You might have heard this story before.

On August 2nd, 1804, a New York arrest warrant was issued for a man who'd fired a fatal shot in a duel in

weahawk in New Jersey.

Now, murder was a crime in every state and dueling was also prohibited in most of them.

The accused man fled south from New York to St. Simon's Island, that's an island off the Georgia coast. A few weeks later, a

grand jury dropped the murder charge. Instead, the charge was less serious. It was

sending a challenge to a duel. In late October of that same year, a grand jury in Bergen County, New Jersey, issued an indictment for murder in the same incident,

although those charges were later dismissed because the victim had died in New York and not in New Jersey.

There were hundreds of men who participated in duels in the early days of the Republic,

but this one dual stands out.

The victim was Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury,

and one of the authors of the Federalist Papers.

And the accused? That was Aaron Burr.

Sir. Hamilton's long-time political rival and Vice President of the United States.

Burr never did stand trial in New York,

and in fact, the very next year in 1805,

Vice President Burr would preside over the impeachment

trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase in the Senate.

Justice Chase would eventually be acquitted and return to the Supreme Court

until his death in 1811.

Burr only found himself in temporary legal peril.

But another Vice President, Spiro Agnew had it much worse, even though he didn't

...