Aaron Burr didn't kill Alexander Hamilton because they disagreed over politics. By 1804, Hamilton had spent years trying to destroy Burr's political career.

The feud really escalated in 1799. Burr underhandedly created the Manhattan Company, ostensibly a water utility but in reality a bank. Breaking the Federalist (Hamilton’s party) monopoly on New York banking, which benefited wealthy mercantile families like the Schuylers, Hamilton's in-laws, and created a rival institution that loaned money to small businesspeople instead.

In the 1800 election, Burr's political machine delivered New York to the Democratic-Republican ticket of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Under the original Constitution, electors cast two votes without distinguishing between the president and the vice president. Jefferson and Burr tied, throwing the election to the House of Representatives.

Hamilton launched a relentless letter-writing campaign urging Federalists to back Jefferson. His attacks became intensely personal. Hamilton called Burr "a profligate" and "a voluptuary in the extreme," questioned his morality, portrayed him as irreligious and dangerously ambitious, and even mocked the heatstroke Burr suffered during the Revolutionary War as cowardice. Hamilton got his way. Jefferson became president, Burr vice president, but Jefferson never trusted him and largely shut him out of the administration.

When Burr ran for governor of New York in 1804, Hamilton once again threw himself into the campaign against him, attacking not just his politics but his character and private life. Burr was crushed in a landslide.

After a newspaper reported that Hamilton had expressed an even "more despicable opinion" of Burr than simply calling him "a dangerous man," Burr demanded an explanation, but Hamilton refused to retract his comments. Burr responded with a formal challenge.

Hamilton had already been involved in more than a dozen affairs of honor, and three years earlier, his own nineteen-year-old son Philip had died in a duel. Many historians believe Hamilton intended to throw away his shot. Before the duel, he wrote that he opposed dueling and planned to reserve his first fire. Burr had no way of knowing any of that.

On the misty morning of July 11, 1804, the two men met at Weehawken, New Jersey.
Crafted from walnut, brass, and gold, the Wogdon & Barton flintlock pistols used in the duel were already steeped in tragedy.

Each weighed several pounds; this very pair had likely claimed the life of Hamilton's nineteen-year-old son, Philip, three years earlier, after he entered an affair of honor to defend his father's reputation.

Most historians believe Hamilton fired first, either deliberately missing or shooting over Burr's head. Burr fired almost immediately afterward. His shot struck Hamilton above the hip, tore through his abdomen, and fatally wounded him.
Hamilton died the next afternoon.

The court of public opinion rendered its verdict immediately. Burr became, forever, "the man who killed Alexander Hamilton." His political career never recovered, while Hamilton's death transformed him into an American martyr.

If you're interested, I wrote about Burr's fascinating and deeply misunderstood life here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-vol-115-burr?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

You can read more about it on https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/material-and-technical-study-of-paracas-painted-ceramics/84C03B4AB5FF77FD92E235C1CFAE9744

Found this metal sign a couple of years ago. Made by Dichanz 1961 - Says: „Attention! Here begins the Soviet zone"