What was really at stake in the disagreement and duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton?

Question

What was really at stake in the disagreement and duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton?

Answer 1

To continue what the person above said Aaron Burr was made at Hamilton for two reasons. One, the loss of the Presidency, the Federalists controlled the House of Reps. and because it was a tie the house was to choose the President, Hamilton one of the most influential Federalist lobbied for Jefferson to become President which he did. Second, Burr decided to make a Northern Confederacy so he decided to run for Governor of New York to help cede from the United States. Hamilton kept on humiliating Burr after the loss of the governorship and that's when he challenged him to a duel.

The thing at stake during the duel was that Hamilton wanted to ruin Burr forever. And Burr certainly wanted to kill Hamilton for Humiliation purposes.

Answer 2

Burr could easily have been president in 1800 if he wanted the job.  All he would have had to do was to say so, which he refused to do, because he had made a deal with Jefferson to be the vice-president, and he kept his word.  Jefferson never forgave the fact that Burr tied him in the electoral college though.  Many people thought Jefferson a very dangerous man and would have gladly supported Burr if he had given any sign that he wanted the position.

Hamilton and Burr were leaders of differing factions in New York politics, as well as rival attorneys with busy practices.  The respectable reasons given for the duel are differences growing from their political rivalry.

Hamilton apparently had grown increasingly unstable in the last years of his life, as evidenced by his unprovoked very public confession of his affair with Mrs. Reynolds, published in newspapers across the land in 1797, which must have been extremely mortifying to his wife, an heiress of the Schuylers, and their eight children.  He had also lobbied successfully to be appointed a major general in the army during the quasi war with France, hoping to gather military glory as leader of the American forces, which, of course, did not come to pass.

As far as the precipitating incident leading to the duel, Burr had been informed that Hamilton had expressed to others at a dinner party that Burr was guilty of "despicable acts".  Precisely what these acts were alleged to be is not made plain in most sources, and many have assumed that the statement grew from political differences.  This does not seem like the sort of thing that would get Burr so incensed as to demand satisfaction.  Others have stated that what Hamilton said was that Burr was having an incestuous relationship with his adult daughter, Theodosia.  This would certainly have provoked Burr sufficiently to produce a duel if Hamilton would not either deny it or try to apologize, which Hamilton avoided doing in a lengthy exchange of notes leading to the duel.  Hamilton more or less got in the last word, though, as he penned a lengthy valedictory on the eve of the duel, and then lingered in agony for a day or two, making him seem like a martyr.  

Burr also had a well deserved unsavory reputation as a ladies man.  He was great good friends with, among others, Peggy Shippen, who married Benedict Arnold, and introduced James Madison to a young widow friend of his whom Madison married, named Dolley.  Whether there was anything more than friendship in these relationships is a matter of speculation but Burr was very attractive to women.  There is one school of thought that Martin van Buren was one of several illegitimate children of Burr.

Answer 3

Aaron Burr was angry that Hamilton threw his support to Thomas Jefferson for the presidency. Back then you didn't run for president or vice president. 1st place vote winner became president and second place became vice president. There was a tie between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson.