This carelessness in reciting facts is associated with a certain confusion of mind. Mr. Parton does not appear to have the power of distinguishing between conflicting statements of the same thing. He describes Hamilton as honest and generous, and then accuses him of malignity and dishonorable intrigue. He says that Wilkinson, at that time a general in the United States service, may have thought of hastening the dissolution of the Union "without being in any sense a traitor." How an officer can meditate the destruction of a government which he has sworn to protect, and not be in any sense of the word a traitor, will puzzle minds not educated in what the author calls "the Burr school." But the most curious exhibition which Mr. Parton makes of this mental and moral confusion occurs in a passage where he attempts to prove his assertion, that "Burr has done the state some service, though they know it not." This service, of which the state has continued so obstinately ignorant, consists mainly in having invented filibustering, and in having brought duelling into disgrace by killing Hamilton. "That was a benefit," our moralist gravely remarks concerning this last claim to gratitude. Certainly; just such a benefit as Captain Kidd conferred upon the world; he brought piracy into disgrace by being hanged for it. As to the invention of filibustering, we are hardly disposed to rank Burr with Fulton and Morse for his valuable discovery; but perhaps the shades of Lopez and De Boulbon, and the living "gray-eyed man of destiny," will worship him as the founder of their order.
It is impossible to define Mr. Parton's opinion of his hero. It is not very clear to himself. He is inclined to admire him, and is quite sure that he has been harshly dealt with. In the Preface he intimates that it is his purpose to exhibit Burr's good qualities,--for, as he says, "it is the good in a man who goes astray that ought most to alarm and warn his fellow-men." The converse of which proposition we suppose the author thinks equally true, and that it is the evil in a man who does not go astray which ought most to delight and attract his fellow-men. At the end of the volume Mr. Parton makes a summary of Burr's character,--says that he was too good for a politician, and not great enough for a statesman,--that Nature meant him for a schoolmaster,--that he was a useful Senator, an ideal Vice-President, and would have been a good President,--and that, if his Mexican expedition had succeeded, he would have run a career similar to that of Napoleon. We do not dare attack this extraordinary eulogy. To describe a man as not great enough for a statesman, yet fitted to make a good President, as a natural-born schoolmaster and at the same time a Napoleon, argues a boldness of conception which makes criticism dangerous.