Burr's contemptuous silence, however, operated against his political character, until it became a general belief that he had intrigued, with the other party, against Mr. Jefferson, for the presidency.
Matthew L. Davis, who was intimately acquainted with Colonel Burr for the space of forty years, says:
"Through life, Colonel Burr committed an error, if he did not display a weakness, in permitting his reputation to be assailed, without contradiction, in cases where it was perfectly defensible. His enemies took advantage of the sullen silence which he was known to preserve in regard to newspaper attacks. Under these attacks he fell from the proud eminence he once enjoyed to a condition more mortifying and more prostrate than any distinguished man has even experienced in the United States.
"Different individuals, to gratify different feelings, have ascribed this unprecedented fall to different causes. But one who is not altogether ignorant of the springs of human action; whose partialities and prejudices are mellowed by more than threescore years of experience; who has carefully and laboriously, in this case, examined cause and effect, hesitates not in declaring that, from the moment Aaron Burr was elected vice-president, his own downfall was unalterably decided, if that decision could be accomplished by a combination of wealth, of talent, of government patronage, of favoritism and proscription, inflamed by the worst passions, and nurtured by the hope of gratifying a sordid ambition. The contest in Congress fixed his fate. Subsequent events were only consequences resulting from antecedent facts."
Although Colonel Burr would not deign to notice ordinary slanders and the abusive attack of the newspapers, yet when he found "a foeman worthy of his steel," he called him to a rigid account for reports circulated against his reputation.
The lamentable fate of Alexander Hamilton is a proof of this. Hamilton had endeavored to thwart the ambition of Burr by representing him as a man of no principle, and one who ought not to be trusted by the public with any responsible office.
A correspondence was opened between them by Burr, at New York, on the 18th of June, 1804. It resulted in a challenge from Colonel Burr.
The parties met at Hoboken on the 11th of July. The account of what took place on the ground is thus given by one who was present:
"Colonel Burr arrived first on the ground, as had been previously agreed. When General Hamilton arrived, the parties exchanged salutations, and the seconds proceeded to make their arrangements. They measured the distance, ten full paces, and cast lots for the choice of position, as also to determine by whom the word should be given, both of which fell to the second of General Hamilton. They then proceeded
