it. What is a foreigner policy? What about it did Burr oppose? Czarking0 (talk) 17:15, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

More on the foreigner policy is probably in Washington's actual farewell address and on his page. I can't find any sources that say what parts he opposed. The reliable source I found just states he opposed it. Nothing more.

Is this alright, or should I try to do more research on that specific topic? Ali Beary _(talk!) 17:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure I have the answer to that one, but I appreciate you checking Czarking0 (talk) 20:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

I unfortunately can find practically no detail of his time in the New York assembly despite the unsuccessful bill... (except from a generally unreliable source.) Ali Beary _(talk!) 12:28, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Seems like he was using his state assembly power to help make the Manhattan Company. Dirty Water April 1st 2020 in Financial History describes how Burr used the committee process to atypically pass the charter. This source also pushes back on Chernow's malaria claim with a claim that the epidemic was yellow fever. Czarking0 (talk) 15:42, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I cannot find this source. Mind linking it for me? Ali Beary _(talk!) 17:44, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't have a public link. I used WP:TWL Czarking0 (talk) 15:07, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you! Ali Beary _(talk!) 15:45, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Unclear charges

After a near-incident with Spanish forces at Natchitoches, Wilkinson decided he could best serve his conflicting interests by betraying Burr's plans to his Spanish spymasters and to President Jefferson. Jefferson issued an order for Burr's arrest, declaring him a traitor before any indictment. Burr read this in a newspaper in the Territory of Orleans on January 10, 1807. Jefferson's warrant put federal agents on his trail. Burr twice turned himself in to federal authorities, and both times judges found his actions legal and released him. It is unclear here what Wilkinson's conflicting interest was and what exactly he portrayed to others (on separate accounts?). I also presume that this is an important supreme court case for precedent and should be discussed exactly with a bluetext? Czarking0 (talk) 01:47, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I added a small portion of extra info on the contemporary coverage, though I'm not sure I correctly pinged you. Furthermore, mind explaining what a "bluetext" is? I'm a bit unsure as to what you mean, @Czarking0. Ali Beary _(talk!) 13:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I couldn't find what it meant by conflicting interests, so I changed it to "protect himself". I found that he was afraid to get caught up in the mix if his involvement was revealed, so he told on Burr in an attempt to not get in trouble for his actions. Ali Beary _(talk!) 14:01, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

(he as in Wilkinson...) Ali Beary _(talk!) 14:01, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

By bluetext I mean Aaron Burr Czarking0 (talk) 15:27, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

did you check Parmet and Hecht ? Czarking0 (talk) 16:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I also think a little more focus on the contemporary coverage would not hurt. Here is some material to support

Burr conspiracy was played out, and in large measure constructed, in the public sphere. Beginning with the eight "Queries" published in the United States Gazette on 27 July 1805, and continuing through the incendiary essays on the Blount and Burr conspiracies in the Western World, Harman Blen nerhassett's 1806 essays in the Ohio Gazette, and the subsequent publication of Burr's numerous trials, newspapers offered the nation a two-year diet of claims and counter claims about the vice president's designs. As was typical of the period, these accounts passed freely from journal to jour nal, creating a wide pool of allegations. A report from a correspondent on Burr's "perplex[ing]" "scheme," for example, appearing in the Connecticut Journal early in 1807, was datelined "Washington City" and extracted from the Richmond Enquirer, a bastion of Burr speculation, by way of New York City (23 Jan. 1807). Readers in remote Cooperstown, New York, could absorb the "Rumor[s\" of Burr's activities from reports in the Alexandria Expositor and the Tennessee Observer (Otsego Herald, 20 Nov. 1806). All fed themselves on news from the Philadelphia Aurora, the Louisiana Gazette, and Jefferson's National Intelligencer. In an era when few events on the fron tier could hold national attention for long, Burr's activities remained cur rent for months on end. His very audacity fed and sustained the nation's appetite for speculation.

Czarking0 (talk) 01:51, 8 April 2025