HERITAGE BURR What If:


We’d Failed to Ratify Constitution?


New book imagines Aaron Burr establishing a separate nation. :: BY THOMAS K. LINDSAY


I


n our politically polarized times, it’s understandable that talk of a “national divorce,” that is, secession, gets


thrown around. But to those enamored


of disunification, a new book cautions, “Beware of what you wish for.” This is the thrust of


Chuck DeVore’s Crisis of the House Never United: A Novel of Early America. It is a work of historical fiction of the best kind — closely tied to historical reality, which it further illuminates through teasing out the consequences for America if, in fact, we had failed to approve the new Constitution submitted to the states in 1787. And, in reality, we almost failed to


ratify the Constitution. For example, in New York


— whose importance as a state made its approval of the new Constitution crucial — the state ratifying convention approved the Constitution by a narrow margin of only 30-27. The vote was 187 to 168 in Massachusetts, 57 to 47 in New


Hampshire, and 89 to 79 in Virginia. DeVore’s novel imagines


what might have happened had New Hampshire not ratified the Constitution in June 1788. DeVore paints for us one possible


Crisis of the House Never United: A Novel of Early America By Chuck DeVore


298 pages


scenario with Aaron Burr as the chief architect of the derailing. For this creative task, DeVore is well suited: He retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel, having served in both the National Guard and the Reserves as an intelligence officer. He has served in the Pentagon, as a California assemblyman, and now, as chief national initiatives officer (and my colleague) at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Some may already know that Burr, who served


as vice president during President Thomas Jefferson’s first term, was tried for treason. He was found not guilty in 1807, but the suspicion surrounding him — added to the hatred he brought on himself for killing Alexander Hamilton in their duel — ended his political hopes forever. In DeVore’s reimagined account,


Burr is clearly a traitor. Crisis of the House presents him forming a separate nation, the United American Republic, composed of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and


DeVore’s novel imagines what might have happened had New Hampshire not ratified the Constitution in June 1788.


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Delaware (and which occupied Boston and sent John Adams fleeing south). For support, Burr forges an alliance with Napoleon’s France. Burr’s tyrannical ambitions move


the other states finally to ratify the Constitution of 1787, helped by that Constitution’s crafty move of simply specifying nine states, rather than a percentage thereof, as necessary for ratification. The new U.S. government


then elected Jefferson as our first president, with Adams as his vice president. To blunt the support of France for Burr’s “Republic,” Jefferson has to turn to our former enemy, Great Britain, which is contemporaneously at war with Napoleon. What results from this deep


division could be expected: civil war. But this time, it’s Burr’s Northeast states versus Jefferson-Adams’ South. I won’t spoil how the projected battle turns out. Nor will I spoil the manner in


which DeVore reimagines Hamilton and Burr’s relationship. I will report that, as in real life, DeVore’s Burr is solely responsible for the death of Hamilton. But this occurs in a different manner than what happened in reality (the 1804 duel at Weehawken, New Jersey, from which Hamilton died a day later). Hamilton’s death in DeVore’s retelling is no less grim — in fact, more — than what really happened.


Thomas K. Lindsay is a distinguished senior fellow of higher education and constitutional studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.


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