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outline, is the history of these two men until Fate threw them in each
other's way.

New York City was the arena where the battle was fought. Within a few
years, Hamilton and Burr were the most famous men in the town. They
resembled each other strongly in temperament and disposition; each was
"passionate, brooking no rivalry; ambitious, faltering at no obstacle;
proud with a fiery and aggressive pride; eloquent with the quick wit,
the natural vivacity, and the lofty certainty of the true orator." They
were too nearly alike to be friends; they became instinctive enemies.
Each felt that the other was in the way.

For sixteen years, Burr practiced law in New York, growing steadily in
influence. For five of those years, Hamilton did the same. They were the
foremost lawyers in the city. No man could stand before them, and when
they met on opposite sides of a case, it was, indeed, a meeting of
giants. But in 1789, Washington appointed Hamilton his secretary of the
treasury, and leaving New York, Hamilton applied himself to the great
task of establishing the public credit, laying the basis for the
financial system of the nation, which endures until this day. It was a
splendid task, splendidly performed, and Hamilton emerged from it the
leader of the powerful Federal party.

In 1800, two men were candidates for the presidency. One was Thomas
Jefferson and the other was Aaron Burr. Instead of being overwhelmed by
the great Virginian, Burr received an equal number of electoral votes,
and the contest was referred to Congress for decision. As a Federalist,
Burr felt that he should have Hamilton's support, but Hamilton used his
great influence against him, stigmatizing him as "a dangerous man," and
Jefferson was elected. Four years later, Burr was a candidate for
governor of New York, and again Hamilton openly, bitterly, and
successfully opposed him, again speaking of him as "a dangerous man."

Smarting under the sting of this second defeat, Burr sent a note to
Hamilton asking if the expression, "a dangerous man," referred to him
politically or personally. Hamilton sent a sneering reply, and expressed
himself as willing to abide by the consequences. It was "fighting
language between fighting men"--a quarrel which Hamilton had been
seeking for five years and which he had done everything in his power to
provoke--and Burr promptly sent a challenge. Hamilton as promptly
accepted it, named pistols at ten paces as the weapons, and a