Founding Myths

by Ray Raphael

  “THE BEST THAT COULD BE OBTAINED AT THIS TIME”

  Born of politics, the Constitution is not quite the precision instrument we would like to imagine: each component functioning integrally with the others, and all consistent with some overarching philosophy. The electoral college and the vice presidency, for instance, were last-minute additions that fatigued delegates did not bother to examine carefully. The “original intent” of these and other measures was often to secure sufficient votes to comprise a majority.

  This troubled George Washington, who knew all too well that the final document had been shaped by “local interests” and “selfish views”—but he endorsed it nonetheless, viewing it as a means to a greater end. One week after the Convention adjourned, he wrote to three former governors of Virginia, appealing for their support: “I wish the Constitution which is offered had been made more perfect, but I sincerely believe it is the best that could be obtained at this time; and, as a Constitutional door is opened for amendment hereafter, the adoption of it under the present circumstances of the Union is in my opinion desirable.”28 Not perfect but workable—that was the tone, and it was also the strongest argument for ratification. A national government was needed, and here were the outlines for one. The Constitution could be fine-tuned later.

  Many Americans today find it difficult to treat the so-called Constitutional Convention as a rough-and-tumble affair driven as much by interest as by reason. Such honesty, they fear, would undermine the participants’ credibility and the almost scriptural sanctity of the resulting document. We need not to be so timid. By altering our perspective only slightly, we might even view the contentious proceedings as a fitting start to the interest-driven constitutional democracy that soon emerged and flourished with time. Downplaying the political nature of our government’s creation creates too much distance between our world and that of the framers. If we see the framers as above the fray, we cannot see them as models for how we might resolve our differences today. They become less relevant, not more so.

  Historically, if we fail to explore the political dynamics that shaped the proceedings, we are left with myth and fabrication. On the word of Franklin, Washington, and others, we know that interest played its part, and thanks to James Madison, who carefully chronicled the event, we see it in practice. Whereas the gentlemen who gathered in the Pennsylvania State House in 1787, learned statesmen that they were, fully understood the historic nature of their enterprise and did their best to ground the overall structure of their plan on solid republican theory, their philosophical arguments were thoroughly entwined with push-and-pull maneuverings, as such arguments always are in real historical circumstances. There is no reason this should surprise us.

  “They were America’s first and, in many respects, its only natural aristocracy.”

  The Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776.

  Painting by John Trumbull, 1787–1820.

  8

  AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY

  We all know their names—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John and Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, James Madison. People who learned the story as children and never studied it later—which includes most Americans, as we shall see later on—will likely add John Hancock, whose name has come to represent any sort of a signature, and Paul Revere, the midnight rider of the Revolution. These were America’s wise men, the great leaders who gave our nation its bearings.

  Regardless of whom we cast in this role, the principal actors in the story of our nation’s birth would enjoy an elevated status. They were our creators, so they must have been particularly honorable and judicious; that is a structural requirement of the narrative. This does not lessen the merits of the actual men we call founders or the importance of their achievements. They did what they did and that is notable, but to form a national narrative, we naturally highlight and celebrate those whom we think set the United States on its course.

  THE CHOSEN FEW

  Although the cast of leading characters seems set in stone, it has actually changed over time. In the newly independent nation, during and after the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton (and to a lesser extent James Madison) did not make the grade. They quickly became divisive political figures, respected by some but detested by those who opposed the policies they embraced. These men we now revere were too controversial to become icons for a fledgling nation in search of a collective identity.

  In those early days, two national figures stood head and shoulders above the rest: The General (George Washington) and The Doctor (Benjamin Franklin). These of course topped the list, but other heroes emerged as well.

  Throughout New England, “Old Put” was a popular favorite. Almost forgotten today, Israel Putnam was already a folkloric star for his exploits in the French and Indian War, but one incident closed the deal. Supposedly, he was plowing his field in Connecticut when he heard that the British had marched on Lexington; immediately he dropped his plow, mounted his horse, and sped away to answer the alarm, not even returning to his house. Then, shortly after, he made the British pay at Bunker Hill. Such is the stuff of legend, and it earned Old Put a unique place in the hearts of his countrymen.

  Two other New Englanders also became famous generals and household names: Henry Knox (now of Fort Knox fame) and the “Fighting Quaker” from Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene. So did New York’s Richard Montgomery, the dazzling Irishman who rose quickly in the ranks and led the charge against Quebec, where he lost his life and gained his fame. Boston’s Joseph Warren, killed in action in the Battle of Bunker [Breed’s] Hill, was likewise mourned. In a militarized society that had just fought a long and troubling war for its very survival, becoming a martyr was the surest way to enter the history books.

  Other military heroes, valiant warriors known for courageous deeds, were lionized. Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee, commander of the fabled “Lee’s Legion,” was more celebrated than his second cousin once removed Richard Henry Lee, who made the motion for independence in Congress. Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” and Thomas Sumter, the “Gamecock,” achieved great renown for bogging down the British army in the South. Even the great orator Patrick Henry rose to fame in part because he was such a firm friend of war.

  In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Americans began to celebrate a more cohesive group. With the enshrining of the Declaration of Independence (see chapters 6 and 15), the fifty-six men who had signed that document emerged as the nation’s alleged founders. Collectively they were known as the “signers,” and Americans hungered to know more about these illustrious fellows. In the 1820s John Sanderson, with the help of Robert Waln, published a nine-volume series called Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and in 1827 Charles Goodrich came out with the bestselling Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Others followed in a similar vein, and America had found its men. The signers ruled as the Founding Fathers through much of the nineteenth century. Every detail of their lives was uncovered, and a few additional details invented.

  But what of those responsible for that other founding document, the “framers” of the Constitution? Not to be left out, the fifty-five men who attended the Federal (Constitutional) Convention crept slowly, almost imperceptibly, onto center stage, for they were the ones who wrote the law of the land. Without conscious design, Americans began to apply the term “signers” to men who affixed their names to either document. This did not happen in a moment, but today, if you hear people talking about the so-called signers, try asking them which of the two documents they are referring to. In fact, these were very distinct groups; only six men signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and only two of these, Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman, had been firm advocates of
independence. (James Wilson had opposed independence almost to the end, but wound up voting for it; Robert Morris and George Read actively opposed independence but signed the Declaration later; George Clymer, among several other so-called “signers,” was not a member of Congress when independence was declared.) But in the popular mind, the Declaration and the Constitution have merged into one, and most people don’t really care who signed what.

  Taken together, however, the signers and the framers amount to over one hundred individuals, most of whom are not household names: James Smith, Jacob Broom, William Few, William Ellery, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, and so on. A tale with so many heroes does not have the immediate, compelling force we expect from a creation myth. We need fewer, certainly no more than a dozen, if we expect every person in the nation to learn their stories and recite them by rote. Americans eventually settled on the small group we honor today as the “Founding Fathers.” It is this elite corps, we say, who conjured the idea of independence, brought the Revolution to its successful conclusion, and then, like Solon or Moses, gave us our laws.

  Adulation for the founders has evolved with the times. Today, it is no longer fashionable to be a statue. Posed, formal portraits are out as well. The informality of the late twentieth century has taken its toll on mounted riders cast in stone and the stiff, distant patricians who line up single file on the walls of echoing galleries.

  But informality can be seen as irreverence, and the relaxed attitude has proved unsettling for Americans who yearn for the good old days, when the founders were properly honored. “Not so long ago,” writes historian Gordon Wood, “the generation that fought the Revolution and created the Constitution was thought to be the greatest generation in American history. . . . Until recently few Americans could look back at these revolutionaries and constitution-makers without being overawed by the brilliance of their thought, the creativity of their politics, the sheer magnitude of their achievement. They used to seem larger than life, giants in the earth, possessing intellectual and political capacities well beyond our own.” Yes, those were the days—“but not anymore,” Wood bemoans. “The American revolutionaries and the framers of the Constitution are no longer being celebrated in the way they used to be.”1

  In fact, the Founding Fathers are being celebrated, although not “in the way they used to be.” Popular historians such as Wood, Joseph Ellis, David McCullough, and John Ferling have managed to resurrect America’s most respected statesmen by dressing them in more contemporary attire. Like modern celebrities, the founders have been humanized, personalized, and made accessible to the masses. Now, as millions read about the details of their lives, it has become fashionable once again to honor the likes of John Adams, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin despite their human quirks, or even because of them.

  The Founding Fathers were “human and imperfect; each had his flaws and failings,” David McCullough wrote in a July 4 op-ed piece for the New York Times. In the past, flaws and failings were not to be tolerated in our most venerable public figures, but now these very imperfections work in their favor. Because they “were not gods,” McCullough argues, we can admire them all the more. Were they gods, “they would deserve less honor and respect. Gods, after all, can do largely as they please.”2

  Joseph Ellis captured the modest tone in the title of his bestselling book, Founding Brothers. Brothers, unlike fathers, squabble and misbehave—but “their mutual imperfections and fallibilities, as well as their eccentricities and excesses” somehow manage to cancel each other out. Brothers come together in the end, as our founders did when they created a viable blueprint for the United States.

  According to Ellis, the young nation’s “eight most prominent political leaders” (the first four presidents plus Franklin, Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and Abigail Adams) constituted “America’s first and, in many respects, its only natural aristocracy,” one that can only inspire reverence:

  [T]hey comprised, by any informed and fair-minded standard, the greatest generation of political talent in American history. They created the American republic, then held it together throughout the volatile and vulnerable early years by sustaining their presence until national habits and customs took root.3

  There is a troubling phrase—“by any informed and fair-minded standard”—embedded within Ellis’s forthright assertion. What, exactly, might such a standard for greatness be?4

  The Random House College Dictionary lists almost a score of common usages for “great,” many with numerous synonyms: noteworthy, remarkable, exceptionally outstanding, important, eminent, prominent, celebrated, illustrious, renowned, main, grand, leading, highly significant or consequential, momentous, vital, critical, distinguished, famous, admirable, having unusual merit, of extraordinary powers, of high rank or standing, of notable or lofty character, elevated, exalted, dignified. Which of these meanings do we intend when we call a particular historical personage, or a particular generation, “great”? Most likely, we wish to imply some sort of ill-defined amalgamation. We do not intend specific meanings; we hope only to instill some sense of admiration for the heroes of our choosing. The term “great” serves as a grandiose but generic stamp of approval. Every time we use it, we make a momentous declaration—but without any standards, we can affix no claim of legitimacy upon our pronouncement, nor can we discuss “greatness” intelligently. In the absence of definitions and procedures, we are free to apply the term “great” promiscuously to our favorite historical personalities. Any historian or commentator can call any historical figure “great.”5

  There is no quicker route to the trivialization of history. A recent book published by American Heritage, Great Minds of History: Interviews with Roger Mudd, features “greatness” from three angles: a great newscaster interviews great historians about great personalities. In a chapter titled “Gordon Wood on the Colonial Era and Revolution,” Roger Mudd asks Professor Wood various questions of great import about our nation’s founding moment:

  “Back to Ben Franklin, did he dress and speak like a gentleman?”

  “What more can you tell me about Benjamin Franklin?”

  “What about Alexander Hamilton?”

  “What can you tell us about James Madison?”

  “John Adams?”

  “And what do you think about Thomas Jefferson?”

  Here’s how Gordon Wood responds to these questions:

  “Adams was the most lovable of the Founding Fathers because he wore his heart on his sleeve.”

  Hamilton was “. . . the brilliant genius. . . .”

  Madison was “. . . the most intellectual. . . .”

  Jefferson was “. . . the most important. . . .”6

  The problem here lies with the questions, not the summary responses they triggered. The posing of such questions leads directly to glib assessments that bear only indirectly upon the major events of the “Colonial Era and Revolution,” which are purportedly under discussion. Real history—in this case, the dynamic process that led patriotic colonists toward independence—is masked by thumbnail personality profiles. Focusing exclusively on stories of allegedly great men produces little in the way of historical analysis.

  CENTRAL PLAYERS

  There is one use of the term “great” that does not imply adulation. If a historic personage was important and powerful enough, he (rarely she) will warrant the appellation irrespective of any moral qualities deserving of respect. Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler—these people were in one sense “great,” even though we might not approve of what they did.7

  Although we would be loath to compare the “greatest generation” of Americans with great but cruel conquerors, Joseph Elli
s argues that we must place our founders at the center of the story by sheer virtue of their power and significance:

  The central events and achievements of the revolutionary era and the early republic were political. These events and achievements are historically significant because they shaped the subsequent history of the United States, including our own time. The central players in the drama were not the marginal or peripheral figures, whose lives are more typical, but rather the political leaders at the center of the national story who wielded power.8

  A key concept here (repeated three times in as many sentences) is “central”—but that notion is entirely dependent on one’s field of vision. Characters who appear at the center of one story will be on the periphery of another. Were the “achievements” of Aaron Burr, an ambitious New York politician, really “central” to the “revolutionary era”? Another criterion is “wielded power,” which closes and summarizes the passage. But did Abigail Adams really wield power in any sort of public way that affected history at that time? Clearly, Burr and Mrs. Adams make the list of Ellis’s top eight for other reasons, Burr for the story of his duel with Hamilton, and Adams for gender balance.