Wild Wild West

The vice-president shoots and kills a former secretary of the treasury in an illegal duel, then travels to the federal capital to preside over the senate, despite two indictments for murder. The supreme commander of the army is secretly on the payroll of an enemy nation. A gay couple starts a muck-raking newspaper in a socially very conservative town. The president tries to manipulate a sedition trial, but fails when the supreme justice refuses to go along. Most lawyers are heavily drunk, heavily armed, or both. Thousands of desperadoes are ever-ready to attack foreign territory, for no better reason than gold and silver. A traitor who wants to destroy the nation in league with alien powers is acquitted on a technicality. The nation is a republic, but has two huge portraits of foreign monarchs on its senate walls. And yes, chattel slavery is almost everywhere.

What nation am I talking about? A “banana republic” circa 1950? A failed state circa 2015? Nupe. Welcome to…the United States of America, circa 1805!

:D

I must say that David Stewart's study of the erratic Aaron Burr, the “fallen founder” of America, is extremely entertaining. It's not a scholarly study, to be sure, but a popularized account, almost written in the style of a novel. Perhaps it's somewhat romanticized. The United States of Burr's life and times comes across as a barely improvised nation, constantly threatened by powerful foreign foes, and filled to the brim with the kind of colorful characters you expect to see in a Wild West flick. Except, of course, that most gun-fighters and adventurers in “American Emperor” turn out to be high-ranking politicians, supreme judges or generals, rather than cowboys of humble origins…

As behooves the main character, Burr is the most colorful personage of them all, a descendant of the great Jonathan Edwards and a former war hero turned lawyer and political schemer, who became Vice President and then killed one of his main rivals (Alexander Hamilton) in a duel. His political career destroyed, Burr tried his luck in the West, where he assembled a ragtag of adventurers for unclear but ulterior purposes. Did he want to provoke a war with Spain to get an excuse to conquer Spanish-held territory, perhaps even making himself king of Mexico? Or did he plan an insurrection against the federal government with British aid, making the Western states secede and hence effectively destroying the United States? Or did he, in fact, want to kidnap President Thomas Jefferson himself? Betrayed by his erstwhile confidant General Wilkinson (the supreme commander of the U.S. Army and a secret agent for Spain), Burr's Catiline conspiracy failed miserably. It would probably have failed anyway, since Burr never had enough men or ships to mount a sustained military campaign against the Spanish Empire, or even the local state militias. Imprisoned and forced to stand trial on hostile territory in Virginia (Jefferson's home state), Burr nevertheless escaped the hangman's noose on various technicalities, not to mention the collusion of John Marshall, the presiding judge and an opponent of Jefferson. Trying his luck in Britain, France and Sweden (a nation he rather liked!), Burr eventually returned to the United States and died of natural causes at the ripe old age of 80. At that time, he may have been the most hated man in American history, with the possible exception of Benedict Arnold.

An estranged member of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, Burr held remarkably advanced views on slavery and gender issues, making sure that his daughter Theodosia received a classical education, and taking care of orphaned children. In Britain, he befriended (and became almost obsessed by) liberal philosopher Jeremy Bentham. He also liked the freedom and strong women of Sweden. Yet, there was always something hypocritical about his feminism, since he voluptuously “sought out the services” of prostitutes. Nor did he ever issue a call for the abolition of slavery in the Western states where he cultivated a base for his conspiracy. Yet, the tragic fate of his daughter and grandson almost makes me feel sorry for him, at least for Burr the man, if not Burr the budding Catilina…

“American Emperor” is a good and, I say it again, entertaining read about the United States in its formative stages, when things could still go wrong (and frequently did) and world history could still have taken another course, for good or for worse. Yes, it's a “great tale”, as the blurb on the front cover declares. I therefore gladly give it four stars!