On This Day, (yesterday) 210 Years Ago, The US Vice President Killed The Ex-Treasury Secretary

Douglas Hamilton, left, a fifth-great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton and Antonio Burr, right, a descendant of Aaron Burr's cousin, fire their pistols during the re-enactment marking the 200th anniversary of the Hamilton-Burr duel, in Weehawken, N.J., Sunday, July 11, 2004

On July 11, 1804, two leading U.S. politicians overreacted to personal insults between them. That doesn't sound out of the ordinary considering the divisiveness among politicians in today's government, except then-Vice President Aaron Burr and former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton settled the issue with an armed duel to the death.

Since both New Yorkers belonged to opposing political parties, Burr a Republican and Hamilton a Federalist, they developed an adversarial political relationship, according to the Library of Congress. The two were at odds in the controversial presidential election of 1800, when Hamilton helped secure Thomas Jefferson's victory at the expense of Burr, who became vice president. (In those days, the runner-up in presidential elections became vice president.) Hamilton wrote then that Burr's "public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandizement," according to David Stewart, writing for the Constitution Daily blog.

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