The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
was much noticed by Burr, being asked in what his personal attraction
consisted, replied, "In his manner of listening to you. He seemed to
give your thought so much value by the air with which he received it,
and to find so much more meaning in your words than you had intended.
No flattery was equal to it." We think that this anecdote reveals the
entire power of the man. He was strong through the weakness of others,
rather than in his own strength. Therefore he was most attractive to
young or inferior people. He was not on terms of intimacy with any
leading man of his time, unless it was Jeremy Bentham, and the precise
nature of their relations is not understood. The philosopher, who could
not then boast many disciples, was favorably disposed toward Burr,
because the latter had ordered a London bookseller to send him Bentham's
works as fast as they were published. Upon acquaintance, he must have
been pleased with a gentleman with whom he could have had no cause for
dispute, who could supply him with information as to new and interesting
forms of society and government, and whose adventurous and romantic
career differed so widely from his own life of study and thought.
Burr's conduct in his various public situations affords a perfect
measure of his abilities. As a soldier, he was brave, a good
disciplinarian, watchful of details, and an excellent executive officer.
At the head of a brigade he would have been useful; but he did not
possess the foresight, the breadth of mental vision, nor the magnetism
of nature awakening the enthusiasm of armies, which are necessary to a
great commander. He was an adroit lawyer, an adept in the fence of his
profession, skilful to avail himself of the errors of an opponent, and
to play upon the foibles of judge or jury; but he had not the faculty
for generalization and analysis, nor the nice discrimination in the
application of general principles to particular instances, which must be
combined in a great lawyer. He cannot by any figure of speech be called
a statesman. As a politician, he was one of the first to discover and
one of the most skilful in the use of those unworthy arts which have
brought the pursuit of politics into disrepute; but we doubt whether
he could have succeeded upon the broader field of the present day.
Perfectly competent to manage a single city, he would have failed in an
attempt to govern a party. His talents were well defined by Jefferson,
who spoke of him as a great man in little things, and a small man in
great things.
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