In a formal document, Hamilton explained his reason for challenging Burr to a duel. It was, he said, to save his influence in politics.[1]
The day before his duel, he wrote to Theodore Sedgwick, an influential Federalist in Massachusetts:
“Dismemberment of our empire will be a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages, without any counterbalancing good; administering no relief to our real disease, which is democracy, –the poison of which, by a subdivision, will only be the more concentred in each part, and consequently the more virulent.”[2]
Alexander Hamilton
Hamilton had no intention of killing Burr. Burr had every intention of killing Hamilton.[3] His bullet struck Hamilton. He died the next day.
Burr fled to the western frontier.
Next: How Jefferson’s Attempt to End Impressment Led to Talk of Secession
[1] Henry Adams, History of the United States of America during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson, (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1986) 427.
[2] Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Segwick, July 10, 1804, quoted in Adams, History of the United States, 428.
[3] Adams, History of the United States, 429.
