AHC: President Aaron Burr

Really? You had to Godwin this thread?

Let me introduce you to the facts, previously posted by Shawn Endresen:
...now, Mr. Virginia History Teacher, are you going to admit your biases or not? It is a little ridiculous, considering the rhetoric you've been using, to try and take your claims seriously. (My apologies if my tone is too much.)

I never said I wasn't biased. Isn't it painfully obvious that I am? I'm not sure what the verb "to Godwin" means. If your apology over your tone was sincere you would've backspaced most of what you typed, yes?
 
For our European friend, point number 1 of this is actually not opinion. It's documented fact. To put it in analagous terms, Aaron Burr was the kid in the cafeteria at school who sat by himself, not to get you to feel sorry for him, but because he would fart ON people as they walked by, spit on them if they looked at him, and throw food in peoples' eyes and hair if they got to close to him. He was the bully that everyone hated but the administration wouldn't deal with for a long time.

Only, not really.

Most people who knew him actually commented on his excellent manners and affable manner. Hamilton was the raging asshole. Burr was merely an unscrupulous bastard.
 
And people wonder why Nixon still draws a lot of hatred even decades later.

Same type of man, different era. Burr, like Nixon, was complex, not a monster but more Machiavellian than you'd like to see in a President but sadly not so much more than some politicians tend to be. It's just on a national stage like Burr or Nixon one can see their actions magnified tot he point where they seem even worse than they were.

America survived Nixon because of nearly 200 years of tradition, it would have been dicier but might have survived a Burr Presidency, too. Or, if Burr isn't VP in 1800 maybe he calms down and by 1815 (like in my TLIAD about Washington winning at Brandywine) he becomes President and is a lot calmer and accepts defeat easily. Sort of like Nixon did when he resigned.

America has been lucky to not have too many leaders like this, though. Some countries have kigns like that who reign for half a century.:eek::(
 
He'd probably alienate everyone and be removed from office after he tries to do something stupid, like, sell Maine. Consider both Hamilton and Jefferson didn't like the guy, no doubt they've form another ad hoc alliance to get him out of office (kind of how they formed one to make Washington run again in 1792).

Hamilton and Jefferson were jerks themselves. Them not liking him is probably a reference of good character.
 
Imagine the disaster of an Aaron Burr presidency. What do you think an Aaron Burr presidency would look like for his first term? Would he even get a second term, and, if so, what do you think that would look like?

This is an astonishingly biased and leading question.

Burr wasn't any worse than most of the elites at this time and probably better than some.

He was reknowned for his courtroom and senate decorum and established alot of precedents.

Jefferson was the kooky one. He wanted the United States to be run by patrician "gentleman farmers" like himself with no central government at all, a la the Holy Roman Empire. He was responsible for the immascualating of the army and navy and America's poor performance in the War of 1812. He wanted "sea militia" to arise at the last moment to fight off the Royal Navy. The British thought he was hilarious.

His weakness prompted the shut down of trade with both Britain and France and destroyed the economy for his 2nd term.

Hamilton was....Hamilton. Burr was charged with winning the duel but wasn't Hamilton a willing participant? How does winning make Burr worse than Hamilton?

And, by the way, no one ever truly established Burr's motives for the Louisiana debacle. It was his enemies that stated he was trying to become an Emperor.
 
Everyone is talking about Burr being elected in 1800, but there is of course an alternative way he becomes president. He simply announces after the tied vote that he will not accept the presidency from the House--period. Then, after Jefferson's election he serves eight years as vice-president, remains a Democratic-Republican in good standing, and is a perfectly plausible nominee of the party for president in 1808--in which case he is almost certain to win.

In OTL those in 1808 who favored terminating the Virginia Dynasty were under the disadvantage that their only candidate was Vice President George Clinton, of whom Senator William Plumer of New Hampshire wrote, "He is old, feeble & altogether uncapable of the duty of presiding in the Senate. He has no mind--no intellect--no memory--He forgets the question--mistakes it--&c not infrequently declares a vote before its taken--& often forgets to do it after it is taken--Takes up new business while a question is depending." http://books.google.com/books?id=IhGflokDzmAC&pg=275
 
The real problem with a Burr presidency in 1801 is not that he was History's Greatest Monster but that he would be a president without a party. The Jeffersonians would hate him for what they would see as a crass betrayal, and the Federalists (who were in decline anyway) would not trust him either, even if enough of them considered him a lesser evil than Jefferson to elect him. Attempt of such "presidents without a party"'--Tyler, Johnson--to organize their own party (Tyler's "corporal's guard," Johnson's "Natoinal Union Movement") were inevitably failures, and there is no reason to think Burr would have any better luck.
 
The real problem with a Burr presidency in 1801 is not that he was History's Greatest Monster but that he would be a president without a party. The Jeffersonians would hate him for what they would see as a crass betrayal, and the Federalists (who were in decline anyway) would not trust him either, even if enough of them considered him a lesser evil than Jefferson to elect him. Attempt of such "presidents without a party"'--Tyler, Johnson--to organize their own party (Tyler's "corporal's guard," Johnson's "Natoinal Union Movement") were inevitably failures, and there is no reason to think Burr would have any better luck.

That's a good point. Even later in the aforementioned TLIAD I only have him serving 1 term.

Who would replace him in 1804, do you think? Certainly the OTL 12th Amendment would still end up being passed, I'd imagine. But, jefferson might be a bit too old at 61, and also too tired of being VP 2 straight terms - might Madison run isntead as Jefferson's heir in the Party?

hamilton might try for the Federalists but that would be a mess - perhaps Madison just lets the other 2 fight it out and waltzes into the White House.
 
Jefferson was the kooky one. He wanted the United States to be run by patrician "gentleman farmers" like himself with no central government at all, a la the Holy Roman Empire.

It's funny how people start just making things up because...well, I dunno your particular reason, but still funny.

Jefferson's concept of 'ward republics', his belief in meritorcracy, and his agrarianism do not come together at all into a belief in patrician rule. If I had to guess you're one of those people who has to imagine that Jefferson's commitment to democracy (of a particular sort -- 'natural aristocracy' leading a democratic polity with most actual government done by participatory democracy at the lowest possible level) is some kind of farce and turn him into an elitist he only ever showed the barest glimmerings of towards the end of his life because it helps you feel a little bit better about Hamilton's unabashed elitism.

I hate this 'Jefferson v Hamilton' thread that runs through history writing about the early United States. It completely ignores how close to the center of contemporary American politics Jefferson rested: He was in favor of the Constitution with some amendments, for instance, rather than being in favor of the Articles of Confederation as they stood (as some people were). His belief in the virtue of the independent, land-owning farmer was directly in line with existing republican ideology of his time period (something most of his contemporaries adhered to one shade or another of -- in fact, of one of the things that makes Hamilton stand out so greatly is how deep his abandonment of it went over the course of the 1780's and 1790's). His belligerency with Great Britain, his pursuit of economic coercion during his presidency, were all things for which he had wide backing within his party and within wider American society at the time.

I'm not the biggest fan of Jefferson for a couple different reasons. But the reasons people invent to dislike him bother me to no end.

EDIT: And, just to further drive home that I'm not looking at this from either side of the bullshit false dichotomy that the 'Jefferson v Hamilton' idea presents, how about I compliment Hamilton some?

Hamilton was almost certainly a genius. The kind of things he did as Treasury Secretary demonstrate an understanding of finance that can only be described as deeply, naturally talented. His response to the 1792 Panic -- regardless of his own role in causing it -- invented Open Market Operations a century and a half before anyone called them that, and he did it with a set of policy tools that were downright primitive in comparison to what modern Federal Reserve Chairmen have available to them. To repeat myself for emphasis, he was probably the single most naturally talented central banker we've ever had and he never actually ran a central bank. I don't LIKE central banks, I don't think they're necessary, but if you're going to HAVE one then you want one run by somebody who knows what he's doing as well as Alexander Hamilton did.

And nothing like macro-economic theory existed during Hamilton's time, he was doing all the things he did off the cuff, with his own knowledge and instincts. He knew what he was doing better than any Fed Chairman we've ever had, even supposed maestros like Greenspan or Volcker. While men like those two are supposedly excellent users of the existing policy tools our central banking system has available to it, Hamilton invented many antecedents of those policy tools on the fly and used them extremely well.

I just think his vision of a hierarchical society of proprietary aristocrats lording it over a dominated population of laborers and peasants to be abhorrent. He may have genuinely THOUGHT it worked really well, he may have really THOUGHT that everyone would have been better off for it, but I disagree.
 
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And then the Virginia and Pennsylvania militias, and perhaps several others, would march into Washington DC and force them to make Jefferson President.
Some additions to this (originally posted in another thread):

Basically, Jefferson was the "choice of the people" and of the state legislatures for the office of president. However, there was the very real possibility of Aaron Burr getting elected President instead of him by the US House. The governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania ordered their militias to start seizing arms and preparing for combat:

http://education-portal.com/academy...ection-and-jeffersonian-democracy.html#lesson

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/histor...tion-1800-story-crisis-controversy-and-change

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/burr/burr_teacher.cfm

http://books.google.com/books?id=NB20R1QLyjsC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=the+certainty+that+a+legislative+usurpation+would+be+resisted+by+arms,&source=bl&ots=F57-jFG-nA&sig=EIxYAhQ9TqDMcIqsWbEHQog1IqM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=g57hU6S5E-Od8QHr44HgDQ&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20certainty%20that%20a%20legislative%20usurpation%20would%20be%20resisted%20by%20arms%2C&f=false

Thomas Jefferson, on Congress electing him President:

Thomas Jefferson said:
The Minority in the H. of R. after seeing the impossibility of electing B. the certainty that a legislative usurpation would be resisted by arms, and a recourse to a Convention to reorganise & amend the government, held a consultation on this dilemma.

In this personal letter to James Madison, he is certain that an attempt to install Burr would result in an armed uprising and a new Constitution.

In another letter, on the subject of a Federalist-Republican Coalition backing Burr:

Thomas Jefferson said:
But we thought it best to declare openly, once and for all, that the day such an act passed, the Middle States would arm, and that no such usurpation, even for a single day, should be submitted to.
 
Google Godwin's Law. Also colloquially known as "Dropping the H-Bomb".

I also don't think Burr necessarily would have been a disaster. I am somewhere in the middle on the Burr is the Second Coming-Burr is the Antichrist continuum.

My own position as well.

Burr is... a fascinating figure, with a host of strengths and flaws that make you genuinely wonder how he'd have done in the big seat. The respective cults of Hamilton and Jefferson (and especially the former) tends to focus on those flaws, magnifying them beyond belief, and inventing new ones. (The idea that Burr was horribly rude, for example, circulates when, again, he was rather famed for his good manners.) It makes talking about him difficult at times.
 
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