The life of the Founding Fathers' black sheep

Alone among them, it was Burr who was tried for treason, killed one of the others in a duel, and left no body of writing on constitutional issues such as, say, "The Federalist Papers."

Now, in a sterling biography, "Fallen Founder," Nancy Isenberg presents a Burr who was "a man of possibilities, a mirror of the energetic young nation" -- as well as a man of great personal charm, attractive to women, and attracted to them.

For Isenberg, a historian at the University of Tulsa, it was his political promise and his personal energy that made Burr not just a contrast to the others, but a threat that led to his fall from the founding fatherhood.

Judging by Isenberg's lively account of Burr's skill as a political organizer for Jefferson in New York in the 1800 presidential campaign -- voter "IDs," a get-out-the-vote operation -- that threat was a real one. It motivated Hamilton's attacks on Burr, which ultimately led to the fateful duel in July 1804.

Isenberg provides a firm-handed discussion of "the notion of a 'Burr Conspiracy,' " the most critical event -- perhaps even more than the Hamilton duel -- in understanding Burr.

Between late 1805 and early 1806, after Burr's term as Jefferson's vice president ended (after the duel there would be no second term), "rumors [began] to swirl" about his activities in the western territories. Burr was indeed considering something -- Isenberg uses the word "filibuster," in the original meaning of a private military action in a foreign country -- perhaps taking advantage of tensions along the western frontier to raise an army and seize Mexican territory or, as his political enemies would have it, to set up an independent nation west of the Mississippi, even, at the most extreme, to seize power in Washington.

Jefferson, reacting to rumors that Burr was gathering an army, ordered him arrested. Charged with treason, Burr was brought to trial in Richmond before Supreme Court Justice John Marshall.