October 10, 2023 • 42 mins
Thanks in large part to the musical Hamilton, Aaron Burr has re-entered the public zeitgeist. In the first part of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the rise of Aaron Burr, from his unfortunate early life through his heroic exploits through the American Revolution into his ...mixed experience with US politics.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:28):
Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Wait for it, wait for it, wait, waiting for it,
waiting for it.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
For this is our shout out to both Hamilton the
Musical and our super producer, mister Max Williams. I'm Ben.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Is wait for It a Hamilton reference? Yes? You know,
I tried watching it on TV. I guess it came
out on Disney Plus.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
You always say you don't like it.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I enjoyed it, but I didn't enjoy it enough to
finish it. Does that make sense? You have experienced that
with a series or something, not a tent out there
mean maybe a little less so. Now, by the way,
good job with the strike.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Guys, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah you did that. That was all Ben's idea. But
you know, we've been talking a lot about labor organization
and things like that, and it is cool to see, uh,
something as basic and time tested as a strike do
the damn thing with the WGA finally agreeing to some
pretty basic demands. Yeah, a lot of the smaller distributors
and studios had long since agreed to. That was the
(01:27):
part that kind of always made me scratch my head
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's right. Yeah, and these things often occur in phases, right,
So now the SAG Union, the Actors Guild is in play,
the United Auto Workers are in played. This is this
is pretty fascinating stuff. We also want to be careful
because our returning guest, alex S is here and as
(01:53):
we know, she will crush any any untoward labor action.
That's right, total total buster, total, sith Laura. Yeah, that
guy nodding. Sorry, she stood up and looked at us.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And left stormed out, presumably to go bust ups. Alex Is.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Alex Is the best. We're all so glad you tuned in, folks.
This week is a special two part episode. We're doing
that Hamilton reference entirely because of one of the tortured antagonists,
slash co protagonist Aaron Burr, whom our pal Max Williams
lovingly or just regularly refers to as America's drum uncle.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, yeah, it's fine. There was a an Orio I
think I mentioned this before, but there's an Oreo commercial
from way back in the day where it was like
a story in or something, and who was asked a
question of like who shot Alexander Hamilton And he's got
a mouthful of oreos and no milk, and he goes
and no one understands. And I can't remember what the
(02:59):
takeaway is that he comes off looking like an idiot
or he lost out on some sort of grant or something,
but I just I remember erber All. I remember.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's funny because Aaron Burr is in many ways a
footnote in American history, which is funny because he came
up in that whole Founding Father's story and I was surprised.
I looked through our archives extensively. We had to have
done an episode on Aaron Burr.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
We have not.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I'm like, okay, we have to because Aaron Burr, every
step of his life is just wild.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yes, it very much is. It doesn't matter whether or
not you're a fan of Hamilton, really and nothing no
musical is for everyone. But there's just so much about
Burr that doesn't make it into the story because the
story's not Burr, it's Hamilton. So we've talked, like you said,
about other people who were considered influential Founding Father types
(03:51):
but never quite made it to potus level. Aaron Burr
is on that list, along with folks like William Jenny's
Bryant Henry Clay. Burr is a war hero, he's a senator,
he gets all the way to vice president, and at
the time of his demise he had money problems. He'd
been trying for treason, he'd alienated a lot of his friends,
(04:15):
or they had died, because that, you know, could very
much happen. But maybe we start, what do you think, well,
we start at the beginning, because, like r pal Max said,
this is a wild ride, right, I don't know why
I'm doing echoes.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It's okay, it's in the parlance of a hip hop.
So let's talk a little bit about his early life.
He was born, as you know, at this end, this
time in American history, you'd be hard pressed not to
be born into some kind of military circumstances. Your parents
either fought in the war or you grew up with
aspirations to be a soldier, whatever it might be. His father,
(04:51):
Aaron Burr, was a Presbyterian minister, and he was the
second president of the College of New Jersey, which later
became Princeton University. His mother, Esther, which is a lovely
name that you don't hear much anymore these days. I'm
a big fan of Esther. Esther Edwards Burr the daughter
of Jonathan Edwards, who was a theologian in his own right.
(05:14):
Aaron Burr was born February sixth, seventeen fifty six in Newark,
New Jersey. We're talking sopranos country. Burr's father sadly passed
when Aaron was only a year old, and then his
mother passed the following year, so he was orphaned by
the age of two. Out that's no good, and he
(05:35):
and his sisters moved, and thankfully they didn't have to,
you know, move into an orphanage. Their grandparents took took
care of them. But by the time Burr was four
years old, ah, jeez, you hate to hear it. His
grandparents died as well, so for much of his youth
he did spend living with an uncle by the name
(05:56):
of Timothy Edwards.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I don't know why that's a hilarious name to me,
it sounds it's one of those names that's hilarious if
someone is yelling it to indicate a person is in trouble.
Timothy Edwards.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, well, it's like for a last name first name,
first name. Yeah, it's like one of those first name
first name situations. Edward Edwards would be fun too. But Timothy,
Timothy hilarious like Tony Tony Tony. For the longest time,
I thought his name was pronounced Tony Tony tone like
the last one, you know, because it was like, you know,
he's got mad tone or whatever. But no, it's Tony
(06:28):
Tony's major major, major, minor, major, laser, all of the majors. Uh. So,
Timothy was a pretty successful fellow. Again, a very revered
profession at the time and still today, though maybe slightly
less revered, a little more reviled. He was a lawyer,
and he did spare no expense, as John Hammond of
(06:50):
Jurassic Park fame would say, in young Aaron's education, he
hired tutors from Princeton, or at least who had received
their education at the prestigious university, to educate him until
he himself could follow in the family legacy and the
tender Princeton University.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, and even back then, of course, Princeton is a
big deal. He's eleven years old when he applies to
Princeton for the first time. He's turned away because Princeton,
you know, very reasonably, says, aren't you eleven years old?
So he waits for child right, right, He waits for
two years. Age thirteen, he reapplies and he is accepted.
(07:33):
He matriculates into Princeton, where he studies theology until he's
about nineteen years old.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Silly question, genter, Maybe I guess there are no silly questions.
We are a silly show. Fair. They didn't really have
the system of like elementary, middle and high school in
this era that we would note today, So you'd be
more likely it'd be sort of a gray area as
to when the appropriate age to go to higher university.
(08:00):
My higher education might be right.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
You just have to have the money and be persuasive
that have the connection is you know, this is back
in the time where your higher schooling is like I'm
gonna go live with the guy in town who makes
glass and I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Much more last apprentice in master trades kind of situation.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
So he studies theology, and at age nineteen, he says, I.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Don't believe in God.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
God's fine, I guess I'm going to study the law.
So I'm moving to Connecticut. The constitution, state and the
colonial protests are happening around this time. You're getting reports
of the Continental Congress. And he's got an itch and
he's got an itchy foot on this. You know, he's thinking,
I should be stepping somewhere, I should be doing something.
(08:50):
How long can this unsustainable situation continue? He learns about
Lexington and Concord in seventeen seventy five, and so no
longer a theologian, no longer a law nerd Burr becomes
a soldier. Your quick props to American Battlefield Trust to
go to their website battlefields dot org. You can donate
(09:13):
or even become a member. But there's fabulous biographies of
a lot of great Americans, including Aaron Burr. And also,
of course shout out to Britannica. There's solid Man Britannica
dot com as a source.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Remember Encyclopedia Britannica. My physical ones, Yeah, yeah, you buy
them from a salesman. They were wildly expensive, they really were,
but it was almost like that was an investment in
your future. Now it's laughable because that's all like on
the internet for free.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
It's still classy.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
We had a set of Encyclopedia gilded text along the spines,
all that good stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
We had a set of encyclopedias way back in the day,
and I remember my dad telling me that these encyclopedias
were printed in this year.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Hm.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Our knowledge, therefore in this house goes to this year
and stopp because we're not buying another set of encyclopedia.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, sort of like how ridiculous history ends at apartheid?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, mid nineties. We said, that's where we that's what
we consider history flexible though, you know, well, yeah, and
Burr at this point, to be fair, he had no
idea what was going to happen. As we mentioned, this
was a very dangerous time to be a soldier, especially
in the Well in general, but especially in the Continental Army.
His career there, however, was long and prosperous. He thrived.
(10:31):
He also served under a buddy of his who would
later become famous. Benedict Arnold became one of America's bad bends.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
That's right, and then Ben Shapiro and in that bio
on Battlefields dot Org, they make the point that Benedict Arnold,
of course became sort of like brutus, you know, a
bit of a pejorative, like you, Benedict Arnold that means
you're a trader, right, or Brudus Burr himself is sort
of to occupy that space, although you know, one could
(11:03):
argue that it's a little more complicated than that, as
it is with any of these folks. But the headline
is usually more interesting than the article.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Well, yeah, you know, that's why you print the retractions
later in the paper.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, people, people usually skip right past the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So I think that's an excellent point, man, because we
do have to remember there's a lot more nuanced to
these situations. We have the benefit of retrospects. We can
look back and say, like, clearly, this guy, you know
what I mean, it's like watching Cabin in the Woods again, right,
and then you.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Pick up on stuff all the things. Yeah, the Little Clues,
the Little Eastern are watching any twist oriented film again,
you know, you're kind of rewarded. It's actually kind of fun.
I've been watching a lot of the back catalog of
David Fincher lately.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
He's a big fan of the twist sixth sense. That's
Bruce Willis the whole time.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
True, and that is and then that's Forrest Gump's little son.
It's actually a shared universe. Nobody, Nobody talks about it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
No one talks about that. But that is an episode
for another day. The stuff that Burr does during the war,
partially due to his better than average background and partially
due to his schooling, he quickly enters the inner circles
(12:23):
of the army, the halls of power. He becomes an
aide de camp, which I guess is just like your boy,
your sidekick, like the best.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Boy in your valet. Yeah, you know, yeah. He he marches.
He participates in this march along with a lot of volunteers.
Well actually he was one. Excuse me, in this situation.
He was a volunteer march three hundred and fifty miles
through the northern wilds of Quebec to invade Canada, which
I always just think is funny, you know, because we
think of Canada as just being our like, gentle, docile
(12:51):
neighbors to the north, and the idea of invading them
just seems mean. So apparently though, this was not a
particularly for two which is expedition for the American Army,
but it was a positive outcome for young Aaron Burr.
When the soldiers got to Quebec, Burr, as you said
(13:12):
was appointed General Richard Montgomery's aide de camp. Burr became
a quite storied, you know, army hero in the wake
of this battle, and there were reports that General Montgomery
had died in the arms of his best boy, young Burr,
and that Burr actually tried to save Montgomery's body, but
(13:36):
unfortunately the brutal winter conditions prevented him from doing so.
Another Hamilton member of the Hamilton Coterie, Theodore Sedgwick, wrote
a lot of letters to Burr, describing him as being
this funny sounding now out of context, being young, gay
(13:58):
and enterprising in marsh Yeah, totally different, meaning now he's saying,
you gotta go get him attitude, You're always in a
good movie, thinking out of the box.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
You're good at military minded. And then Burg goes and
works just for a bit with old straight seahorse teeth himself,
George Washington, who will later become President of the United States.
Burg gets he's not there too long because he likes
being the best boy. So he goes to work with
General Israel Putnam as his aide to come and he
(14:30):
becomes a this is weird. He becomes a crucial leader
in a famous retreat when the American forces have to
leave New York. He's one of the guys who's like
the best at running away, run.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Away in New York. He could and did become a
new man. That's my only Camelton reference that I'm going
to drop. Maybe I could say not throwing away my shot.
I know that one that's true.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, that big that that long shout out to eminem.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I think I only made it through like act one.
And don't get me wrong, it is a marvel. It's
beautifully produced. I'm sure it doesn't in a case I
only it was. I think I was just distracted and
then never came back, or maybe there's somebody with me
that didn't want to finish what I can't remember. I'm
going to go back to it. Also, kind of watching
Broadway stuff on TV, it just hits different than seeing
it and ensure.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I enjoyed it, and it's I see what you're saying,
because when it gets kind of in the weeds of politics,
that's where it may lose a lot of people, right,
but once it picks back up, it swells. It's epic.
I think it's worth it. But also, let's be honest, folks,
too much hype can kill anything.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
That may have been happened to you. I think so too,
because I mean one of my favorite musicals, and just
about any adaptation of it at all is a very
into what is it? Turn off the Dark? Yeah, that
one was a hit. No Les Miserabla, which is also
a very in the weeds, military and kind of political piece.
I just love it. I like the book, I love
the music. It's I think I think for me, it's
(15:58):
a it's a youth thing, like I I grew up
hearing those songs. My mom was a singing teacher. But
I really thought that the film adaptation they did where
everyone sings there on stuff, you know, I thought that
was really well done. And then that guy, of course
went on to make Cats, which was not good.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Get out? What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Nod it? Well, everybody loves a trade wreck.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
At least at least the cats didn't have buttholes like
he originally wanted.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You know, maybe that would have put it pushed it over.
Best supporting actor is believe that we.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Need more realism in these these anthropomorphic sex cats. Guys.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
We don't want to break the magic here. These need
to be anatomically accurate anthropomorphized cat.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I think they had to remove them in posts.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
They did added a huge cost in production, because it
turns out, it turns out if you are video editor,
you're deep in the CGI. There's not just a remove
all buttholes button.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, they need to add that to after effects.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
So Max is nodding vigorously.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I am and as you guys have not said anything
about my pants. I saw my.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Pants, saw them, but we had to walk right in.
I can't see your pants in set right down. Oh man,
you monster, Max, you got your white pants on, you monster?
You you rabble. So Burr is like, one day this
is going to be part of a musical. My life
is going to be part of a musical.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
However, though he probably didn't necessarily at this point think
that he was going to be the villain. No no
one ever does, though, do that, No one ever does, right, you.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Know, like tamer Lane or Timer the Lamee was probably
thinking I'm bringing the world together. Alexander the Great was like,
look at my street name. I can't be that bad.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Check out my white pants.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Whole pot is like, you know, saloth Sar sounds a
little evil. So I'm going to get more of a
name that people will trust.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Is it bad tho? Whenever I hear pull Pott, I
just think pulled pork.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
No. Also, I think it's weird that his name sounds
so villainous. Our pal Alex is not actually a sith.
But if your name is Saloth Sar, he sounds straight
out of Star Wars. Very true. You definitely have the
Red Light singer. And so Burr again doesn't. He's doing
his best. He I'm joking a little bit about the retreat,
(18:15):
but what he figures out is pretty epic. He designs
the safest route out of the city, and he guides
five thousand people to safety. He salvages US artillery, which
is incredibly important at this point, and because of this action,
in seventeen seventy seven, Washington says, Burr, You've earned it, Bud.
(18:38):
You're officially a lieutenant colonel, which means you will be
in command of more than three hundred men. He fights
off these British raids into New Jersey. He defends a
pass at Valley Forge during a really crappy winter in
seventeen seventy seventeen.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Branch.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, and then there's the Battle of Monmouth. He is
defeated at the Battle of Monmouth, and he also gets
some mounting health problems because he's been going hard in
the paint for a while, so he resigns in seventeen
seventy nine from the Continental Army. He makes another shift.
(19:14):
He says, I remember I kind of like doing law stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, in New York, I can be in New I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
He passes the bar in seventeen eighty two, the New
York State Bar opens up his lot. What they call
it hanging out his shingle, and a's as they say,
and that's probably where that term came from, you know.
They say it in like better call saul, But it's
probably an old timey legal term from when you'd literally
have a practice and your little sign would be out
front and it would be like in the form of
a little shingle. So he's set up for a lawyer
(19:46):
in and he marries a widow and the couple stays
together until her death in seventeen ninety four. In seventeen
eighty four and seventeen eighty five, he gets elected to
the State Assembly, and in eighty nine, because we're in
the seventeen, So I'm just going to say eighty nine
he gets appointed Attorney General by Governor George Clinton, not
(20:09):
of parliament funkadelic fame. Unfortunately, he could have add some
funk in his soul though. By ninety one he has
built a very successful political movement against General Philip Schuyler,
who is the father in law of Ding Ding Ding
Alexander Hamilton. Wait for wait for wait, who's then the
(20:31):
Secretary of the Treasury.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yes, and he wins. Burr wins the election, as any
fan of Hamilton knows, and Hamilton takes this personally. Burr
runs for vice president in seventeen ninety six. He loses.
You can read a lot about the US presidential elections,
by the way, especially the election of eighteen hundred on
Encyclopedia Virginia dot org. It's well worth the time. We're
(20:55):
getting to that election in just a second. Here's what
you need to know. Bur runs for vice president in
seventeen ninety six. He loses. Ah boo. He kind of
snowballs for him for a second.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
He doesn't go theme with this guy.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
He doesn't get re elected to the Senate. He loses
to Shyler, and he spends the next two years deep
in state politics, all the way until the eighteen hundred election.
It's a grudge match. This is back when if you
ran for president and you got second place, you would
(21:32):
be the vice president to your basically your mortal enemy.
So there's a rematch between Adams and Jefferson and they
and they don't want to be in a situation where
Jefferson is Adams VP. So the parties try to say,
all of our teams, all of our electors. He got
(21:52):
to be on one page, we got to be unified.
On the federalist side. Adams is going to run with
Charles Coatsworth, Uh, not a superpower name. And Jefferson is
going to be running with you guessed it, folks, Aaron Burr.
Oh and there's no popular vote at this point.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Oh fun, right, fun? Yeah? So can I jump in?
Real quick?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Jump?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Jump on in. I don't think I've told you guys
this story. I think I was saving it for this episode.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
No I'm not, but this this is so the wedding
I went to a Michigan that I wore these lovely
white pants. They look good, they looked on They're amazing,
and pants labor damp and you ragged on me. Ben's like, oh,
maximally wants to talk about the white pants because he
wants us to notice that that.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
He's working out.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I heard, I heard everything you guys said, including that
entire concert going on behind you.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Good and great work on that, by the way, of course,
of course.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
But so where I was sleeping at my aunt's house,
like it's it's like she moved in this house recently.
It's got she needs to do a lot of work.
But there's this painting hanging. So her husband's grandfather painted
really weird things, and no one understands the things he painted,
but hanging watching me sleep every night was a painting
of Aaron Burr, and no one understands why he picked
(23:06):
Aaron Burr. Ah, And my uncle Dave is a character.
He is just like this, a classic amazing character. And
so being a character, he won't let my ane Jennifer
take it down, but she wants to burn it because
he's like, Aaron Burr sucks and it's weird.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
He needs to get Aaron burned. Yeah, that's very weird.
That's an odd one. Usually, if you're gonna have a
political portrait hanging up on the wall and be a
Jefferson or a Washington or a Lincoln. Aaron Burr is
a little bit of an odd choice, as we'll get
to quite soon.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Why yes, yeah, and no sense in standing on ceremony.
Let's let's dig in here. At this time. The state
legislatures appoint electors men of letters and learning the idea
went will surely make the most informed and most advantageous
(23:58):
or beneficial choice.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
So it's just like kind of an early form of
the electoral college.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Very similar, and also also it's intellectually fraudulent to pretend
that that is the case. But the Democrats Republicans, that's
Democrat dash Republicans sweep most of the South. They get
all the electors from Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia,
all the bits states, all the top ones, all the
quality wines, all the smooth jazz. Adams is in contrast,
(24:26):
he's doing very well in the Northeast. He gets all
the votes from Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
Rhode Island, Vermont. And because Burr is on the ticket
and Burr is a New Yorker, Jefferson wins that state.
If you look at the other states at the time, Carolina,
the North Carolina, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, it's way more mixed.
(24:50):
So the Federalists said, there might be a tie. We
need to figure out, we need to figure out how
to make sure that doesn't happen. No one wants a tie.
Let's go to Rhode Island and we'll have one of
our boys cast one vote for John Jay.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah. So all the Democratic Republican electors contrastingly cast their
ballots for Jefferson and Burr. And since the electors couldn't
indicate a presidential or vice presidential vote specifically, you just yeah.
The result was a tie, and then the winner was
(25:26):
going to be determined by a duel to the death.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We'll get to that though. We'll
get to that.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, they had. They eventually do get to some good dueling,
as we'll see at this point, though the duel is
a lot less physical and a lot more bureaucratic. Under
the existing parliamentary rules that they applied, a tie had
to be decided by the House of Representatives. Each of
(25:54):
the sixteen states gets one vote per state. Problem being
the House of Representatives is controlled by the lame duck
federalist government. All the Federalists want to choose, in their mind,
the lesser of two evils. They say, do you like Burr? No,
I mean, I don't trust them, but he sure isn't Jefferson.
(26:15):
And they're all like, yeah, beating here, Max. They're all like, yeah,
that guy. Is it still the same way? Well, I
feel like very similar. It seems like the electric cars,
but there are there's a lot more work going on
behind the scenes to prevent a tie.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
You know, right when we're talking all this stuff out loud,
it sure sounds a hell of a lot like casino rules,
you know, or rules from some for some esoteric you know,
card game.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Wait till we get to the double dout.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Oh yeah, it's wild man. Sorry, I'm damaged from Vegas.
Never be the same. So voting in the House of
Representatives starts on February eleventh of eighteen oh one, and
on the very first ballot, Jefferson wins as the choice
of eight of the states, while Burr gets the support
of six. So more than thirty additional votes are held
(27:03):
over the next few days, with the same unfortunately tied results.
A bit of a stemy kind of situation there Alas
around thirty six ballots are then cast, with the Federalists
and Marylyn and Vermont deciding to sit those out, giving
those states to Jefferson, who is then elected with Burr
(27:25):
as his VP on February seventeenth by a majority of
ten states to four, and Delaware and South Carolina actually
cast blank votes, which seems like what is that like a.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Tight kind of a flex like they were very tarts
at that point, you know it was it was a
message about the dangers of government overreach.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
They're just being petty, right.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
No, they're being artistic, petty artistic, petty artistic.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I'm going to cut you out.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
He he says, this going to be being petty, artistic, artistic, artistical,
great power expensive, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, yeah, on your side.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
You stole the wrong radio. This star.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
That's a reference for just a few people them. You
know what what is not from Hamilton? Yes, in Max's
defense as well, it is clearly a It is clearly
a protest vote. It's clearly being the people who say, well,
I'm not going to do anything, you know what I mean.
(28:30):
It is somewhat petulant, but they probably felt they had
no other option this election. Just the massive poop show
of this whole thing is the origin point, the catalyst
for the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in eighteen oh four.
The Twelfth Amendment says, all right, electors, you're still voting,
(28:52):
but you're casting separate ballots for president and vice president
because those blank votes were just ridiculous. You guys were
own ups. We're starting a new country. Anyway, We've got
to get to the duel. And on the way to
(29:13):
the duel, it is important to note that Burr was
not a bad vice president. He had good judgment. Thomas Jefferson,
like many many other people, did not trust Burr and said,
keep that guy out of the White House politics, don't
let him do his job.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
His story thus far seems to be one of pretty
great competence. At the very least. You know, he was
a smart guy. He was a brave guy, it would seem,
you know, I.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Will say, when it comes to researching Burr, it's interesting,
at least from the sources I've found, ye was it's
either all the way to like, hey, Aaron Burr was
actually a very important person. To Hey, Aaron Burr was
crazy there's no middle ground. It's really interesting, if weird
of his story. But I mean it's like one of
these things that you know, history is written with. It
is sure, and we all kind of know where the
(30:04):
story someone ends, and then when he continues to end
further and further on, it's wilder and wilder. But it's
it's interesting because, yeah, it looks like he was just
gonna be in that list of people like founding fathers.
This guy's very famous and awesome and successful.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
There is a Venn diagram between greatness and insanity. However,
I would argue that many, many great people have a
much higher likelihood of being what we would consider insane,
but still touched. To be that ambitious totally, you have
to you have to be able to envision that kind
of larger than life pursuit for yourself, which means you
(30:38):
basically hallucinate your way into success.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, but then you've all depending on the outcome that
can even be described as ambition or delusions of grandeur.
You know, no one ever says someone who wins and
does a good job and goes down in history had
delusions of grandeur. No, it was just grandeur, and there
were no delusions. They call it ambition, even if they
have to step on a few toes, you know, to
(31:02):
to break the eggs that make the omelet. That's how
that expression goes.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Sure, yeah, you led the figure of speech to water
that might drink waterboard. That's terrible. Adult waterboard yourselves, folks.
It's not as fun as it sounds. And Burr is
now part of a power divide.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Jefferson says, I don't like this guy. Keep him out
of a white house, you know what I mean, Make
him eat lunch in the back. And and Burr says,
I'm going to run the Senate. And he's pretty good
at it. He's a good he's a good diplomat. He
plays the game of houses or dos de mars, they
call it a wheel of time. He plays this very well.
(31:43):
And he's able to grow people, to incentivize or disincentivize them.
There's an impeachment trial that comes up for a justice, federalist,
Justice Samuel Chase. This was back when bad justices, even
court justices, could get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Those are the days, huh. Now they're bulletproof. I gotta
add a really stupid aside. We've been talking about how
you know, the Aaron, our boy Aaron ended up in
some pretty chilly situations with the snow you know, where
he had to potentially carry the body of his commanding officer,
but it was too snowy, and then there was another
snowy condition. His last name is Burr.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
That's worth it. And and he's bird. And it's weird
too because he doesn't have a middle name, huh, or
at least that we know of us history.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
But Jefferson has he has grown tired of this this Shenanigans,
this power you know, these power hungry vultures of the judiciary,
and he decided to try to limit Federalist influence on
the Supreme Court by kicking Samuel Chase to the curb.
And in order to do that, he had to exploit
(33:05):
some of this gentleman's earlier shortcomings. Sure that were of
course on the record. After the House voted to impeach Chase,
get him out of here, get him gone. His impeachment
was of course supposed to be decided by the Senate
and then presided over by the VP, our guy Burb.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And so Jefferson comes in in the background and he's like, look,
I don't love you. You don't love me, but we
are trying to be on the same team. Do me
a solid here. Get this friggin sam guy out of office.
And Burr says, you know, I hear you. And when
people say I hear you, that means they acknowledge that
(33:46):
you're speaking and they're not going to do squat. So
he says, I hear you. But then he handles the
case as judiciously as possible, and a newspaper that all
read he kind of was beefed up with. Burr says
the following he conducted the hearings with the dignity and
impartiality of an angel, but with the rigor of a devil.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Wow, okay, all right, so because of his impartiality, a
Democratic Republican majority let chase off the hook. So this
didn't sit well with Jefferson. Let's just say, yeah, but
it did. I mean it was a success for Burr
in that he made it happen, yes, but politically speaking,
(34:34):
was probably not a smart move. I wonder what his
calculations were. Why did he not see the forest for
the trees and the Jefferson was going to be an
important man? Did he think it was okay to piss
him off because he wasn't going places. That seems like
a miscalculation, right, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Burr was very much a calculated dude, and if we
had to guess his impetus or his reasoning was something like,
I will prove that even to my political enemies, everyone
gets a fair shot, which I'm.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
A man of Princeable.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
That's how it is supposed to work. It is, And
Jefferson was like, heck, no, we're breaking up.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
That's right. And you can almost argue that Jefferson was
being a little shady by saying ram it through what No,
So that's you know, Okay, this is very interesting. So
you know again, according to Aaron Burr's biography, this victory
would kind of be Burr's last, at the very least
last successful political maneuver.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
His last big ten to item. Yeah, because after this trial,
Chase gets off and goes on his merry way. Just
the scene round the land and Thomas Jefferson says, hear me,
and hear me now, Aaron Burr will not be my
running mate in the election of eighteen oh four. And
they say, well, who's it going to be, mister Jefferson?
And he goes, I don't care. And at the same point, concurrently,
(35:54):
while Burr's navigating the halls of power, he is increasingly
beefed up with his long time friend of Alexander Hamilton,
and they are sniping each other back and forth. So
there's not really a Twitter, right, there are just zines
and there are broadsheets, publications, stuff like that. So these
guys are firing shots at each other in the public sphere,
(36:18):
in the world of print, and then in the world
of oration all the time. In eighteen hundred, Burr publishes
something called the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams esquile,
President of the United States. This document is very, very
critical of Adams because Adams is a Federalist, and Burr
(36:38):
did not write this. By the way he obtained it,
he purchased and published it. The author was Hamilton, and
Alexander Hamilton is saying, Aaron abam bro I meant that
for just us, this isn't supposed to go out to
the whole town. I'm not supposed to go out to
(37:00):
everyone in America who can read. And then Burr probably said, well,
you know, it's it's like not a lot of people can.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Read It's like the historical equivalent of copying the wrong
people on an email where you're trash talking said people.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And he did it on purpose.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
He did it not Yeah, it was the accidental text
on purpose. Yeah, from Curb Yesody exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Episode.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So this was very embarrassing to Hamilton, injured some of
his relationships and networking. And then still then they they
did not fight yet. There's just more and more tension, right,
and the New York Governor's race occurs in eighteen oh four.
This is when things get How did Olivia and John
(37:42):
put it? Yeah, this is when things get physical.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
It was like trying to try to place that. I
guess I think of her as in Greece, is it
she is the one? Like Yeah, that was more like her. Yeah,
that was like her kind of later like disco solo
music careering as I just always think of her as
as you know, in the Bobby socks and the poodle
skirt and all of that stuff. But yeah, Burr thought
that if he won in eighteen o four the New
(38:07):
York Governor's race, that he could kind of rest back
some of the power and some of the clout that
he had lost in you know, crossing Jefferson right, And
also obviously this accidental text on purpose didn't really bode
well for him either, because these men Jefferson and Hamilton
are very quickly well Jefferson already of course, but very quickly,
(38:30):
you know, big leaguing Burr.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah, and Burr says, forget you, guys. I'm running as
an independent, and if I win, if I can pull
this off, then it's a whole new town baby, and
Burr will be back in business. So it's a risk,
it is a calculation, it's a heck of a gamble.
(38:53):
And Hamilton is laying awake at night terrified about this idea. Oh,
BurrH is in charge of New York. He's gonna ruin
the whole thing at this point in my life, he
says to himself, I despise and mistrust and hate Aaron Burr.
He's a Burr in the shoe of America. And Hamilton
(39:16):
tries to convince the Federalist in New York not to
support Burr at all in any shape, form or fashion.
He wasn't the main person who shut down the election,
but he probably didn't help. And so Burr's campaign to
be governor of New York fails.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Do you think there was a generalized mistrust of birth
this far because he seemed to be a bit of
a double dealer, a bit of a you know.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Two faced well maybe not two faced, but one hundred
percent he was. I mean, not for nothing. Is there
that talk less, smile more part in Hamilton? And I
think you probably.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Watched that part, right might I not? Can't recle Okay,
well it's a good point. I neither conf there we go.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
And he was one of those guys. He was neither
confirmed nor denied, dude. And that even when and you're
behaving with principle, that means people are going to have
a trust deficit with you. The winner of the election
is Morgan Lewis, the New York Republican candidate. He is
supported by George and de Witt Clinton, who, despite the
(40:15):
name being de Witt, which feels very Appellachian to me,
I can say it, it does. De Witt is one
of the most powerful Republicans in New York.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
And they crush Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Yeah, I want to do like a dive into the
to the New York Clinton family, because they're like one
of the kind of like almost mob style families.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
In early America.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Yeah, yeah, we don't talk about but they controlled a
lot of this country.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
And it's funny because they don't show up in a
lot of national level grade school textbooks. You have to
be from, you know, that specific part of the.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Country, about the one with the building and the road
named after them, you know, with the endowments. And it
is funny though, like you exactly when you know, I
was in Detroit recent then you probably can think of
some of these names. Max. There were some buildings that
were named after some people that were obviously very well
known in the politics and the history of that part
(41:14):
of the country that I have absolutely no knowledge of,
and some really fun Midwestern East sounding names.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Aaron Burr, you were going to rue the day you
crossed the Clinton exactly. I'm sure that's how that patrician sounded. Yeah, this,
this battle for New York is bad and on some level, Burr,
despite his own miscalculations and his own warts and imperfections
and ugly bumps of her career, he says, Hamilton is
(41:48):
one of the big reasons I lost this election. Hold
the phone. We are going to make this a two parter,
which we discussed earlier in advance Illo.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
You're doing. We're not going to throw away a shot
on the British accent.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
We shouldn't, we should, We never should, although there will
come a point where one of our characters does have
to run away to England and potentially adopt a fake
British accent.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, and that actually happens more than once in this series.
So thank you as always for tuning in. Please join
us Thursday for part two of Aaron Burr America's Drunk Uncle.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
We'll see next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:28):
Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Wait for it, wait for it, wait, waiting for it,
waiting for it.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
For this is our shout out to both Hamilton the
Musical and our super producer, mister Max Williams. I'm Ben.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Is wait for It a Hamilton reference? Yes? You know,
I tried watching it on TV. I guess it came
out on Disney Plus.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
You always say you don't like it.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I enjoyed it, but I didn't enjoy it enough to
finish it. Does that make sense? You have experienced that
with a series or something, not a tent out there
mean maybe a little less so. Now, by the way,
good job with the strike.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Guys, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah you did that. That was all Ben's idea. But
you know, we've been talking a lot about labor organization
and things like that, and it is cool to see, uh,
something as basic and time tested as a strike do
the damn thing with the WGA finally agreeing to some
pretty basic demands. Yeah, a lot of the smaller distributors
and studios had long since agreed to. That was the
(01:27):
part that kind of always made me scratch my head
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's right. Yeah, and these things often occur in phases, right,
So now the SAG Union, the Actors Guild is in play,
the United Auto Workers are in played. This is this
is pretty fascinating stuff. We also want to be careful
because our returning guest, alex S is here and as
(01:53):
we know, she will crush any any untoward labor action.
That's right, total total buster, total, sith Laura. Yeah, that
guy nodding. Sorry, she stood up and looked at us.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And left stormed out, presumably to go bust ups. Alex Is.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Alex Is the best. We're all so glad you tuned in, folks.
This week is a special two part episode. We're doing
that Hamilton reference entirely because of one of the tortured antagonists,
slash co protagonist Aaron Burr, whom our pal Max Williams
lovingly or just regularly refers to as America's drum uncle.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, yeah, it's fine. There was a an Orio I
think I mentioned this before, but there's an Oreo commercial
from way back in the day where it was like
a story in or something, and who was asked a
question of like who shot Alexander Hamilton And he's got
a mouthful of oreos and no milk, and he goes
and no one understands. And I can't remember what the
(02:59):
takeaway is that he comes off looking like an idiot
or he lost out on some sort of grant or something,
but I just I remember erber All. I remember.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's funny because Aaron Burr is in many ways a
footnote in American history, which is funny because he came
up in that whole Founding Father's story and I was surprised.
I looked through our archives extensively. We had to have
done an episode on Aaron Burr.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
We have not.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I'm like, okay, we have to because Aaron Burr, every
step of his life is just wild.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yes, it very much is. It doesn't matter whether or
not you're a fan of Hamilton, really and nothing no
musical is for everyone. But there's just so much about
Burr that doesn't make it into the story because the
story's not Burr, it's Hamilton. So we've talked, like you said,
about other people who were considered influential Founding Father types
(03:51):
but never quite made it to potus level. Aaron Burr
is on that list, along with folks like William Jenny's
Bryant Henry Clay. Burr is a war hero, he's a senator,
he gets all the way to vice president, and at
the time of his demise he had money problems. He'd
been trying for treason, he'd alienated a lot of his friends,
(04:15):
or they had died, because that, you know, could very
much happen. But maybe we start, what do you think, well,
we start at the beginning, because, like r pal Max said,
this is a wild ride, right, I don't know why
I'm doing echoes.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It's okay, it's in the parlance of a hip hop.
So let's talk a little bit about his early life.
He was born, as you know, at this end, this
time in American history, you'd be hard pressed not to
be born into some kind of military circumstances. Your parents
either fought in the war or you grew up with
aspirations to be a soldier, whatever it might be. His father,
(04:51):
Aaron Burr, was a Presbyterian minister, and he was the
second president of the College of New Jersey, which later
became Princeton University. His mother, Esther, which is a lovely
name that you don't hear much anymore these days. I'm
a big fan of Esther. Esther Edwards Burr the daughter
of Jonathan Edwards, who was a theologian in his own right.
(05:14):
Aaron Burr was born February sixth, seventeen fifty six in Newark,
New Jersey. We're talking sopranos country. Burr's father sadly passed
when Aaron was only a year old, and then his
mother passed the following year, so he was orphaned by
the age of two. Out that's no good, and he
(05:35):
and his sisters moved, and thankfully they didn't have to,
you know, move into an orphanage. Their grandparents took took
care of them. But by the time Burr was four
years old, ah, jeez, you hate to hear it. His
grandparents died as well, so for much of his youth
he did spend living with an uncle by the name
(05:56):
of Timothy Edwards.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I don't know why that's a hilarious name to me,
it sounds it's one of those names that's hilarious if
someone is yelling it to indicate a person is in trouble.
Timothy Edwards.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, well, it's like for a last name first name,
first name. Yeah, it's like one of those first name
first name situations. Edward Edwards would be fun too. But Timothy,
Timothy hilarious like Tony Tony Tony. For the longest time,
I thought his name was pronounced Tony Tony tone like
the last one, you know, because it was like, you know,
he's got mad tone or whatever. But no, it's Tony
(06:28):
Tony's major major, major, minor, major, laser, all of the majors. Uh. So,
Timothy was a pretty successful fellow. Again, a very revered
profession at the time and still today, though maybe slightly
less revered, a little more reviled. He was a lawyer,
and he did spare no expense, as John Hammond of
(06:50):
Jurassic Park fame would say, in young Aaron's education, he
hired tutors from Princeton, or at least who had received
their education at the prestigious university, to educate him until
he himself could follow in the family legacy and the
tender Princeton University.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, and even back then, of course, Princeton is a
big deal. He's eleven years old when he applies to
Princeton for the first time. He's turned away because Princeton,
you know, very reasonably, says, aren't you eleven years old?
So he waits for child right, right, He waits for
two years. Age thirteen, he reapplies and he is accepted.
(07:33):
He matriculates into Princeton, where he studies theology until he's
about nineteen years old.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Silly question, genter, Maybe I guess there are no silly questions.
We are a silly show. Fair. They didn't really have
the system of like elementary, middle and high school in
this era that we would note today, So you'd be
more likely it'd be sort of a gray area as
to when the appropriate age to go to higher university.
(08:00):
My higher education might be right.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
You just have to have the money and be persuasive
that have the connection is you know, this is back
in the time where your higher schooling is like I'm
gonna go live with the guy in town who makes
glass and I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Much more last apprentice in master trades kind of situation.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
So he studies theology, and at age nineteen, he says, I.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Don't believe in God.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
God's fine, I guess I'm going to study the law.
So I'm moving to Connecticut. The constitution, state and the
colonial protests are happening around this time. You're getting reports
of the Continental Congress. And he's got an itch and
he's got an itchy foot on this. You know, he's thinking,
I should be stepping somewhere, I should be doing something.
(08:50):
How long can this unsustainable situation continue? He learns about
Lexington and Concord in seventeen seventy five, and so no
longer a theologian, no longer a law nerd Burr becomes
a soldier. Your quick props to American Battlefield Trust to
go to their website battlefields dot org. You can donate
(09:13):
or even become a member. But there's fabulous biographies of
a lot of great Americans, including Aaron Burr. And also,
of course shout out to Britannica. There's solid Man Britannica
dot com as a source.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Remember Encyclopedia Britannica. My physical ones, Yeah, yeah, you buy
them from a salesman. They were wildly expensive, they really were,
but it was almost like that was an investment in
your future. Now it's laughable because that's all like on
the internet for free.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
It's still classy.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
We had a set of Encyclopedia gilded text along the spines,
all that good stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
We had a set of encyclopedias way back in the day,
and I remember my dad telling me that these encyclopedias
were printed in this year.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Hm.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Our knowledge, therefore in this house goes to this year
and stopp because we're not buying another set of encyclopedia.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, sort of like how ridiculous history ends at apartheid?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, mid nineties. We said, that's where we that's what
we consider history flexible though, you know, well, yeah, and
Burr at this point, to be fair, he had no
idea what was going to happen. As we mentioned, this
was a very dangerous time to be a soldier, especially
in the Well in general, but especially in the Continental Army.
His career there, however, was long and prosperous. He thrived.
(10:31):
He also served under a buddy of his who would
later become famous. Benedict Arnold became one of America's bad bends.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
That's right, and then Ben Shapiro and in that bio
on Battlefields dot Org, they make the point that Benedict Arnold,
of course became sort of like brutus, you know, a
bit of a pejorative, like you, Benedict Arnold that means
you're a trader, right, or Brudus Burr himself is sort
of to occupy that space, although you know, one could
(11:03):
argue that it's a little more complicated than that, as
it is with any of these folks. But the headline
is usually more interesting than the article.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Well, yeah, you know, that's why you print the retractions
later in the paper.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, people, people usually skip right past the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So I think that's an excellent point, man, because we
do have to remember there's a lot more nuanced to
these situations. We have the benefit of retrospects. We can
look back and say, like, clearly, this guy, you know
what I mean, it's like watching Cabin in the Woods again, right,
and then you.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Pick up on stuff all the things. Yeah, the Little Clues,
the Little Eastern are watching any twist oriented film again,
you know, you're kind of rewarded. It's actually kind of fun.
I've been watching a lot of the back catalog of
David Fincher lately.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
He's a big fan of the twist sixth sense. That's
Bruce Willis the whole time.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
True, and that is and then that's Forrest Gump's little son.
It's actually a shared universe. Nobody, Nobody talks about it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
No one talks about that. But that is an episode
for another day. The stuff that Burr does during the war,
partially due to his better than average background and partially
due to his schooling, he quickly enters the inner circles
(12:23):
of the army, the halls of power. He becomes an
aide de camp, which I guess is just like your boy,
your sidekick, like the best.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Boy in your valet. Yeah, you know, yeah. He he marches.
He participates in this march along with a lot of volunteers.
Well actually he was one. Excuse me, in this situation.
He was a volunteer march three hundred and fifty miles
through the northern wilds of Quebec to invade Canada, which
I always just think is funny, you know, because we
think of Canada as just being our like, gentle, docile
(12:51):
neighbors to the north, and the idea of invading them
just seems mean. So apparently though, this was not a
particularly for two which is expedition for the American Army,
but it was a positive outcome for young Aaron Burr.
When the soldiers got to Quebec, Burr, as you said
(13:12):
was appointed General Richard Montgomery's aide de camp. Burr became
a quite storied, you know, army hero in the wake
of this battle, and there were reports that General Montgomery
had died in the arms of his best boy, young Burr,
and that Burr actually tried to save Montgomery's body, but
(13:36):
unfortunately the brutal winter conditions prevented him from doing so.
Another Hamilton member of the Hamilton Coterie, Theodore Sedgwick, wrote
a lot of letters to Burr, describing him as being
this funny sounding now out of context, being young, gay
(13:58):
and enterprising in marsh Yeah, totally different, meaning now he's saying,
you gotta go get him attitude, You're always in a
good movie, thinking out of the box.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
You're good at military minded. And then Burg goes and
works just for a bit with old straight seahorse teeth himself,
George Washington, who will later become President of the United States.
Burg gets he's not there too long because he likes
being the best boy. So he goes to work with
General Israel Putnam as his aide to come and he
(14:30):
becomes a this is weird. He becomes a crucial leader
in a famous retreat when the American forces have to
leave New York. He's one of the guys who's like
the best at running away, run.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Away in New York. He could and did become a
new man. That's my only Camelton reference that I'm going
to drop. Maybe I could say not throwing away my shot.
I know that one that's true.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, that big that that long shout out to eminem.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I think I only made it through like act one.
And don't get me wrong, it is a marvel. It's
beautifully produced. I'm sure it doesn't in a case I
only it was. I think I was just distracted and
then never came back, or maybe there's somebody with me
that didn't want to finish what I can't remember. I'm
going to go back to it. Also, kind of watching
Broadway stuff on TV, it just hits different than seeing
it and ensure.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I enjoyed it, and it's I see what you're saying,
because when it gets kind of in the weeds of politics,
that's where it may lose a lot of people, right,
but once it picks back up, it swells. It's epic.
I think it's worth it. But also, let's be honest, folks,
too much hype can kill anything.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
That may have been happened to you. I think so too,
because I mean one of my favorite musicals, and just
about any adaptation of it at all is a very
into what is it? Turn off the Dark? Yeah, that
one was a hit. No Les Miserabla, which is also
a very in the weeds, military and kind of political piece.
I just love it. I like the book, I love
the music. It's I think I think for me, it's
(15:58):
a it's a youth thing, like I I grew up
hearing those songs. My mom was a singing teacher. But
I really thought that the film adaptation they did where
everyone sings there on stuff, you know, I thought that
was really well done. And then that guy, of course
went on to make Cats, which was not good.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Get out? What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Nod it? Well, everybody loves a trade wreck.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
At least at least the cats didn't have buttholes like
he originally wanted.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You know, maybe that would have put it pushed it over.
Best supporting actor is believe that we.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Need more realism in these these anthropomorphic sex cats. Guys.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
We don't want to break the magic here. These need
to be anatomically accurate anthropomorphized cat.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I think they had to remove them in posts.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
They did added a huge cost in production, because it
turns out, it turns out if you are video editor,
you're deep in the CGI. There's not just a remove
all buttholes button.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, they need to add that to after effects.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
So Max is nodding vigorously.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I am and as you guys have not said anything
about my pants. I saw my.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Pants, saw them, but we had to walk right in.
I can't see your pants in set right down. Oh man,
you monster, Max, you got your white pants on, you monster?
You you rabble. So Burr is like, one day this
is going to be part of a musical. My life
is going to be part of a musical.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
However, though he probably didn't necessarily at this point think
that he was going to be the villain. No no
one ever does, though, do that, No one ever does, right, you.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Know, like tamer Lane or Timer the Lamee was probably
thinking I'm bringing the world together. Alexander the Great was like,
look at my street name. I can't be that bad.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Check out my white pants.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Whole pot is like, you know, saloth Sar sounds a
little evil. So I'm going to get more of a
name that people will trust.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Is it bad tho? Whenever I hear pull Pott, I
just think pulled pork.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
No. Also, I think it's weird that his name sounds
so villainous. Our pal Alex is not actually a sith.
But if your name is Saloth Sar, he sounds straight
out of Star Wars. Very true. You definitely have the
Red Light singer. And so Burr again doesn't. He's doing
his best. He I'm joking a little bit about the retreat,
(18:15):
but what he figures out is pretty epic. He designs
the safest route out of the city, and he guides
five thousand people to safety. He salvages US artillery, which
is incredibly important at this point, and because of this action,
in seventeen seventy seven, Washington says, Burr, You've earned it, Bud.
(18:38):
You're officially a lieutenant colonel, which means you will be
in command of more than three hundred men. He fights
off these British raids into New Jersey. He defends a
pass at Valley Forge during a really crappy winter in
seventeen seventy seventeen.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Branch.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, and then there's the Battle of Monmouth. He is
defeated at the Battle of Monmouth, and he also gets
some mounting health problems because he's been going hard in
the paint for a while, so he resigns in seventeen
seventy nine from the Continental Army. He makes another shift.
(19:14):
He says, I remember I kind of like doing law stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, in New York, I can be in New I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
He passes the bar in seventeen eighty two, the New
York State Bar opens up his lot. What they call
it hanging out his shingle, and a's as they say,
and that's probably where that term came from, you know.
They say it in like better call saul, But it's
probably an old timey legal term from when you'd literally
have a practice and your little sign would be out
front and it would be like in the form of
a little shingle. So he's set up for a lawyer
(19:46):
in and he marries a widow and the couple stays
together until her death in seventeen ninety four. In seventeen
eighty four and seventeen eighty five, he gets elected to
the State Assembly, and in eighty nine, because we're in
the seventeen, So I'm just going to say eighty nine
he gets appointed Attorney General by Governor George Clinton, not
(20:09):
of parliament funkadelic fame. Unfortunately, he could have add some
funk in his soul though. By ninety one he has
built a very successful political movement against General Philip Schuyler,
who is the father in law of Ding Ding Ding
Alexander Hamilton. Wait for wait for wait, who's then the
(20:31):
Secretary of the Treasury.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yes, and he wins. Burr wins the election, as any
fan of Hamilton knows, and Hamilton takes this personally. Burr
runs for vice president in seventeen ninety six. He loses.
You can read a lot about the US presidential elections,
by the way, especially the election of eighteen hundred on
Encyclopedia Virginia dot org. It's well worth the time. We're
(20:55):
getting to that election in just a second. Here's what
you need to know. Bur runs for vice president in
seventeen ninety six. He loses. Ah boo. He kind of
snowballs for him for a second.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
He doesn't go theme with this guy.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
He doesn't get re elected to the Senate. He loses
to Shyler, and he spends the next two years deep
in state politics, all the way until the eighteen hundred election.
It's a grudge match. This is back when if you
ran for president and you got second place, you would
(21:32):
be the vice president to your basically your mortal enemy.
So there's a rematch between Adams and Jefferson and they
and they don't want to be in a situation where
Jefferson is Adams VP. So the parties try to say,
all of our teams, all of our electors. He got
(21:52):
to be on one page, we got to be unified.
On the federalist side. Adams is going to run with
Charles Coatsworth, Uh, not a superpower name. And Jefferson is
going to be running with you guessed it, folks, Aaron Burr.
Oh and there's no popular vote at this point.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Oh fun, right, fun? Yeah? So can I jump in?
Real quick?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Jump?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Jump on in. I don't think I've told you guys
this story. I think I was saving it for this episode.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
No I'm not, but this this is so the wedding
I went to a Michigan that I wore these lovely
white pants. They look good, they looked on They're amazing,
and pants labor damp and you ragged on me. Ben's like, oh,
maximally wants to talk about the white pants because he
wants us to notice that that.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
He's working out.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I heard, I heard everything you guys said, including that
entire concert going on behind you.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Good and great work on that, by the way, of course,
of course.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
But so where I was sleeping at my aunt's house,
like it's it's like she moved in this house recently.
It's got she needs to do a lot of work.
But there's this painting hanging. So her husband's grandfather painted
really weird things, and no one understands the things he painted,
but hanging watching me sleep every night was a painting
of Aaron Burr, and no one understands why he picked
(23:06):
Aaron Burr. Ah, And my uncle Dave is a character.
He is just like this, a classic amazing character. And
so being a character, he won't let my ane Jennifer
take it down, but she wants to burn it because
he's like, Aaron Burr sucks and it's weird.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
He needs to get Aaron burned. Yeah, that's very weird.
That's an odd one. Usually, if you're gonna have a
political portrait hanging up on the wall and be a
Jefferson or a Washington or a Lincoln. Aaron Burr is
a little bit of an odd choice, as we'll get
to quite soon.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Why yes, yeah, and no sense in standing on ceremony.
Let's let's dig in here. At this time. The state
legislatures appoint electors men of letters and learning the idea
went will surely make the most informed and most advantageous
(23:58):
or beneficial choice.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
So it's just like kind of an early form of
the electoral college.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Very similar, and also also it's intellectually fraudulent to pretend
that that is the case. But the Democrats Republicans, that's
Democrat dash Republicans sweep most of the South. They get
all the electors from Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia,
all the bits states, all the top ones, all the
quality wines, all the smooth jazz. Adams is in contrast,
(24:26):
he's doing very well in the Northeast. He gets all
the votes from Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
Rhode Island, Vermont. And because Burr is on the ticket
and Burr is a New Yorker, Jefferson wins that state.
If you look at the other states at the time, Carolina,
the North Carolina, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, it's way more mixed.
(24:50):
So the Federalists said, there might be a tie. We
need to figure out, we need to figure out how
to make sure that doesn't happen. No one wants a tie.
Let's go to Rhode Island and we'll have one of
our boys cast one vote for John Jay.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah. So all the Democratic Republican electors contrastingly cast their
ballots for Jefferson and Burr. And since the electors couldn't
indicate a presidential or vice presidential vote specifically, you just yeah.
The result was a tie, and then the winner was
(25:26):
going to be determined by a duel to the death.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We'll get to that though. We'll
get to that.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, they had. They eventually do get to some good dueling,
as we'll see at this point, though the duel is
a lot less physical and a lot more bureaucratic. Under
the existing parliamentary rules that they applied, a tie had
to be decided by the House of Representatives. Each of
(25:54):
the sixteen states gets one vote per state. Problem being
the House of Representatives is controlled by the lame duck
federalist government. All the Federalists want to choose, in their mind,
the lesser of two evils. They say, do you like Burr? No,
I mean, I don't trust them, but he sure isn't Jefferson.
(26:15):
And they're all like, yeah, beating here, Max. They're all like, yeah,
that guy. Is it still the same way? Well, I
feel like very similar. It seems like the electric cars,
but there are there's a lot more work going on
behind the scenes to prevent a tie.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
You know, right when we're talking all this stuff out loud,
it sure sounds a hell of a lot like casino rules,
you know, or rules from some for some esoteric you know,
card game.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Wait till we get to the double dout.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Oh yeah, it's wild man. Sorry, I'm damaged from Vegas.
Never be the same. So voting in the House of
Representatives starts on February eleventh of eighteen oh one, and
on the very first ballot, Jefferson wins as the choice
of eight of the states, while Burr gets the support
of six. So more than thirty additional votes are held
(27:03):
over the next few days, with the same unfortunately tied results.
A bit of a stemy kind of situation there Alas
around thirty six ballots are then cast, with the Federalists
and Marylyn and Vermont deciding to sit those out, giving
those states to Jefferson, who is then elected with Burr
(27:25):
as his VP on February seventeenth by a majority of
ten states to four, and Delaware and South Carolina actually
cast blank votes, which seems like what is that like a.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Tight kind of a flex like they were very tarts
at that point, you know it was it was a
message about the dangers of government overreach.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
They're just being petty, right.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
No, they're being artistic, petty artistic, petty artistic.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I'm going to cut you out.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
He he says, this going to be being petty, artistic, artistic, artistical,
great power expensive, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, yeah, on your side.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
You stole the wrong radio. This star.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
That's a reference for just a few people them. You
know what what is not from Hamilton? Yes, in Max's
defense as well, it is clearly a It is clearly
a protest vote. It's clearly being the people who say, well,
I'm not going to do anything, you know what I mean.
(28:30):
It is somewhat petulant, but they probably felt they had
no other option this election. Just the massive poop show
of this whole thing is the origin point, the catalyst
for the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in eighteen oh four.
The Twelfth Amendment says, all right, electors, you're still voting,
(28:52):
but you're casting separate ballots for president and vice president
because those blank votes were just ridiculous. You guys were
own ups. We're starting a new country. Anyway, We've got
to get to the duel. And on the way to
(29:13):
the duel, it is important to note that Burr was
not a bad vice president. He had good judgment. Thomas Jefferson,
like many many other people, did not trust Burr and said,
keep that guy out of the White House politics, don't
let him do his job.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
His story thus far seems to be one of pretty
great competence. At the very least. You know, he was
a smart guy. He was a brave guy, it would seem,
you know, I.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Will say, when it comes to researching Burr, it's interesting,
at least from the sources I've found, ye was it's
either all the way to like, hey, Aaron Burr was
actually a very important person. To Hey, Aaron Burr was
crazy there's no middle ground. It's really interesting, if weird
of his story. But I mean it's like one of
these things that you know, history is written with. It
is sure, and we all kind of know where the
(30:04):
story someone ends, and then when he continues to end
further and further on, it's wilder and wilder. But it's
it's interesting because, yeah, it looks like he was just
gonna be in that list of people like founding fathers.
This guy's very famous and awesome and successful.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
There is a Venn diagram between greatness and insanity. However,
I would argue that many, many great people have a
much higher likelihood of being what we would consider insane,
but still touched. To be that ambitious totally, you have
to you have to be able to envision that kind
of larger than life pursuit for yourself, which means you
(30:38):
basically hallucinate your way into success.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, but then you've all depending on the outcome that
can even be described as ambition or delusions of grandeur.
You know, no one ever says someone who wins and
does a good job and goes down in history had
delusions of grandeur. No, it was just grandeur, and there
were no delusions. They call it ambition, even if they
have to step on a few toes, you know, to
(31:02):
to break the eggs that make the omelet. That's how
that expression goes.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Sure, yeah, you led the figure of speech to water
that might drink waterboard. That's terrible. Adult waterboard yourselves, folks.
It's not as fun as it sounds. And Burr is
now part of a power divide.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Jefferson says, I don't like this guy. Keep him out
of a white house, you know what I mean, Make
him eat lunch in the back. And and Burr says,
I'm going to run the Senate. And he's pretty good
at it. He's a good he's a good diplomat. He
plays the game of houses or dos de mars, they
call it a wheel of time. He plays this very well.
(31:43):
And he's able to grow people, to incentivize or disincentivize them.
There's an impeachment trial that comes up for a justice, federalist,
Justice Samuel Chase. This was back when bad justices, even
court justices, could get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Those are the days, huh. Now they're bulletproof. I gotta
add a really stupid aside. We've been talking about how
you know, the Aaron, our boy Aaron ended up in
some pretty chilly situations with the snow you know, where
he had to potentially carry the body of his commanding officer,
but it was too snowy, and then there was another
snowy condition. His last name is Burr.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
That's worth it. And and he's bird. And it's weird
too because he doesn't have a middle name, huh, or
at least that we know of us history.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
But Jefferson has he has grown tired of this this Shenanigans,
this power you know, these power hungry vultures of the judiciary,
and he decided to try to limit Federalist influence on
the Supreme Court by kicking Samuel Chase to the curb.
And in order to do that, he had to exploit
(33:05):
some of this gentleman's earlier shortcomings. Sure that were of
course on the record. After the House voted to impeach Chase,
get him out of here, get him gone. His impeachment
was of course supposed to be decided by the Senate
and then presided over by the VP, our guy Burb.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And so Jefferson comes in in the background and he's like, look,
I don't love you. You don't love me, but we
are trying to be on the same team. Do me
a solid here. Get this friggin sam guy out of office.
And Burr says, you know, I hear you. And when
people say I hear you, that means they acknowledge that
(33:46):
you're speaking and they're not going to do squat. So
he says, I hear you. But then he handles the
case as judiciously as possible, and a newspaper that all
read he kind of was beefed up with. Burr says
the following he conducted the hearings with the dignity and
impartiality of an angel, but with the rigor of a devil.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Wow, okay, all right, so because of his impartiality, a
Democratic Republican majority let chase off the hook. So this
didn't sit well with Jefferson. Let's just say, yeah, but
it did. I mean it was a success for Burr
in that he made it happen, yes, but politically speaking,
(34:34):
was probably not a smart move. I wonder what his
calculations were. Why did he not see the forest for
the trees and the Jefferson was going to be an
important man? Did he think it was okay to piss
him off because he wasn't going places. That seems like
a miscalculation, right, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Burr was very much a calculated dude, and if we
had to guess his impetus or his reasoning was something like,
I will prove that even to my political enemies, everyone
gets a fair shot, which I'm.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
A man of Princeable.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
That's how it is supposed to work. It is, And
Jefferson was like, heck, no, we're breaking up.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
That's right. And you can almost argue that Jefferson was
being a little shady by saying ram it through what No,
So that's you know, Okay, this is very interesting. So
you know again, according to Aaron Burr's biography, this victory
would kind of be Burr's last, at the very least
last successful political maneuver.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
His last big ten to item. Yeah, because after this trial,
Chase gets off and goes on his merry way. Just
the scene round the land and Thomas Jefferson says, hear me,
and hear me now, Aaron Burr will not be my
running mate in the election of eighteen oh four. And
they say, well, who's it going to be, mister Jefferson?
And he goes, I don't care. And at the same point, concurrently,
(35:54):
while Burr's navigating the halls of power, he is increasingly
beefed up with his long time friend of Alexander Hamilton,
and they are sniping each other back and forth. So
there's not really a Twitter, right, there are just zines
and there are broadsheets, publications, stuff like that. So these
guys are firing shots at each other in the public sphere,
(36:18):
in the world of print, and then in the world
of oration all the time. In eighteen hundred, Burr publishes
something called the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams esquile,
President of the United States. This document is very, very
critical of Adams because Adams is a Federalist, and Burr
(36:38):
did not write this. By the way he obtained it,
he purchased and published it. The author was Hamilton, and
Alexander Hamilton is saying, Aaron abam bro I meant that
for just us, this isn't supposed to go out to
the whole town. I'm not supposed to go out to
(37:00):
everyone in America who can read. And then Burr probably said, well,
you know, it's it's like not a lot of people can.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Read It's like the historical equivalent of copying the wrong
people on an email where you're trash talking said people.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And he did it on purpose.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
He did it not Yeah, it was the accidental text
on purpose. Yeah, from Curb Yesody exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Episode.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So this was very embarrassing to Hamilton, injured some of
his relationships and networking. And then still then they they
did not fight yet. There's just more and more tension, right,
and the New York Governor's race occurs in eighteen oh four.
This is when things get How did Olivia and John
(37:42):
put it? Yeah, this is when things get physical.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
It was like trying to try to place that. I
guess I think of her as in Greece, is it
she is the one? Like Yeah, that was more like her. Yeah,
that was like her kind of later like disco solo
music careering as I just always think of her as
as you know, in the Bobby socks and the poodle
skirt and all of that stuff. But yeah, Burr thought
that if he won in eighteen o four the New
(38:07):
York Governor's race, that he could kind of rest back
some of the power and some of the clout that
he had lost in you know, crossing Jefferson right, And
also obviously this accidental text on purpose didn't really bode
well for him either, because these men Jefferson and Hamilton
are very quickly well Jefferson already of course, but very quickly,
(38:30):
you know, big leaguing Burr.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah, and Burr says, forget you, guys. I'm running as
an independent, and if I win, if I can pull
this off, then it's a whole new town baby, and
Burr will be back in business. So it's a risk,
it is a calculation, it's a heck of a gamble.
(38:53):
And Hamilton is laying awake at night terrified about this idea. Oh,
BurrH is in charge of New York. He's gonna ruin
the whole thing at this point in my life, he
says to himself, I despise and mistrust and hate Aaron Burr.
He's a Burr in the shoe of America. And Hamilton
(39:16):
tries to convince the Federalist in New York not to
support Burr at all in any shape, form or fashion.
He wasn't the main person who shut down the election,
but he probably didn't help. And so Burr's campaign to
be governor of New York fails.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Do you think there was a generalized mistrust of birth
this far because he seemed to be a bit of
a double dealer, a bit of a you know.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Two faced well maybe not two faced, but one hundred
percent he was. I mean, not for nothing. Is there
that talk less, smile more part in Hamilton? And I
think you probably.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Watched that part, right might I not? Can't recle Okay,
well it's a good point. I neither conf there we go.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
And he was one of those guys. He was neither
confirmed nor denied, dude. And that even when and you're
behaving with principle, that means people are going to have
a trust deficit with you. The winner of the election
is Morgan Lewis, the New York Republican candidate. He is
supported by George and de Witt Clinton, who, despite the
(40:15):
name being de Witt, which feels very Appellachian to me,
I can say it, it does. De Witt is one
of the most powerful Republicans in New York.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
And they crush Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Yeah, I want to do like a dive into the
to the New York Clinton family, because they're like one
of the kind of like almost mob style families.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
In early America.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Yeah, yeah, we don't talk about but they controlled a
lot of this country.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
And it's funny because they don't show up in a
lot of national level grade school textbooks. You have to
be from, you know, that specific part of the.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Country, about the one with the building and the road
named after them, you know, with the endowments. And it
is funny though, like you exactly when you know, I
was in Detroit recent then you probably can think of
some of these names. Max. There were some buildings that
were named after some people that were obviously very well
known in the politics and the history of that part
(41:14):
of the country that I have absolutely no knowledge of,
and some really fun Midwestern East sounding names.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Aaron Burr, you were going to rue the day you
crossed the Clinton exactly. I'm sure that's how that patrician sounded. Yeah, this,
this battle for New York is bad and on some level, Burr,
despite his own miscalculations and his own warts and imperfections
and ugly bumps of her career, he says, Hamilton is
(41:48):
one of the big reasons I lost this election. Hold
the phone. We are going to make this a two parter,
which we discussed earlier in advance Illo.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
You're doing. We're not going to throw away a shot
on the British accent.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
We shouldn't, we should, We never should, although there will
come a point where one of our characters does have
to run away to England and potentially adopt a fake
British accent.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, and that actually happens more than once in this series.
So thank you as always for tuning in. Please join
us Thursday for part two of Aaron Burr America's Drunk Uncle.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
We'll see next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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