Aaron Burr, villain or victim?

I've come late to an interest in history. I've just watched Richard Dreyfuss' special on the The History Channel about the lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. It's strongly sympathetic to Burr, featuring a number of historians who seem to think he has been unfairly treated in history, because of the antagonistic writings of Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson about him. It would certainly be difficult to defend one's reputation against men of that stature, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being manipulated by this program.

It seems that three major events are hard for Burr's defenders to answer. First, his lack of honor when as candidate for Vice-president with Jefferson, he went along with Federalist efforts to take the election from Jefferson. I find that difficult to square with honesty and honor, even though I'm not that much of a Jefferson admirer.

Second, the way the duel with Hamilton was presented, it seems quite apparent to me that Hamilton was not interested in really harming Burr physically, so much as discharging the demands of honor, as it was considered at that time, while Burr took the opportunity to kill Hamilton. Hamilton definitely had insulted him, but his antipathy suggests that his experience with Burr had impressed him that Burr was an opportunist without any sense of patriotism or principle.

Third, Burr had apparently been willing to join some fools who proposed secession by New England.

It may seem unfair that history has treated Burr as a villain, but it hasn't been all that friendly to Hamilton either, at least in our current academic climate. Hamilton seems damned both as a proponent of strong central government and as a greedy financier and businessman. The thing that strikes me most about Burr is that he seemed to have no patriotism, as thus doesn't really belong to the Founding Fathers, compared with Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson and Hamilton. The only reason anybody remembers him now is for his role in the death of Hamilton. Had he not killed Hamilton, I'm not sure anybody but historians would recognize his name.