 |
Q: Which Columbian and Founding Father died in a duel 200 years ago?
|
|
|
|
Alexander Hamilton (King's College 1774-1776, Trustee 1784-1804) famously died after a duel with his political rival Aaron Burr, then vice president of the United States, at Weehawken, N.J. on July 11, 1804. Burr accused Hamilton, a co-author of The Federalist Papers, the nation's first Treasury Secretary and the architect of the fledgling nation's economic system, of expressing a "despicable opinion" of him months earlier. There had long been animosity between the two; Hamilton, a Federalist, worked to deny Republican Burr the presidency in 1800 and New York's governorship in 1804. Burr shot Hamilton in the right side, mortally wounding him; he died the next day across the river in Greenwich Village. Indicted for murder, Burr was never prosecuted. Though he completed his term as vice president, his political career was over. He died in 1836.
|
|
|
Question of the Week archive
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
