original position in the party. But he
could not hope to succeed without the backing of those Federalist
malcontents who had nearly made him President in 1800. To conciliate
them he bent all his energies and talents, and was again on the point of
success when Hamilton, who also belonged to New York State, again
crossed his path. Hamilton urged all the Federalists whom he could
influence to have nothing to do with Burr, and, probably as a result of
his active intervention, Burr was defeated.

Burr resolved that Hamilton must be prevented from thwarting him in the
future, and he deliberately chose a simple method of removing him. He
had the advantage of being a crack shot. He forced a private quarrel on
Hamilton, challenged him to a duel, and killed him.

He can hardly have calculated the effect of his action: it shocked the
whole nation, which had not loved Hamilton, but knew him for a better
man than Burr. Duelling, indeed, was then customary among gentlemen in
the United States, as it is to-day throughout the greater part of the
civilized world; but it was very rightly felt that the machinery which
was provided for the vindication of outraged honour under extreme
provocation was never meant to enable one man, under certain forms, to
kill another merely because he found his continued existence personally
inconvenient. That was what Burr had done; and morally it was
undoubtedly murder. Throughout the whole East Burr became a man marked
with the brand of Cain. He soon perceived it, but his audacity would not
accept defeat. He turned to the West, and initiated a daring conspiracy
which, as he hoped, would make him, if not President of the United
States, at least President of something.

What Burr's plan, as his own mind conceived it, really was it is
extremely difficult to say; for he gave not only different but directly
opposite accounts to the various parties whom he endeavoured to engage
in it. To the British Ambassador, whom he approached, he represented it
as a plan for the dismemberment of the Republic from which England had
everything to gain. Louisiana was to secede, carrying the whole West
with her, and the new Confederacy was to become the ally of the Mother
Country. For the Spanish Ambassador he had another story. Spain was to
recover predominant influence in Louisiana by detaching it from the
American Republic, and recognizing it as an independent State. To the
French-Americans of Louisiana he promised compl