Washington Telegraph

PUBLISHER.
No. 7.

CHARACTER OF AARON BURR.
BY WILLIAM WALLACE.

If Blannerhassett had been the only person ruined by Burr, charity would suggest a burial of our remembrance of the exile's desolation. But the victims of Burr are to be numbered by hundreds. The base and the peaks of society, alike, show the scathing marks of his fiery visitation. He cherished no friendship; he returned unhonored the drafts of gratitude; he kindled the flame of lust at the very fireside of hospitality, and felt little pleasure in bidding adieu to the lares of his host until the dearest objects that flourished under their sacred influence were sacrificed. But for the deep affection which he manifested towards his daughter, his sole merits seem to have been coolness and courage; and yet, clustering as were the laurels which they showered on his brow, his baser passions so predominated that he held it more glorious to seduce a woman than to shine in the field of letters, to scale the steeps of philosophy, or to wave a banner victorious in battle. He courted the man to corrupt his wife—the statesman to profit by his influence -the millionaire to obtain his money-and the world to gratify his desire. He was the more dangerous from the possession of an intellect massive, piercing and brilliant, united to a form at once handsome and vigorous. His mind was but the keen weapon with which he hewed a path to conquest. That weapon was Protean.-- If the victim fully came under the gaze of an eye whose sharp light resembled lightning imprisoned and forever playing in a cloud black as death-he was forever lost. Burr's conversation was irresistibly fascinating--for his hands swept every chord of the human heart. He strewed the rosy paths of the happy with flowers of a still brighter hue; he arched the troubled sky of the desponding with the rainbow of hope: he conjured up before the rapt vision of the avaricious, golden Golconda; and to the aspiring he pointed out the illuminated vistas of glory. Thus he stood: gifted and unprincipled: ruthless and terrible. The want of great fortune, alone, prevented his presenting, in one vast Alpine mass, that Evil, which he accomplished but too successfully in many details. Chance confined to valleys, comparatively humble, the stupendous glaciers which only needed the rays of the sun of fortune to devastate continents. It may be asked: "Is not his valor on the battle fields of his country to be remembered?" Yes! that was a redeeming thing No matter from what motive his military talents were exercised, our land reaped some benefit. But we are forced to doubt the patriotism of one who was so ready to forswear his allegiance; who trampled on so much that men hold sacred. and who regarded his exploits against royal tyranny less glorious than the moral destruction of a human being. Age is expected to subdue; but with Burr, the winter of time brought no snow to cool the lava of passion. At four-score and six the crater wore a glow as ardent as at twenty. His faculties mocked at a century. Age should bring the soothing calm of religion to prepare the tempest tossed bark for its entrance into another and final sea: Burr died as he had lived-a practical atheist. Age should bring respect: Burr expired as he had existed, without the regard of the good. His hoary hairs went down to the grave floating on the breeze of infamy. In cunning, an Iago; In lust, a Tarquin; impatience, a Cataline; in pleasure, a Sybarite; in gratitude, a Malay; and in ambition a Napoleon, he affords the world an awful example of powerful intellect destitute of virtue. His portrait would fitly appear in a circle of Dante's Inferno. Let no one accuse the speaker of stepping with saulied feet through the solemn sepulchre. Aaron Burr belongs to History. Such was the lot he chose