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Burr's Conspiracy, Exile, and Deathbed Regret
At 1:14:05 · chapter starts 1:11:50
The final chapter of Burr's life reads like a dark farce. After his vice-presidential term ended, he allegedly conspired with Southern planters and US Army officers to create a new country somewhere in America's south — Florida, northern Mexico, or the Mississippi Delta, depending on who you asked. Tried for treason, he was acquitted for lack of evidence. He then lived in exile in London, where Jeremy Bentham befriended him, before being expelled on suspicion of plotting the conquest of Mexico. Napoleon refused him entry to France. He eventually drifted back to New York under a false name, living among his creditors. Near the end of his life, bedridden and reading Tristram Shandy, Burr finally voiced his one great admission: 'If I had read Laurence Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known that the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me.' Dominic ends on the lesson: read Sterne, not Voltaire — and think carefully before challenging anyone to a duel. [1] — Aaron Burr "If I had read Laurence Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known that the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me." 1:14:05
After fleeing New York, Burr became embroiled in a conspiracy to carve out his own country on America's southern border and was tried for treason, but the case was not proven due to lack of evidence.
Near the end of his life, bedridden and re-reading Tristram Shandy, Burr finally admitted: 'If I had read Laurence Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known that the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me.' It is one of history's most eloquent expressions of too-late regret.
