by Ray Raphael
42.For a discussion of the relation of Lincoln to others who made this argument before him, see Maier, American Scripture, xix–xx, 202–203.
43.Vivian Bernstein, America’s History: Land of Liberty—Beginning to 1877 (Austin, TX: Steck-Vaughn, 1997), 81.
44.Joy Hakim, A History of US (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) 3: 98–100. This is the cornerstone of Hakim’s treatment of the American Revolution. The cover copy for volume 3, From Colonies to Country, reads: “Read all about it! How the people in thirteen small colonies beat a great and very powerful nation, became free, and went on to write some astounding words that inspired the whole world.â€
45.James West Davidson and Michael B. Scott, America: History of Our Nation (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2014), 171; William Deverell and Deborah Gray White, Holt McDougal United States History: Beginnings to 1877 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), 110.
46.Although Common Sense circulated widely and certainly made its mark, only scant print records and no sales records survive, so we simply do not know how many copies were sold. The three numbers most often cited (100,000 and 120,000 and 150,000) were offered by Paine himself, who had no way of ascertaining the information but a great deal of interest in exaggerating his impact. The estimate of half a million was first posited by a biographer more than a century later. None of these estimates are realistic, given the demographics of the country, the state of the print industry, the location of the twenty-five known contemporary printings, and distribution patterns at that time. For the full story, see Trish Loughran, The Republic in Print: Print Culture in the Age of U. S. Nation Building, 1770–1870 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 40–58 and 253–261. For a brief rendition, see Ray Raphael, “Thomas Paine’s Inflated Numbers,†in Journal of the American Revolution (online), March 20, 2013: http://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-numbers./ The biography that posited 500,000 is Moncure Daniel Conway’s The Life of Thomas Paine: With a History of His Literary, Political, and Religious Career in America, France, and England (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1892) 1: 69 (chapter 6).
47.Jefferson to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825, in Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 10: 343. See also Jefferson to James Madison, August 30, 1823, in Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 10: 268.
48.Jefferson to Dr. James Mease, September 26, 1825, in Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 10: 346.
7: An Assembly of Demigods
1.Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (originally titled The Federalist), Yale Law School, Avalon Project: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed02.asp.
2.Lester Jesse Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 1: 194–196.
3.John Robert Irelan, The Republic, or, A History of the United States of America (Chicago: Fairbanks and Palmer, 1888), 15: 164.
4.Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (New York: Macmillan, 1913).
5.James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Adrienne Koch, ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), May 30. On the Internet: Avalon Project, Yale Law School, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp. In this chapter I cite dates rather than page numbers since there are so many different editions of Madison’s Notes. All quotations from the Federal Convention with identifying dates in my text are from Madison, unless otherwise specified. In several places my treatment of the debates here follows the line I took in Constitutional Myths: What We Get Wrong and How to Get It Right (New York: The New Press, 2013), 35–55, and, where noted, in Mr. President: How and Why the Founders Created a Chief Executive (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).
6.Ibid., June 29. For the political challenge, see Clinton Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 182–96.
7.Ibid., June 30. Five days later, on July 5, Bedford offered a nonapology apology that did nothing to lessen the small-state, large-state divide: “He found that what he had said as to the small States being taken by the hand, had been misunderstood; and he rose to explain. He did not mean that the small States would court the aid & interposition of foreign powers. He meant that they would not consider the federal compact as dissolved untill it should be so by the Acts of the large States. In this case The consequence of the breach of faith on their part, and the readiness of the small States to fulfill their engagements, would be that foreign Nations having demands on this Country would find it their interest to take the small States by the hand, in order to do themselves justice. This was what he meant. But no man can foresee to what extremities the small States may be driven by oppression. He observed also in apology that some allowance ought to be made for the habits of his profession [Bedford was a lawyer] in which warmth was natural & sometimes necessary. But is there not an apology in what was said by [Mr. Govr. Morris] that the sword is to unite: by Mr. Ghorum that Delaware must be annexed to Penna. and N. Jersey divided between Penna. and N. York. To hear such language without emotion, would be to renounce the feelings of a man and the duty of a Citizen.â€
8.Ibid., July 5.
9.Ibid., June 29.
10.Many commentators suggest that Franklin was using the ploy to bring his colleagues to their senses. For a thoroughly researched discussion, see William G. Carr, The Oldest Delegate: Franklin in the Constitutional Convention (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 96–101.
11.Ibid., June 29.
12.Washington to Hamilton, July 10, 1787, W.W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig, eds., The Papers of George Washington (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983–), Confederation Series, 5: 257. Hamilton left the Convention because he was consistently outvoted by his New York colleagues Robert Yates and John Lansing Jr.
13.Madison, Notes of Debates, July 14 (Martin) and July 12 (Davie).
14.As with any vote on multiple issues, it is difficult to dissect the returns, but judging from previous and subsequent positions, it appears that a bloc of small states was happy to achieve equal representation in the second branch whereas Virginia and Pennsylvania, not ready to compromise, refused to concede and voted against the measure. South Carolina and perhaps Georgia also resisted compromise, with at least some delegates holding out for full slave representation. Delegates from Massachusetts were divided over the slavery compromise, while three of the four North Carolina delegates thought compromise on all issues was in order. At first glance the five-to-four tally might have seemed inconclusive, subject to being overturned in the future. But two states were not present, and both likely would have approved: New Hampshire because it was a small state and New York because it appeared to give the states legal representation in Congress. Tiny Rhode Island, not present at the Convention, would also have favored equal representation for small states, and Georgia, had all its delegates been present, might well have voted yes rather than no. The vote was not as close as it might appear. (Richard Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution [New York: Random House, 2010], 219–22.)
15.Madison, Notes of Debates, July 16.
16.Ibid., August 24.
17.Not all small-state delegates agreed with Dayton. Delegates from New Hampshire and Delaware, thinking that separate ballots would prove too cumbersome, broke ranks with their small-state brethren.
18.For Morris’s opposition to legislative selection of the president see Raphael, Mr. President, 78–120 and 281–85, and for the devious methods used by Morris and the New Jersey delegation to get the matter into committee, see ibid., 101–6.
19.For the work of the committee and the creation of the electoral college, see ibid., 106–10.
20.Madison, Notes of Debates, September 4 and 5. On September 5, committee member Rufus King “observed that the infl
uence of the small States in the Senate was somewhat balanced by the influence of the large States in bringing forward the candidates; and also by the concurrence of the small States in the Committee in the clause vesting the exclusive origination of money bills in the House of Representatives.†To this observation Madison appended a footnote: “This explains the compromise mentioned above by Mr. Govr. Morris. Col. Masson, Mr. Gerry & other members from large States set great value on this privilege of originating money bills. Of this the members from the small States, with some from the large States who wished a high mounted Govt endeavored to avail themselves, by making that privilege, the price of arrangements in the constitution favorable to the small States, and to the elevation of the Government.â€
21.Samuel Tilden in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and Albert Gore in 2000 won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college. Andrew Jackson won a plurality of votes in 1824, but since no candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the presidency was decided in the House of Representatives, which chose John Quincy Adams over Jackson.
22.Although this compromise passed Congress by a substantial majority, it failed to receive unanimous approval from the separate state legislatures, as required for any amendment to the Articles of Confederation.
23.Madison, Notes of Debates, August 21.
24.Ibid., August 21 and 22.
25.Failure to require a two-thirds majority for navigation laws was among the main reasons George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia refused to sign the Constitution. Mason argued: “By requiring only a majority to make all commercial and navigation laws, the five Southern States, whose produce and circumstances are totally different from that of the eight Northern and Eastern States, may be ruined, for such rigid and premature regulations may be made as will enable the merchants of the Northern and Eastern States not only to demand an exhorbitant freight, but to monopolize the purchase of the commodities at their own price, for many years, to the great injury of the landed interest, and impoverishment of the people; and the danger is the greater as the gain on one side will be in proportion to the loss on the other.†(Merrill Jensen et al., eds., Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution [Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976], 8: 45 or 13: 350.) Toward the end of the Convention, Randolph declared there were “features so odious in the constitution as it now stands, that he doubted whether he should be able to agree to it,†and failure to require a supermajority for navigation laws “would compleat the deformity of the system.†Randolph was not above compromise, but he had been left out of this one. (Madison, Notes of Debates, August 29.)
26.Ibid., August 22.
27.Ibid., August 8.
28.Washington to Patrick Henry, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Nelson (former governors of Virginia), September 24, 1787, Jensen et al., Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 8: 15.
8: American Aristocracy
1.Gordon Wood, “The Greatest Generation,†New York Review of Books, March 29, 2001.
2.David McCullough, “The Argonauts of 1776,†New York Times, July 4, 2002.
3.Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), 13, 17.
4.Gordon Wood perceives the need to apply some sort of standard. In his “Greatest Generation†essay (see note 1), he first attests to the founders’ foibles: “Certainly they were not immune to temptations of self-interest that attracted most ordinary human beings. They wanted wealth and position and often speculated heavily in order to realize their aims. They were not democrats, certainly not democrats in any modern manner. They were never embarrassed by talk of their being an elite, and they never hid their superiority to ordinary folk.†So what makes these elitists, in Wood’s estimation, the greatest generation? “They struggled to internalize the new liberal man-made standards that had come to define what it meant to be truly civilized—politeness, taste, sociability, learning, compassion, and benevolence—and what it meant to be good political leaders—virtue, disinterestedness, and an aversion to corruption and courtier-like behavior. Of course, they often did not live up to such standards; but once internalized, these enlightened and classically republican ideals and values to some degree circumscribed and controlled their behavior. Members of this revolutionary generation sought, often unsuccessfully, to be what Jefferson called ‘natural aristocrats’—aristocrats who measured their status not by birth or family but by enlightened values and benevolent behavior. It meant, in short, having all the characteristics that we today sum up in the idea of a liberal arts education.†Wood’s standards are minimal: the founders were “great†because they internalized the values of a liberal arts education and externalized the manners of a finishing school. The thrill is gone. Do members of “the greatest generation†deserve our adulation simply because they tried (but often failed) to be virtuous?
5.To develop standards, perhaps we should follow the lead of the Catholic Church, which has established very precisely who can be called a “saint.†To qualify, a candidate must endure the scrutiny first of a specially convened tribunal, then, in succession, of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints; a committee of nine theologians; a committee of cardinals and bishops; and finally the Pope. If these officials all certify that the candidate possessed both the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) and the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude), he or she can be called a “Servant of God.†Certification by these deliberative bodies that the Servant of God performed a miracle earns the title of “Blessed,†and finally, certification that the Blessed performed a miracle after she or he had died warrants the title of “Saint.†It’s all cut and dried. To be fair and precise, shouldn’t we require candidates for historical greatness to undergo some sort of scrutiny like this? Such a notion is admittedly absurd, revealing the futility of applying the term “great†in an objective manner.
6.American Heritage, Great Minds of History: Interviews with Roger Mudd (New York: Wiley, 1999).
7.Charles Murray, in Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), attempts to quantify and rank people who “have achieved great things.†By examining how many times people are mentioned in standard reference works and indexes, Murray claims to distinguish “great accomplishment from lesser achievement.†Only by equating “greatness†with “influence†could this method claim any objective validity. It is no accident that Murray does not extend his analysis to the political arena. If he did, Hitler would certainly emerge as one of history’s greatest humans.
8.Ellis, Founding Brothers, 13. Ellis assumes that whatever occurs within the narrow and contained world inhabited by “central players†must be “historically significant.†Fame and significance, however, are not synonymous. Ellis opens his masterfully written book with an intriguing story of a duel between two fading political figures, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, in 1804—a tragic personal drama of little historical import. He follows with a tale about a dinner party in which a major deal was supposedly struck; this intimacy in the political arena makes for a good story, but Ellis himself admits that the deal was discussed in other venues as well, and his dinner party scenario “vastly oversimplifies the history that was happening at that propitious moment.†Another tale features the “silence†of the first federal Congress over the question of slavery; here indeed was an issue of great national importance, yet Ellis’s claim that debates within Congress over the question of slavery were “central†while the experiences of the slaves themselves were not is disingenuous. The final story eulogizes the friendship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson during their later years. This reconciliation betw
een elder statesmen affords a poignant conclusion to the book, but it was hardly central to the founding of our nation or “the subsequent history of the United States, including our own time.†The story of the Adams-Jefferson friendship, like that of the Burr-Hamilton duel, appears significant only because the characters had participated in other important events at previous times. Ellis includes these episodes not because they are crucial to the history of the United States, but because they can be turned into interesting stories. The lives of heroes and giants, from birth to death, will always make for a good read—but biographical sketches of famous personalities should not be presented as “significant†history.
Ironically, since Ellis’s stories do not relate to the actual founding of our nation, they are all “marginal or peripheral†to “the central events and achievements of the revolutionary era.†Ellis refers to the two “founding moments†in American history, the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the adoption of a Constitution in 1787–1788, yet he addresses neither of these, for his book commences in the year 1790. There is nothing wrong in this, save for the false packaging. He titles his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation to give the stories added weight and significance, even though he addresses neither the “Founding†nor the “Revolution.†Like so many others, he rides the coattails of America’s most special time: the act of national creation.