Editing Aaron Burr (section)

===Manhattan Company===
{{Further|Manhattan Company}}
In September 1799, Burr founded his own bank, the [[Manhattan Company]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Ebb & Flow |url=https://www.archives.nyc/ebb-flow |access-date=January 2, 2024 |website=NYC Department of Records & Information Services |language=en-US}}</ref> and the enmity between him and Hamilton may have arisen from how he did so. Before the establishment of Burr's bank, the Federalists held a [[monopoly]] on banking interests in New York via the federal government's [[First Bank of the United States|Bank of the United States]] and Hamilton's [[Bank of New York]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Alexander Hamilton, First Secretary of the Treasury Born|url=https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/january/alexander-hamilton?loclr=blogadm|access-date=March 13, 2025|via=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref> These banks financed operations of significant business interests owned by aristocratic members of the city. Hamilton had prevented the formation of rival banks. Small businessmen relied on [[tontine]]s to buy property and establish a voting voice.<ref>{{cite web |title=Expansion of Rights and Liberties – The Right of Suffrage |url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160706144856/http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html |archive-date=July 6, 2016 |access-date=April 8, 2025|website=Online Exhibit: The Charters of Freedom |publisher=National Archives}}</ref>{{efn|At this time, voting was based upon property rights.}}

Burr used his power as the head of the New York State Assembly in order to convince his delegation to let a private company run the project as a doctor, Joseph Browne had previously suggested.<ref name=dirtywater/> He solicited support from Hamilton and other Federalists under the guise that he was establishing a badly needed water company for Manhattan. He secretly changed the application for a state charter at the last minute to include the ability to invest surplus funds in any cause that did not violate state law,{{sfn|Allen|p=12}} and dropped any pretense of founding a water company once he had gained approval, but he did dig a well and built a large working water storage tank on the site of his bank, which was still standing and apparently still working in 1898.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=AST18980521.2.30&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------0------|title=Aaron Burr's Old Tank – Reminder of a Legislative Charter Trick Exhumed in New York. |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=May 21, 1898 |website=Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection |publisher=The Aspen Tribune |access-date=February 11, 2022 |quote=For the first time in more than one generation, Aaron Burr's old tank in Center street is on public view.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://collections.mcny.org/Explore/Highlights/Jacob-A--Riis/Page16 |title=Aaron Burr's famous old tank in the building on Reade, Centre and Duane Streets, on which hangs Charter of the Bank of the Manhattan Company at 42 Wall Street. |last=Riis |first=Jacob |date=1900 |website=Museum of the City of New York |access-date=February 12, 2022}}</ref> Hamilton and other supporters believed that Burr had acted "dishonorably" for tricking them.<ref name=worldhistory/> Meanwhile, construction was delayed on a safe water system for Manhattan, and writer [[Ron Chernow]] suggests that the delay may have contributed to deaths during a subsequent [[malaria]] epidemic.{{sfn|Chernow|2004|pp=585–590}} However, [[Museum of American Finance]] employees Maura Ferguson and  Sarah Poole believe that the epidemic was not malaria, but [[yellow fever]].<ref name=dirtywater>{{Cite web|last1=Ferguson|first1=Maura|last2=Poole|first2=Sarah|title=Dirty Water|url=https://www.archives.nyc/blog/2020/3/6/dirty-water|date=March 6, 2020|access-date=April 9, 2025|via=Financial History}}</ref>

The Manhattan Company was more than a bank; it was a tool to promote Democratic-Republican power and influence, and its loans were directed to partisans. By extending credit to small businessmen, who then obtained enough property to gain the franchise to vote, the bank was able to increase the party's electorate. Federalist bankers in New York responded by trying to organize a credit boycott of Democratic-Republican businessmen.<ref>Brian Phillips Murphy,  " 'A Very Convenient Instrument': The Manhattan Company, Aaron Burr, and the Election of 1800." ''William and Mary Quarterly'' 65.2 (2008): 233–266. [https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/brianmurphy/files/2009/10/WMQuarterly.Murphy.pdf online]</ref>

Shortly after the bank's founding, Burr fought a [[duel]] with [[John Barker Church]], whose wife [[Angelica Schuyler Church|Angelica]] was the sister-in-law of [[Alexander Hamilton]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/church-john-barker-1748-1818|title=Church, John Barker (1748–1818), of Down Place, Berks. {{!}} History of Parliament Online|website=historyofparliamentonline.org|access-date=February 26, 2025}}</ref> Church had accused Burr of taking a [[bribery|bribe]] from the Holland Land Company in exchange for his political influence. Burr and Church fired at each other and missed, and afterward, Church acknowledged that he was wrong to have accused Burr without proof. Burr accepted this as an apology, and the two men shook hands and ended the dispute.{{sfn|Chernow|2004|pp=589–591}}