Eacker's spite-filled speech contained damning phrases like, "the mistakes of the father are often visited upon the son" as he stared directly toward oldest Hamilton boy. Hamilton, "chief architect of America's political economy," per the History website, died the next afternoon. . At Weehawken Flats, an isolated ledge on the New Jersey bank of the Hudson River across from what is now the west end of 42nd Street, the sitting vice president of the United States shot and killed a pillar of the Federalist Party who had been President George Washington’s right-hand man and the nation’s first secretary of the treasury, a fatal moment Henry Adams declared the most dramatic in the early politics of the Union. The 12th Amendment would correct that procedural hiccup in 1804, but the 1800 election wound up in the House of Representatives, where most Federalists, a lame-duck majority convinced Jefferson was a radical atheist, viewed the Electoral College tie as a heaven-sent opportunity to bar the presidency to Jefferson. In 1804, Hamilton again did all he could to keep Burr out of office, this time New York’s governorship. That defeat devastated Burr. Quickly, he tried to use her money to purchase land in Mexican Texas — which was made worthless when the immigration of US citizens was outlawed. This wasn't the first death in the family as a result of dueling. For a complex set of reasons, Hamilton seems to have come to view Burr’s challenge as a means to martyrdom, enabling Hamilton to achieve goals he held to be paramount. “The clouds that surround him are shades that set off his good qualities. Hamilton was early to conclude that Burr was unrestrained by conscience and loyal only to himself, an antipathy that ran deeper and more viscerally than one politician’s dislike for another. Even though Hamilton felt implacable enmity for Jefferson, the federalist tilt appalled him. His friend John Trumbull was going to attend a meeting in Boston that leaned toward secession. Louis "Lou" Dobbs, TV personality (Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN), radio host (Fox Business Network). Painting of General Alexander Hamilton by by James Sharples. However, the point was not accuracy or probity, but to portray Burr as malign and himself as magnanimous. The universal real sign that you've accomplished your dream is when you can buy your mom a house on the East side. All rights reserved. As biographer Ron Chernow notes, “Long beguiled by visions of a glorious death in battle, he had also never lost a certain youthful ardor for martyrdom.”, Three decades on, Hamilton had reasons public and private for being drawn to the martyr’s way. A pretext soon presented itself. Most Americans know this story — but they might not know about the sequel. He had been the one of the country's best lawyers, a fantastic military mind, and a New York real estate tycoon. In Hamilton’s eyes, Burr’s talents, which he wielded without remorse, imperiled the republican experiment. They kept the matter secret. Hamilton was shot in the lower abdomen, mortally wounding him. Eliza Jumel and Alexander Hamilton Jr. took what remained of his money, his health, and his legacy. “Perhaps no man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself…as you know from the very beginning I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. To this day, people debate whether that agreement was made, but Burr broke it. That might have had something to do with it — they were on opposite sides of the spectrum, there in the heady days after the American Revolution, guiding and forming the newborn nation. By all logical conclusions, this case should have been leagues below his status — but he took it on anyways.