| Show CIVIL WARS FIRST GUN A pistol shot on the hudson rivers bank in 1804 IT ir BURRS ristol PISTOL HAD MISSED how flow the hie course coarse of invents evants ivaa C hanged by the ibe death of alexander E would have liepis abolished without out what dalight have liwai I 1 copi right 1806 by john dark clark ridpath I 1 IV it was before sunrise on an tile the morning of the I 1 alth I 1 th of ju anly ly I 1 took the he boat boa t at polity second street new york und and cros ed to tho the great trestle of the el dorado heights sights hi I 1 went down the bank about 80 rods to a little iron railing inneo of the railing is ia a small red stone in which is set a bronze plate telling that on that stone down by the river brink SOO 00 feet below Hamil hamiltons tono head was laid when he be tell fell it was 91 years ago at hat bat hour the light of the rising sun struck level across the city just me an it had flashed in the face of tile the falling statesman ile he had foolishly or generously chosen the wrong position ili his enemy stood with the sun at his back I 1 said to myself what it if burr s tol had missed I 1 consider ehg political situation in the year 1804 george clinton for tile the sev I 1 eathil anth time gover governor of NewY kew york was nearing the close of his term his in nephew do de witt clinton ex senator ot of the united states a powerful factor was mayor of new kew york city Jef jefferson fergon I 1 was lit in the last year of his first term A aarbu burr we was vice president of the united st states tes but could not be his own successor sor ile he had bad succeeded by an intrigue in in tho the fourth presidential election in ili tying the electoral vote with jefferson jefferion hint but the house housa had decided in favor 0 of f the latter burr had secured the support of most of the federal representative tentative senta tive ve not that they hated bated him less but dreaded Jeff jefferson ersoll more F falling ailing back into the chevice vice presidency I 1 lie defeated aspirant soon found that I 1 ins his intrigue had destroyed his prestige alth his own party he had bad shown himself willing to defeat the idol of the democracy hamilton and his friends had bad refused to support burr even as a measure of political expediency and it was for this reason that aliat the intrigue with the federalists lind had failed beira I 1 perceiving how matters stood in the I 1 years 1802 3 saw that lie hempst must climb into the presidency if at nil all by some other stairway stai iway john adams the first vice president had bad succeeded washington Jef the second had succeeded adam burr the third by his imar imprudent u ambition had bad kicked do down donn nn the ladder whereby he be might have succeeded jefferson such however had been his political skill that he had put new york into the democratic column whether new york could be kept in that column end and whether burr by electing himself governor in 1804 mig might it vault to the presidency from the hitherto mt asted rad gubern lorial stepping stone depended upon the he political complexion I 1 and decision of new york city that city held bald the balance of power in the state and if in the state stale then in in the union the decision of the city depended upon whether alexander hamilton or aaron burr had tue the greater influence fi nence hamilton had lately been commander of the american army organized for the expected war with france khrt war passed with the of bonaparte hamilton might werl well resign his place as general in chief return to his I 1 practice in now new york and await the swinging of the pendulum which should bring a federal reaction against the now triumphant democracy and I 1 waft him to the high seat as the successor suei I 1 of washington and abanil I 1 hamilton was a natural master the I 1 year 1804 found him so situated that he be might thwart burrs barrs purpose to be governor ot of new york and if that then lna his higher purpose to be president the federalists for policy had generally accepted burr as their candidate for governor but the influence of the great leader prevailed and the election went to morgan lewis burr suddenly found himself in a wreck ile he could be neither vice president nor governor of now new york and it if not these then nothing if his is left wing had bad been broken by the intrigue against jefferson and lii ili right was now thrown into the air by the federalist defection hamilton ina in a letter i or I 1 lo 10 0 dr cooper bad said that lie he had a despicable opinion of culon 1 burrs politics burr with assiduous scrutiny discovered thus much of an offense he challenged his bis mighty rival find and killed liim him but it if burrs pistol bad missed I 1 lit in one sense history snows cinowa not if when hypothesis is introduced into human events it signifies no more than lit ignorance of hie elie laws that orp are work aili dugout g bout the inexorable results of destiny there it in a sense in which it is ill foolish to I 1 peak of an all event turned lit in this way or in u that by the mere inere lini aud and agency of man the individual has little to do with will it we do not fay bay he his has nothing to do with it A tew few men inen have beez been dynamically so great that they have deflected the lines ot air ulli unive vels isrl 1 causation hamilton was w one of those and it if burrs Borrs pistol had missed tile hist foicey of tile the epoch would wo till ilk have been astl changed in their course Alexin alexander dc hamiltou hamilton was by a great measure tile intellect of our oar V revolutionary age ue he was so strung as to be almost dangerous I 1 as a thi ma machine chibe neither jefferson nor the younger adams was comparable with him franklin may have been more ore cap capacious cious more philosophical more iliin Il iii ano as he was ivas far more altruistic but as a conscious thinker of clear cut steel finished thoughts hamilton N was all beyond compare the greatest of them all he lid did the constructive thinking tor for the whole en eid in which he lived Us ue cleared away the debris of the revolution and laid the foundations foundation ri of that DAW political order which wo have inherited he ono ot of the corners was wag laid on the of the old political order a and nd went down dorn in 1861 with cataclysm and fire and rod flashes of blood went down to be rebuth with an expenditure hard bard for mankind to bear for shylock has been the tha architect of the reconstruction but it if burrs barrs pistol had bad missed 1 hamilton on the day of his death was 47 beair C months and I 1 day of age ile he was especially well preserved though flight elight lie he had a sinewy frame his its tissue was clean and strong his form symmetrical all ot of his organs perfect in their functions he had hardly ever known sickness lie ile could not tire his mind had bad scarcely yet risen to the climax of energy and efficiency on th tb first morning of the nineteenth century he was positively the greatest political factor in america jefferson himself not excepted As tor for washington he had to tile the end of his hia career enacted hamiltons thoughts it was his unconscious policy to do so we do not a single instance in which the serene rather father of nis ills country delai detailed dep ailed I 1 ed materially from the policies and loadings of that statesman whom he be had first met a boy bov lieutenant on the day after the retreat retreat from long island what if buris pistol had bad missed tho the federal party went to a premature death with the fall of hamilton that patty had not dot measured out ont its days it was the party of construction enst as the democracy had been the party of destruction the latter cared not dot to build and the former cared not to ta destroy if Bures burr Bpi pistol stol hall had missed the folly folli and feebleness beeb amoss which marked the decadence oi ot federalism would not it have ave come can any one suppose th tint thit it i in 11 the first administration of alexander if hamilton am president hamilton would it have ave sounded well 1 his party would it have ave stooped tu tho hartford convert convention ti on that body was only a residual ag grega tion ol 01 malcontent new england s ship owners find and merchants a kind not t ranch much given to patriotism the rho mortal folly once committed tho the federal party could live no longer had it not fact b been eon committed the party would probably bly have survived and triumphed it would not have been committed if burrs pistol to bad missed I 1 I 1 note tho the pasi position tion of the whigs during the mexican war did they oppose that war ask the eloquent ghost of corwin did they then after their opposition take up the wr war and furnish most of the talent and patriotism needed eded for its victorious conclusion certainly and with ith what result with taylor all and d fillmore in the presidency with the greatest whig cabinet ever known and with at least a prospect of success as late as the deaths of clay and webster the federalists under hamilton late general in chief of the american army would not have failed to be loudest and strongest in the war of 1812 in that event the treaty of ghent instead of being the most inconsequential and absurd compact ever done into history would have been a real treaty in which the largo large doctrines of the treaty of paris pans of 1856 would have been forestalled byal by 41 years free flags would have made free goods on all the seas and free goods under any flag would have been exempt from spitzbergen Spitz bergen to rosario Bo sario from the strait of malacca to hudson bay if burrs pistol had bad missed the division find and evolution of political parties in america would have been simple and rational there would have been a constructive tive party strong in its sympathies for a general power extending over ov er the nation and weak in its sympathies toi fot local independence there would have been a baity great in its attachment to local independence and indifferent to centralized dominion from this middle hue of division the two parties would venial have stood off on the one side and the other contending biennially aud and annually for power and the spoils of office would have been a bimle democratic prix ci ale in america on the one hand band contending with tile the federalist principle on the other with the fall of hamilton tile litter latter principle became con confuted f use d jillis indistinct of no effect until the of ilio civil war evoked it in a row mv form and made it masterful federalism in a word wont went to pieces and tile opposition to tile tho jeffersonian theory and practice became chaotic because bair buir i 4 pistol did not miss luiss it were not extravagant to say that with alexander hamilton iu in the tha presidency front from the alie year 1809 to the year 1817 the oil ll 11 war would never have hare been it appears that events nye would uld have taken another course monroe iu in that event might have been a possibility but not jackson the awold in that event might still have hung by the tha constitution ution in the tha executive but not the bowie knife ignite I 1 in ili that even event t john quincy adams might have been or oi even van buren but not dot polk and much I 1 less iu in that event democracy could hardly have been so wedded it to slavery as to suggest the dissolution ot of the union in order that one half might be built forever on human bureau servitude in i that event federalism must have become imbued with the principles of freedom to the degree that the abolition of slavery throughout the british empire would not have preceded the like humanity in the american republic bythe by the full space depaco of a lifetime As it vat waa the civil war must come the nation cation must suffer a tempest of firo fire and a deluge of blood burrs weapon did not mis and the civil war began with the pistol shot at weehawken Wee hawken I 1 I 1 stood at sunrise ou on the july morning and heard it again as in 1804 04 the first gun was not fired from the shore fit at charleston agaibi t the side of sumter but was leveled by the relentless steady nud and dasta da staidly edly hand of aaron burr i against the of the greatest amez amei jean ican of his age him whom the tha john adams once stigmatized as that brat of a scotch peddler JOHN CL tak Rr RIDPATH DrATH |
