Beginnings.

Aaron Burr, in Henry Adams's words, "impressed with favor all who first met him." Burr, grandson of the great theologian Jonathan Edwards, served as a colonel in the Continental Army and later studied law under Tapping Reeve in Connecticut. An intensely political and highly ambitious man, Burr centered his political career in New York. He served in the New York Assembly (1784) and as state attorney general (1789) before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1791. In 1800, as the designated Republican candidate for vice president, Burr received the same number of electoral votes as Thomas Jefferson. Under the Constitution the House of Representatives had to decide between the two candidates. It took thirty-six ballots cast over nearly a week for Jefferson to receive the required majority of states. Burr took office as vice president but was estranged from Jefferson...