" If it be protested that these feats were impossible, I can
only reply that they are historic facts.
It was during these months of study that Aaron Burr came to Albany.
This young man, also, was not unknown to fame; and the period of the
Revolution is the one on which Burr's biographers should dilate, for it
was the only one through which he passed in a manner entirely to his
credit. He was now in Albany, striving for admittance to the bar, but
handicapped by the fact that he had studied only two years, instead of
the full three demanded by law.
While Burr did not belong to the aristocracy of the country, his family
not ranking by any means with the Schuylers, Van Rensselaers,
Livingstons, Jays, Morrises, Roosevelts, and others of that small and
haughty band, still he came of excellent and respectable stock. His
father had been the Rev. Aaron Burr, President of Princeton College, and
his mother the daughter of the famous Jonathan Edwards. He was
quick-witted and brilliant; and there is no adjective which qualifies
his ambition. He was a year older than Hamilton, about an inch taller,
and very dark.
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