Cindee McCandless: The similarities between Donald Trump and Aaron Burr

By Cindee McCandless

We mainly hear about Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton’s duel where Hamilton was shot and killed. (Aaron Burr was a sitting vice president at the time). But it’s what led up to that duel and afterward that gives light to the parallels in character of former President Trump and Vice President Aaron Burr.

In 1800 Burr and Thomas Jefferson were both running for president and had each received the same number of electoral votes, so it fell to the House of Representatives to decide the outcome.

That situation prompted Alexander Hamilton to write to the Federalist representatives in the House in support of Jefferson for president. Hamilton was not a great fan of Jefferson’s, writing, “M. Jefferson, though too revolutionary in his notions, is yet a lover of liberty and will be desirous of something like orderly government.”

He writes of Aaron Burr: “M. Burr loves nothing but himself - thinks nothing but his own aggrandizement - and will be content with nothing short of permanent power in his own hands.”

He goes on to say: “Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr.”

Our Founding Fathers all had ambition. In their times, the forming of our new democratic government was the great purpose and endeavor of these bright colonial minds. They had no problem slinging mud, engaging in newspaper character assassinations of one another in the pursuit of power. But they were not without principle — the principle to put the greater good above themselves and to protect this rare and wonderful nation that they had come together to form.

Within this pursuit of a new government formed on the bedrock of the rule of law over the rule of a man, framed in our constitution, came the cautionary tale of the pursuit of power over all other considerations. It is one that unfolded with Aaron Burr’s subsequent behavior after having had his pursuit of power thwarted by Alexander Hamilton and a group of Federalists and it is one we have just witnessed in former President Trump’s behavior after losing the election.

There appears to be a parallel in the shape of their characters, and therein, the defining lack of principle, which fueled their choices of self over the responsibilities of trust and honest purpose.

Aaron Burr, of course, engaged in the duel with Alexander Hamilton. (This followed Hamilton’s writing campaign against Burr’s New York governor’s race).

Following the death of Hamilton, Aaron Burr was immune from prosecution due to being the sitting vice president.

Per the “History.com” website, in 1805 Mr. Burr plotted to seize the Louisiana Purchase to create an empire, also he planned a possible move to seize territory in Spanish America. In 1806, quoting the same source, “Burr led a group of well armed colonists toward New Orleans”; he was tried for treason for that, but was acquitted.

If history can teach us — and it can — it says that with this type of ambition for aggrandizement the individual will continue to find opportunities for the acquisition of power.

Cindee McCandless lives in Spokane Valley.