My 2025 in Reading
Burr's Revolution
In April, my new novel Colossus will appear. People are talking about it already. Matthew Specktor declares Colossus begins “firmly inside the troubled pastoral sublime of John Updike and Richard Ford, but it’s a feint—or a partial feint. What Barkan has in mind is something far more expansive: a broad interrogation of the American psyche in its myriad conflicting parts. The result is masterful, as thrillingly devious—and as brilliantly controlled—as Philip Roth’s The Counterlife.” Preorder the novel now.
Next year, America will celebrate its 250th birthday. With no tongue in cheek, I plan to stage some kind of event honoring the most misunderstood Founding Father, Aaron Burr. This was the year I fully understood Burr had been maligned by history. Credit Gore Vidal’s Burr, my late father’s favorite novel, with triggering this need in me to undertake the Burr renaissance. I do not know why I didn’t read the book when he was alive; perhaps it was my slight allergy to historical fiction. Vidal was one of the great writers of the 20th century, but he is remembered more today for his essays and heterodox political views than his fiction. As a novelist, at the peak of his powers, he was every bit the equal of the midcentury giants. Burr can sit against the best of Roth, Updike, and DeLillo. That I feel certain about. It is a marvelous hybrid of the 19th and 20th century novel, urbane and hilarious and startling in its poignancy. It is also, as I came to find out, mostly historically accurate, its portrait of Burr comporting with the reality of our third vice president and supposed villain of the Founding. Pair Burr with Nancy Isenberg’s Fallen Founder, a work of tremendous scholarship, and you’ll come to understand that much of the history you thought you knew is something close to propaganda. Don’t bother with that famous 2010s musical either. Its view of Burr, at best, is skewed.
Where to begin? Like Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr Jr. was an orphan. His father, the president of what would become Princeton University, and his mother, the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, were both dead by the time he was a small child. Raised by an uncle on the Edwards side, he entered the College of New Jersey (Princeton) as a young teen, initially planning to become a theologian. He was a voracious reader and a star student who could study for fifteen hours at a time. Coming of age in the 1770s, he joined up with the Revolutionaries and saw extensive combat. While his future rival, Thomas Jefferson, hid at Monticello, Burr risked his life in numerous battles and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Despite his bravery and aptitude as an officer, he never rose higher because he had not aligned himself with the proper generals who, beneath George Washington, vied for recognition and approval. Nevertheless, he was celebrated for his service and entered the 1780s as a man on the make.
Hamilton obsessed over Burr, slandering and libeling him repeatedly from the moment Burr entered the public eye. Burr did not do the same back; he considered himself a high-minded gentleman of the Enlightenment, and political attacks to be, on the whole, unbecoming. Burr attracted great attention and opprobrium because he was an unusual politician in New York—where he launched his political and legal career—or anywhere, really. He was a devotee of Mary Wollstonecraft who believed, completely, in the equality of men and women. He thought women should be educated like men and sought to rear his daughter, Theodosia, like a boy, which meant teaching her arithmetic, Latin, Greek, and English composition. Burr drilled her like he would any star male pupil of the era. Theodosia was named for his first wife, ten years his senior, who drew Burr in because she was such a formidable intellect. In New York, Burr was a rising star, a state assemblyman, an attorney general, and a U.S. Senator. To become a senator, he defeated Hamilton’s rich and powerful father-in-law in a vote in the state legislature. In deeply factionalized New York, Hamilton was alienating enough to united rival groups against him—Burr, in many ways, was their compromise candidate. Burr was also a successful trial attorney, and a less successful land speculator. Lashed by Hamilton, the arch-Federalist, as unprincipled, Burr in fact had plenty of them. Though a slaveowner, he submitted a bill to outlaw slavery and another to allow women to vote. He was a threat to Hamilton because he was such an adept political organizer, helping to bring the rival Democratic-Republicans to power in the state. He was a populist who wanted more Americans participating in politics, not less. The bank he formed, the Manhattan Company, drew Hamilton’s ire because it was a challenge to the Federalist banking monopoly and gave the middle-class access to loans. Unlike Hamilton and John Adams, Burr was a defender of immigrants; he challenged the Alien and Sedition Acts and fought to keep his Swiss-born friend, Albert Gallatin, in the Senate.
Burr did not try to steal the election of 1800. He was Thomas Jefferson’s running mate, organizing the northern faction of the Republicans—this party had nothing to do with today’s GOP—as Jefferson united the southerners. Burr delivered New York’s electoral votes to Jefferson as he routed the Federalists up and down the ballot. He professionalized political campaigning like no American before him, and helped to found Tammany Hall, the legendary political machine. Jefferson and Burr, running against Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, finished in a tie in the Electoral College. In those days, the runner-up became vice president, and that had been Burr’s plan. Just forty-four at the time, Burr had every assurance that he would eventually end up president once Jefferson’s terms were up. With a deadlock, the election was thrown to the House of Representatives, where divisions were stark along both political and sectional lines. The outcome of the election was a true disaster for Hamilton because both Jefferson and Burr were his enemies. Jefferson, he decided, would be the lesser of two evils not because Burr was a would-be Caesar or Cataline— as Hamilton repeatedly alleged—but because members of Hamilton’s own party, the Federalists, actually preferred to support Burr over Jefferson. Burr, for a moment, looked like he could lead a joint Federalist-Republican venture that would crush Hamilton’s political career for good. There is no evidence, though, Burr plotted to do this, or truly made a serious attempt to win the battle in the House against Jefferson. Had he schemed like his detractors suggested, he might have actually won. Instead, after more than thirty rounds of balloting, Jefferson emerged victorious, and Burr headed to the new capital city of Washington as the third vice president.
It would be the 1804 New York gubernatorial election that ended Burr’s political career and Hamilton’s life. Jefferson began to distance himself from Burr as the Virginia Republicans plotted to have one of their own succeed Jefferson. They didn’t trust Burr as an exceedingly adroit northerner with his own power base. For 1804, they’d have a new running mate, someone devoid of any particular ambitions. For the Virginia junta, this would prove wise enough; Virginians would control the White House, from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison to James Monroe, for the next twenty years. To save his own career, Burr ran for governor of New York and was bitterly opposed by Hamilton as well as local power brokers, including the young DeWitt Clinton. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, newspaper editors and pamphleteers lied with impunity, and the attacks took their toll on Burr, who never enjoyed responding with the same furor. (One editor went as far to suggest that Burr was sexually preying on his younger male acolytes or they were sexually obsessed with him.) Burr lost the race, and it came to his attention that an Albany newspaper had published a letter that referenced a “still more despicable opinion” Hamilton had made about him. Burr had endured countless attacks from Hamilton over the decades, but this enraged him because the word “despicable,” in the post-Revolutionary era, carried especially dark or even sordid connotations. (Vidal, in Burr, imagines that Hamilton accused Burr of carrying on an incestual relationship with his beloved daughter. We do not know the specifics and Hamilton never supplied any.) Burr demanded, through a letter, an apology. Hamilton obfuscated and refused to apologize. The men traded letters, Hamilton was predictably obstinate, and finally Burr challenged him to a duel. Hamilton accepted. None of this, really, would have happened if Hamilton had simply apologized.
Dueling was illegal in New York but still considered an acceptable way to resolve disagreements among the elite of early America. Hamilton had been a party, in one form or another, to almost a dozen duels in his lifetime, and almost dueled James Monroe, the future president. His own son had died in a duel. Burr had dueled before as well. The men rowed to New Jersey with their seconds and met on July 11th, 1804. Burr was still the sitting vice president. The evidence to suggest that Hamilton intentionally missed Burr is scant and derives mostly from Hamilton allies and the words Hamilton himself prepared for posterity. In actuality, Hamilton supplied the pistols for the duel and put on his spectacles before taking his shot. Like Burr, he was serious, and like Burr, he likely wanted to wound or kill his rival. Burr’s shot struck Hamilton’s abdomen. The former Secretary of the Treasury and George Washington’s right-hand, whose own career was in eclipse in the Jeffersonian era, died the next day a martyr. How would have history judged these men differently if Hamilton was the better shot—or Burr the worse one?
The next chapters of Burr’s life were especially remarkable. Initially indicted for murder in multiple states, Burr fled. Federalists vilified him, naturally, and his enemies in the Jefferson-aligned Republican Party were happy to regard him as a cold-blooded murderer. Still the vice president, he found a much better reception in Washington, and even amicably met with Jefferson. In early 1805, in his final months in office, he presided over the impeachment trial of Samuel Chase, a tempestuous Supreme Court justice Jefferson wanted to drive from the bench because he was close to the Federalists and not ruling enough in his favor. Even Burr’s detractors were forced to admit the infamous vice president was a beacon of impartiality during the trial and helped to ensure Chase was fairly scrutinized while the principle of judicial independence was upheld. Burr was one of the great attorneys of his age, plenty charismatic, and commanded the stage like few others before or since. Chase was acquitted and Burr delivered a farewell speech that brought the Senate to tears.
And then came what was soon known as the Burr Conspiracy, and what the vice president, beyond killing Hamilton, is best remembered for today. Those who vaguely know of Burr believe him to be a traitor who tried to topple the United States government. This is not true. After leaving Washington, his political career finished—he did try and fail to gain a judicial appointment from Jefferson—he headed West. This was natural for men of his station, who wanted to speculate on land and repay debts. Like many of the Founders, Burr lived beyond his means and never managed his money very well. He was also an adventurer, and still popular out West, and he imagined he might get a new start in one of the frontier territories. He was looking to acquire tracts of land as an investment or carve out a territory for himself, perhaps, in Spanish-held Mexico. His plan was to hope the U.S. declared war on Spain and then lead a small army into Spanish territory to claim his own land. Burr was well-liked in the Western territories, Kentucky especially, because he had fought for new states there and opposed the Spanish Empire. The Dons, as they were called, were the enemies of the frontiersmen, Andrew Jackson included, who counted Burr as an ally.
James Wilkinson, a high-ranking army officer who was a double agent for Spain, accused Burr of treason, claiming without any evidence that Burr wanted to establish a new country and crush the United States. Burr didn’t want to do this, nor did he have the means to. There was nothing treasonous about wanting war with Spain or trying to take territory from Mexico. Burr was arrested multiple times, and grand juries found insufficient evidence to indict. In Kentucky, his counsel was a young Henry Clay. Each time Burr won in court, Jefferson, increasingly swayed by the anti-Burr newspapers spreading the wild allegations of treason, became more determined to bring his former ally to heel. Finally, Burr was brought to Richmond, Virginia and put on trial for treason. Chief Justice John Marshall presided over the trial and it became apparent, very quickly, the government had no real case. Witnesses to Burr’s alleged treason couldn’t be produced and documentary evidence was virtually nonexistent. Burr was acquitted. He was then tried on misdemeanor charges and acquitted again. Jefferson tried desperately, without success, to sway Marshall. As Isenberg, the Burr historian, would later write, Burr “was not guilty of treason, nor was he ever convicted, because there was no evidence, not one credible piece of testimony, and the star witness for the prosecution had to admit that he had doctored a letter implicating Burr.” A young Washington Irving covered the trial, writing admiringly on Burr.
None of this mattered, though, for Burr’s reputation. He fled the United States, dodging his old creditors, and roamed Europe for several years. He spent most of his time in England, befriending the English Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and tried and failed to secure an audience with Napoleon. His wife long dead, he consorted with his share of women, as was recorded in a journal published after his death. (He had a number of different children, including those he adopted, throughout his life, and there’s evidence to suggest he fathered two children with a house servant, Mary Emmons, who hailed from India.) His daughter, Theodosia, was tragically lost at sea not long after Burr returned to America. Despite the chaos of his earlier years, Burr would live out the remainder of his life in New York in relative peace. He practiced law, took audiences with old admirers, and married a wealthy widow, Eliza Jumel, who divorced him not long after accusing him of spending down her fortune, a charge he denied. Burr would die at eighty, in 1836, living long enough to see his old friend, Andrew Jackson, elected president and nemeses like Jefferson and DeWitt Clinton pass away. He died on Staten Island.
One complication of Burr’s legacy is that he was uniquely disinterested in posterity. He promised, in letters to his daughter Theodosia, to author a great treatise on the rights and abilities of women, but never did. Many of his personal records were lost with Theodosia at sea. He did not leave behind books or tracts that fully told his own story. He did not press contemporary biographers and acolytes to relate history as he saw it. He did not, strangely, battle for himself very hard. There is a striking section in Vidal’s Burr where his daughter is urging him, despite his vow to back Jefferson, to take the presidency for himself. This is fiction, but it is true to how Burr actually approached power—and how the country might have been different if he took one more step forward.
“He must be president,” Theodosia says to a Burr ally. “He has no other choice.”
Burr tells her it is not possible. Theodosia replies that it is.
“Why are you suddenly so interested in the grubbier aspects of political life?” he asks.
“Because I am interested in you and I know that this is the only opportunity you will ever get to be first, and if you don’t take it you will regret it as long as you live.”
Burr explains that he has given his word to Jefferson. He can’t vie for the presidency. He adds, after Theodosia tells him Jefferson isn’t to be trusted, that the “people” want Jefferson, not him.
“The people will want you when they know you better. You admire Bonaparte. Well, think of him. He took his opportunity and now he is the first man in Europe just as you can be the first man in America, and may God strike us where we stand there is no point to being second.”
Burr is adamant: “I cannot break my word.”
“Then you will regret that you did not all your life.”
Burr, speaking now to his fictional protégé many years later, reveals what he’s learned.
“I behaved honourably and, as Theodosia foretold, I have regretted it all my life.”
Here is my 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020 in reading.
And here is a list of all I read this year. Special shoutout to the excellent novelists Alexander Sorondo, author of Cubafruit, Denise Robbins, author of The Unmapping, and Carter Vance, author of Smaller Animals, who published debuts this year.
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
How I Won the Noble Prize by Julius Taranto
Jenny in Corona by Stuart Ross
Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Why Nothing Works by Marc Dunkelman
The Sleepers by Matthew Gasda
Canceled Lives by Blake Bailey
Technopoly by Neil Postman
The City Mother by Maya Sinha
The Events in Order of Loving Someone by Emma Newman-Holden
The Cali Book of the Dead by Max Carp
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
Social Distancing by Scott Spires
See Friendship by Jeremy Gordon
The Wayback Machine by Daniel Falatko
Selling Anti-Racism by Jennifer C. Pan
The Requisitions by Samuel Lopez-Barrantes
American Dream Machine by Matthew Specktor
Wannabeat by David Polonoff
In Judgement of Others by Eleanor Anstruther
The Golden Hour by Matthew Specktor
Three Years Our Mayor by Lincoln Mitchell
Original Sin by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper
Uncharted by Chris Whipple
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Love and Happiness by Zoe Dubno
Amputation by Bruce Wagner
Cubafruit by Alexander Sorondo
Shibboleth by Thomas Lambert
The Boys by Leo Robson
The Unmapping by Denise Robbins
The Cuttlefish by Chris Tharp
The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford
A Town Without Time by Gay Talese
Liars by Sarah Manguso
Uncharted by Chris Dalla Riva
Bloodline by Lee Clay Johnson
Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu
The Sixties by Todd Gitlin
Scenebux by Cairo Smith
Things That Are Funny on a Submarine by Yannick Murphy
Fever: The Complete History of Saturday Night Fever by Margo Donohue
Traumnovelle by Grant Maierhofer
Burr by Gore Vidal
Help Me I’m in Hell by Timothy Atkinson
Dwelling by Emily Hunt Kivel
Child of Light by Jesi Bender
Run Zohran Run by Theodore Hamm
Washington D.C. by Gore Vidal
The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne
Don’t Step into My Office by David Fishkind
Smaller Animals by Carter Vance
Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg
I am a Burr family descendant and what you write is what I have always heard. Research bears it out. Vidal describes Aaron Burr as an 18th Century Man living in the 19th Century. It's an apt description.