Friday, December 18, 2015

Observations on the New Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, Part II: Philosophy

Before diving into an analysis of the content and significance of Mercy Otis Warren’s Observations on the New Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, it might first be appropriate to attempt to ascertain its place on the timeline of early American history. Save for the year, 1788, and the place of its first publication, Boston, the document itself does not explicitly acknowledge at what point in the ratification process it first saw print. As discussed during previous explorations of entries in the Anti-Federalist Papers (of which Observations is certainly a part), when a particular criticism of the proposed federal constitution was first put forward is highly significant to the manner in which it ought to be interpreted. In the middle of the process, when it was unclear whether the Constitution would be adopted or not, an Anti-Federalist could be expected to write with feelings of legitimate confidence; nearer its end, when ratification was essentially accomplished, desperation or frustration might fairly be perceived as the dominant undertones. Though, again, Observations does not provide any overt indication of when it was published, a bit of deduction based on elements of the text itself render a fairly narrow window of possibility.

Observations is divided into nineteen sections, of greatly varying lengths. Near the end of the first, Warren mentioned, with wry resignation, the “late Convention of the Massachusetts.” The Massachusetts ratifying convention concluded on February 6th, 1788 by approving the proposed constitution, 187 to 168 (hence the cause of Warren’s sardonic disappointment). Later, in the eighteenth section, she mentioned several other state conventions whose results were still pending at the time of her writing. These included specific mentions of the likelihood of Virginia, Maryland, and New York to adopt the proposed federal charter (she figured none of them would), as well as a general admission that the conventions of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and the Carolinas also represented important battlegrounds. Putting aside the fact that she was incorrect on all counts – interesting, but unimportant for the moment – Warren’s mention of the upcoming Maryland convention provides a fairly clear indication of when Observations was written. The convention that assembled in Maryland to ratify or reject the proposed constitution concluded its deliberations on April, 26th, 1788 with a vote of 63 to 11 in the affirmative. Because Maryland’s vote immediately followed that of Massachusetts, Observations must have been written at some point between early February and late April of the same year.

Massachusetts was the sixth state to ratify the draft constitution out of the nine required before it went into effect; three more states needed to vote in favor out of the remaining seven. Accordingly, the tone of Warren’s observations could fairly be interpreted as both confident as well as somewhat measured. Her remarks aimed at the men who took part in the ratification of the Constitution in Massachusetts seem at times almost haughty; her disappointment is plain, no doubt magnified by the belief that their efforts would ultimately come to naught. At the same time, particularly in section eighteen, Warren struck a somewhat more cautious tone. Acknowledging the number of conventions yet to render a verdict, she made clear to her audience how important each convention remained to the overarching debate, and warned of the consequences should the issue of ratification split the United States into potentially warring factions.

Forgiving some degree of rhetorical exaggeration, Warren had reason to be concerned. The ratification debate which followed the drafting of the United States Constitution represented an extremely significant crossroads in the young nation’s history. Down the path of acceptance lay the entire subsequent history of the United States as we know it. Down the other path, of rejection, was a history entirely unknown to us, full of different events, and a wholly different nation, that could just as easily have unfolded. Though they lacked the benefit of hindsight, the tone of their writings indicate that those engaged in the debate surrounding the proposed constitution, be they Federalist or Anti-Federalist, were very sensitive to the potential consequences of their efforts, and proceeded with the appropriate sense of responsibility, gravity, vigilance, and passion. Mercy Otis Warren was very much a part of this conversation, and Observations was perhaps her most significant contribution.

Of said document, a fair amount of information can be gleaned that provides a degree of insight into who Mercy Otis Warren was (intellectually, if not personally), how she viewed the world, and where among the Founders she is best located. To that end, perhaps the most striking element of Observations is the knowledge, of history, philosophy, and contemporary politics, Warren time and again displayed over the course of the various arguments she put forward. Recalling that she was largely self-educated, or at least that her education came mainly as the result of her own initiative, the sheer breadth of her understanding is quite impressive, as is her ability to effectively put it to use. Indeed, though she was not extended the privilege of attending any formal learning institutions, her rhetorical style betrays the influence of a classical education. Rather than simply recite what she had read, which evidently included English and Spanish history, French and Italian philosophy, the Old Testament, and the Classics, she demonstrated an understating in Observations of how these diverse elements could best be utilized in order to further her argument in a way that was logical, structured, and effective. This would have been no small feat for anyone, and effectively placed Warren on the same intellectual plane as any of her more well-known male contemporaries.      

In addition to the manner in which Warren deployed the knowledge she had amassed, it’s also worth paying heed to the specific references she chose to deploy in Observations, and considering what they have to say about her perspective, assumptions, and intellectual proclivities. Take, for instance, an allusion made very early in the first section to the main character of the Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Warren, speaking of the disappointment that might visit upon those who ratified the Constitution only to find the “flower of their crop” taxed to oblivion by newly-established federal authorities, guessed they would likely answer, as did the Man of La Mancha, “The steward of my Lord has seized and sent it to Madrid.” This would seem a rather sardonic observation, lacking in sympathy as it compares the supporters of the proposed constitution to one of literature’s most famous lunatics. Clearly Warren felt little compassion for those who wished to usher in the proposed federal union without considering certain of its consequences, but why did she choose the main character of a 17th-century Spanish novel as her point of reference?

Published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is one of the most celebrated works of fiction in the history of Western literature, and its titular hero has become an enduring figure in the popular lexicon. From the name and manner of Don Quixote is derived the English adjective “quixotic,” signifying a sense of romance to the point of impracticality, and from a famous incident described in the novel also comes the idiom “tilting at windmills,” meaning to attempt to battle imaginary foes. Both of these English-language derivations of Don Quixote may have had something to do with what Warren was attempting to communicate. Perhaps she intended to paint supporters of the Constitution as blindly idealistic, or determined to remedy problems that simply didn't exist via the adoption of a federal charter. Still, there is more to Cervantes’ novel than just the main character, and perhaps more to Warren’s invocation of the same than rhetorical expedience.

Don Quixote is a comic novel in the picaresque tradition and among other things has been described as a satire of orthodoxy and nationalism, a deconstruction of established chivalric narratives, and a meditation on the devaluing of nobility in contemporary European culture. It’s a highly complex work, with many discernible thematic layers, and would no doubt have presented a challenged to readers unprepared for Cervantes’ unconventional and inventive use of language and meta-narrative (in the second half of the story, the main characters are aware of the publication of the first half of their adventures). That Mercy Otis Warren had read Don Quixote, and was familiar enough with it to casually quote a passage in support of a written argument, is potentially significant for several reasons. Presumably she enjoyed the book, or else she would not have remembered it. This in itself reveals a possible taste for literature, and not merely for what was popular among English-language audiences of the day. As to the content of the novel, perhaps she found appealing its apparent indictment of idealism, and saw the titular hero as a tragic buffoon; sympathetic, but still hapless. This would again seem to align with her evident lack of sympathy for certain of the proposed constitution’s more energetic supporters. Don Quixote being viewed as a comedy perhaps also indicates that Warren was not without a sense of humor or irony. This appears to be confirmed by the sentence that followed her quotation of the Man of La Mancha, whose simple words she translated as, “The exigencies of government require that the collectors of the revenue should transmit it to the Federal City.” A needlessly exact interpretation, it seems likely Warren intended it to mock the inability of those she described to grasp the meaning of the original quotation.

In addition to Western literature, Mercy Otis Warren also demonstrated a familiarity with various types of European philosophy in her anti-constitutional Observations. Ample evidence of her intellectual fluency can be found in the first section alone, in which she quoted at length from the French writer, diplomat, and historian Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709-1785), expressed ideas drawn from social contract theory as articulated by English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), and made use of certain observations put forward by British legal theorist Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780). She also made reference in section five to the influence of English jurist Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676), and in section fourteen to the realpolitik political theory of Italian statesman Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527). This is an impressive assortment of thinkers to have at hand, and the confidence with which Warren deployed their words amidst her various assertions indicates a strong grasp of what each of them had to say and the manner in which their words could be applied to the situation she was facing in 1788.

At the same time, Warren’s familiarity with the work of each of the men she chose explicitly to cite in Observations suggests something about her own preferences and inclinations. Mably, for instance, proved to be a major influence on the development of both republican and communist political theory. At times in his work he criticized the concept of private property as incompatible with human sympathy, argued in favor of equality before the law, and asserted that virtue was a far more valuable commodity than material wealth. One of the passages of his that Warren quoted speaks quite effectively to this sentiment. “The virtues and vices of a people,” he wrote, “When a revolution happens in their government, are the measure of the liberty or slavery they ought to expect.” She further quoted Mably as having written that, “An heroic love for the publick good, a profound reverence for the laws, a contempt of riches, and a noble haughtiness of soul, are the only foundations of a free government.” She thereafter asked, evidently taking the Frenchman’s words as a guidepost, “Do not these dignified principles still exist among us?”  By bringing Mably’s explicit sentiments to bear on her argument against the ratification of a proposed federal charter, Mercy Otis Warren thereby expressed sympathy with his core premise that wealth and privilege were corrosive of equality, and that virtue was a far more important social value than obedience.

       Her understanding of social contract theory, as expressed in section one of Observations, likewise seems to demonstrate the depth of Warren’s knowledge of Western philosophy, and her ability to synthesize complex ideas in a way that aided her ability to convincingly put forward an argument. At the beginning of the third paragraph of the aforementioned section, she laid out a very succinct summary of the social contract and some of its implications as a means of criticizing the deficiencies of the government that was framed by the proposed constitution. So concise is this summation, and so well-phrased, that it bears a sizeable, if not complete, quotation. “Man is born free,” Warren wrote,

And possessed of certain inalienable rights – that government is instituted for the protection, safety and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any man, family, or class of men – That the origin of all power is in the people, and that they have an incontestable right to check the creatures of their own creation, vested with certain powers to guard the life, liberty, and property of the community [.]

In addition to the evident influence of the phraseology of the Declaration of Independence – in itself a document inspired by existing social contract theory – this passage appears to exhibit a particular affinity with the philosophy of John Locke. The final clause especially, in which Warren described the logic behind the so-called “Right of Revolution” or “Right of Revolt,” has a distinctly Lockean ring to it. 

By abusing their power, Locke argued in his Two Treatises on Government (1689), the legislative authorities, “Forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty.” Warren made essentially the same case when she stated that, “The origin of all power is in the people, and that they have an incontestable right to check the creatures of their own creation [.]”Locke likewise asserted that what the people had to lose, what they established governments in order to protect, were their, “Lives, Liberties, and Estates [.]” Warren echoed this as well by her claim that governments were, “Vested with certain powers to guard the life, liberty and property of the community.” As these specific parallels, and the manner in which Warren further elaborated on the nature and purpose of representative government within the text of Observations, indicate that her grasp of Locke’s version of social contract theory was quite firm. Like her colleague and correspondent Thomas Jefferson, who also displayed a strong affinity for Locke’s articulation of the origin and nature of political organization, Warren evidently regarded government as means rather than an end; a thing intended to serve the people rather than demand service of them. This would tend to place her in a similar ideological category to Jefferson, his friend and colleague James Madison, and the various other Anti-Federalists and Republicans who likewise opposed the centralization of power in the hands of a strong, coercive federal government.

In addition to the work of John Locke, Warren demonstrated a particular affinity for certain elements of English political thought by also quoting from the writings of Sir William Blackstone in her Anti-Federalist Observations. These excerpted passages appear in sections one and two, and provide further evidence of her abovementioned disdain for coercive government and her steadfast belief in the primacy of certain fundamental legal protections native to the English tradition. The first such quote, whose author she cryptically referred to only as “a justly celebrated writer,” asserted that, “the principle aim of society is to protect individuals in the absolute rights which were vested in them by the immediate laws of nature [.]” Society, referring potentially to any form of social organization up to and including formal government, was primarily responsible for protecting the natural rights of individuals, presumably something on the order of life, liberty, and property. This is a very Lockean ideal, and one which very much squares with what Warren had theretofore expressed concerning government and its basic purpose.

The second quotation form Blackstone that Warren dispensed, in the second section of Observations, seemed to follow logically from the first as a specific example of how the “absolute rights” of the individual were best protected. “The learned Judge Blackstone,” she deigned to address, observed that it, “has been coeval with the first rudiments of civil government, that property, liberty and life, depend on maintaining in its legal force the constitutional trial by jury.” As mentioned on many occasions during the discussions of previous weeks, trial by jury was, and is, widely recognized as one of the most essential political/legal rights attached to the concept of English or British citizenship and its various derivatives. For centuries it has been viewed as one of the foremost means by which a free people may be guaranteed of their personal and communal liberty, and its abrogation has frequently met with agitation, protest, and even armed insurrection. Many of the Founders, when offering written protest against the actions of British ministers in the 1760s and 1770s, put forward the right of trial by jury as a one of the tradition prerogatives possessed by citizens of the colonies (as subjects of the British Crown) which the government of the day was intent on denying or suppressing. Mercy Otis Warren, it seems, was no different, and attempted to buttress her claim for the centrality of trial by jury to the liberty of a free people by quoting words to that effect from one of the foremost legal minds in the Anglo-American world.

Sir William Blackstone was indeed that, and Warren’s knowledge of him and his work ought to be seen as further cementing her place as the intellectual equal of the other members of the Founding Generation. His Commentaries on the Laws of England (published in four volumes between 1766 and 1770) was, at the risk of repeating myself, perhaps the single most influential textbook of common law history and practice in Britain and America for the better part of the 18th and 19th centuries. For young lawyers who came of age during the years immediately preceding the American Revolution, Blackstone’s packaging of established case histories was at the centre of their education, and in some cases was the only text they consulted before requesting admission to their respective bar association. Among those who are known to have read and/or possessed a copy of Commentaries are some of the most brilliant legal minds of their time, including President John Adams, Chief Justices John Marshall and John Jay, and Associate Justice James Wilson. For Mercy Otis Warren to be considered a member of this august company, if only by virtue of her common knowledge of the aforementioned Blackstone, is no small thing. If she was comfortable enough with the “learned Judge” to quote him in her own work, and knowledgeable enough to do it well, then she may have conceivably possessed an understanding of his work on par with that of some practicing lawyers and judges then working in America. This is in addition to the fact, again, that Warren was almost entirely self-taught, and so would have had to seek out and interpret Blackstone’s work without formal assistance.

Even in cases when she did not necessarily agree with the principles they set forth, Warren demonstrated a capacity in Observations to seek out and absorb the teachings of a variety of legal or philosophical authorities. At the end of section fourteen, for instance, she stated, as a means of reiterating the importance of protecting the rights of individuals, that, “even the Italian master in politicks, the subtle and renounced Machiavel acknowledges, that no republic ever yet stood on a stable foundation without satisfying its common people.” Though delivered with all the ceremony of a somewhat casual aside, this admission of familiarity with the political thought of Machiavelli is potentially quite revealing. Referring to the author of Il Principe (1532) as “subtle and renounced” seems a fairly clear indication of Warren’s disdain for the man, or at least for the principles he espoused. Considering that Machiavelli is thought of as among the originators of realpolitik thought, whereby ends tend to justify means, it could logically be inferred that Mercy Otis Warren rejected that style of political decision-making and nurtured a somewhat more principled political outlook. This would appear to place her, in the American context, in opposition to notoriously pragmatic figures like Alexander Hamilton.

At the same time, though she evidently found Machiavelli disagreeable as a political theorist, Warren was nonetheless familiar enough with him and the principles he espoused to attribute an idea to his name. Though this does not necessarily mean that she had read Il Principe from cover to cover some time prior to drafting Observations in 1788, it is an undeniable possibility that at some point she read some of his work – enough, at least, to decide that his ideals were not to her liking. If this was indeed the case it further testifies to Warren’s intellectual curiosity, as well as her humility (being willing to admit that Machiavelli was not completely without merit), and her desire to continually acquire knowledge and turn it to a useful purpose.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Observations on the New Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, Part I: Context

            It occurred to me recently that the manner in which I've been going about things in this blog has perhaps been a bit…one-sided. I've spoken a great deal about what I like to imagine is a decent assortment of statesmen, philosophers, economists, and political thinkers. And I've always tried to grasp them for all that they are; good, bad, inspiring, and flawed. I've tried to be non-partisan, if that’s possible, and yet I seem to have fallen into the rather unfortunate habit of privileging one specific perspective over another of equal value. What I mean to say is, all the people whose work I’ve yet discussed have been men.

            If you feel as though you can see what’s coming, and don’t like it, do please take the opportunity to run for the hills, or whatever.

            See, I have a sister. She’s a very talented writer – very articulate and intelligent – and it just so happens she’s also the submissions editor for an online film magazine called cléo (lower-case and italicized, because it’s that kind of book). It’s a publication with a declared feminist slant, if you hadn't guessed, and reflecting about the kinds of topics it covers and the kind that I cover caused me to stop and think for a moment. The American Revolution, and the period of nation-building that followed, is an utterly fascinating era in the history of the world. Centuries-old traditions were torn down, wholly untested institutions were raised in their place, and men everywhere spoke passionately and articulately about liberty, the nature of human existence, rights, and community. But again we see how easy it is, how seemingly natural, to speak of the American founding as an explicitly masculine enterprise. Inspiring though the preamble of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration is – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” – it’s also a clearly gendered statement. More than likely the intent was to use “man” as a synonym for “mankind,” though in truth this isn’t much better.

            It isn’t that we should fault Jefferson for not being more gender-inclusive. Trying to hold a figure from the 18th century to the standards of 21st is little more than an exercise in futility and frustration. But recognizing the gender bias that comes with studying the Founders raises an important question; where were the women during the Revolution? What did they think/feel/do about the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Declaration of Independence, or the United States Constitution? It was their nation as well as their husbands’, brothers’, fathers’ and sons’; every decision men in power made affected them, in some cases to a greater degree than their male counterparts. Where is their voice? Where is their story? There are, fortunately, a number of studies a person can familiarise themselves with that attempt to tackle questions very much like these. “Women in the Revolution” has become an increasingly fleshed-out area of inquiry since at least the 1980s, and bit by bit the other half of the picture that is the American Founding is being filled out, and given color, light, shadow, and dimension. In that spirit I’d like to contribute something of my own to the conversation.      
    
            That being said, the selection of an appropriate subject presents something of a quandary. One of the reasons that women have been left of the orthodox narrative of the Revolution is because their perspective on just about any topic was felt to hold less intrinsic value than a man’s. As a consequence, women’s thought were rarely recorded, or if recorded were rarely preserved. What we do know of women during the Revolutionary Era comes largely from the perspective of men. This is understandable, but it does rather throw my “history in their words” thesis into disarray. Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and the (giggle) second Second Lady of the United States, would appear to be a rare exception. Her letters to her husband, exchanged over a period of decades amidst some of the most significant events in American history, provide fascinating insight. Not only do they offer a window into the mind of a very intelligent, well-read 18th-century American woman, but they also chronicle the inner workings of one of the most fruitful, durable, and sincere personal and political partnerships in modern history. A moment’s consideration, however, reveals a slight complication. If Abigail Adams is famous at all, and I think it’s fair to say she is, then it’s really only as a function of her husband’s own celebrity. We can read her letters because John Adams, Founding Father and President of the United States, preserved them; her voice is expressed through and as an accessory to his. This is not meant to downplay her worth as a source of information or insight, but rather to point out that though her perspective is indeed rare and valuable it is one whose very existence (as we know it) is undeniably male-centered.

            Fortunately there is another woman that comes to mind. A contemporary of Adams, Jefferson, and all the rest, her writings during and about the Revolution and the American Founding came at the behest of no man, and went on to influence the course of events on an equal footing with those of her male colleagues. She was a wife and mother, a playwright, an activist, a political commentator, and a historian; all in her own right, and on her own initiative. The abovementioned John Adams himself once wrote of her, “God Almighty has entrusted her with the Powers for the good of the World, which, in the cause of his Providence, he bestows on few of the human race.” I’d like to take the next few weeks to read and discuss a small portion of the work of this woman, she who should most certainly be considered among the American Founders. Her name, which I'm fairly confident you've never heard before, was Mercy Otis Warren.

            Born in 1732 in the Cape Cod community of Barnstable, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Mercy was the third of James Otis, Sr. and Mary Allyne’s thirteen children. The elder Otis was one of the most prominent lawyers in the colony, was elected to the General Court in 1745, and was appointed Attorney General by Governor William Shirley in 1748. Mercy was accordingly raised in a familial environment that was both highly literate and politically engaged. Indeed, the manner in which James, Sr. became an opponent of Governor Thomas Hutchinson in the 1760s, and spoke out in the 1770s against perceived abuses of power by British authorities, would seem to indicate a streak of radicalism that doubtless had an impact on his children, Mercy included. Along with her brothers, Joseph and James, Jr., she studied under the family’s private tutor, Reverend Jonathan Russell. Russell apparently noted the young Mercy’s passion for history and furnished her with numerous volumes on the subject. After James, Jr. later departed Barnstable to attend Harvard he corresponded regularly with his sister, and surviving letters attest to his regard for her intelligence and his belief that she should put it to use. Upon her brother’s return to the family home Mercy aided him in his graduate studies, and was thereby exposed for the first time to work by political philosophers like John Locke and David Hume.   

            In 1754, Mercy Otis married Plymouth, Massachusetts lawyer and merchant James Warren. A friend of Mercy’s bother, Warren developed a reputation in the 1760s for being an outspoken critic of British government policies like the Stamp Act, and the Townshend Acts. He later went on to ally with Samuel and John Adams, served in the Massachusetts Militia at Bunker Hill (June 17th, 1775), and became Paymaster General of the Continental Army in 1776. Soon after their marriage, Mercy became an instrumental part of her husband’s political life. The couple’s home in Plymouth frequently played host to meetings of local political and revolutionary groups, including Samuel Adams’ Sons of Liberty, and thereafter she set her sights on exercising her literary voice in favor of the protection and advancement of the liberties that British authorities seemed daily to be threatening. James Warren proved to be very encouraging of his wife’s efforts, and she in turn became his lifelong correspondent and chief political confidante. The couple went on to have five sons (James, Winslow, Charles, Henry, and George) between 1757 and 1766.

            Over the course of the Revolutionary War years (1775-1783), and the subsequent nation-building era of the 1780s and 1790s, Mercy maintained lively and heartfelt correspondence with a number of highly significant individuals among the Founding Generation. These included, among others, Abigail Adams and Martha Washington, English historian Catherine Macaulay, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. John Adams was also a regular correspondent, and in the 1760s and 1770s became her close friend and literary mentor. Through her letters, Mercy was able to nurture discussions of women’s issues with some of the most influential Americans of the era, help keep various key parties informed of current events, and foster relationships with many of the prime movers of the American Founding. Beginning in the 1770s she began to put her literary prowess to public use with the publication of several highly satirical plays that turned an acerbic eye on the indecisiveness of Governor Thomas Hutchinson, and the threat posed by the potential abnegation of the rights guaranteed by the Massachusetts colonial charter. These dramas, all published anonymously, were entitled The Adulterer (1772), The Defeat (1773), The Group (1775), The Blockheads (1776), and The Motley Assembly (1779). Following the end of the Revolutionary War, efforts to improve upon the flaws inherent in the Articles of Confederation produced a draft constitution which Mercy and James Warren both found themselves opposed to. During the subsequent ratification process, whereby said constitution was debated and either approved or denied by special conventions in each of the thirteen states, the pair both published Anti-Federalist essays in their local Massachusetts newspaper under the shared pseudonym “Helvitius Priscus.” Mercy herself, again in an attempt to shine on light on some of the flaws she perceived in the proposed national charter, also wrote a pamphlet with the title Observations on the New Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, under the penname “A Columbian Patriot.”

            Even from this brief biographical sketch, several important characteristic of Mercy Otis Warren, her life, and her work can be surmised. The first is that she had lived, as of the late 1780s, just about her entire life in a highly politicized and intellectually challenging environment. The daughter, sister, and wife of statesmen, lawyers, and political activists, Mercy Otis Warren (who we’ll just call Warren from here on out) had seemingly always existed in a social world that greatly valued concepts like natural rights, encouraged political dissent against perceived tyranny, and encouraged the use of natural gifts like reason, oratorical skill, and literary ability. In a different environment, surrounded by different people, it would not have been at all surprising for her to adopt the role of patient hostess and loyal friend that so many women of her generation had been taught was their province. This is in no way intended to downplay Warren’s own sense of purpose or initiative. That she was determined to put her talents to use in a field that held little, if any, respect for female contributors, and which would force her to toil for the better part of her years in anonymity, seems indication enough of her steadfast resolve, and her desire to be of service to the political community she felt herself a part of. That being said, the encouragement offered at an early age by her brother, James Otis, Jr., and in her adult years by her husband, James Warren, should not be discounted. Her uncommonness is in some ways a reflection of their uncommonness; no less for being connected, but still very much that.

            Warren’s choice of creative outlet, as mentioned above, is also worth noting. During the era in which Mercy Otis Warren wrote and published, female participation in the Anglo-American literary world was far from the norm. Granting certain notable exceptions, like British feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft or Gothic novelist Eliza Parsons, many women writing in the late 18th and early 19th centuries did so under pseudonyms in an attempt to conceal their gender, at least partly in order to bypass any assumptions or prejudices as to the content or quality of their work. This did not stop women from putting pen to paper, in any number of genres and at times quite successfully. But the relative paucity of prominent female literary figures doubtless had the effect of conditioning most women who engaged with literature to regard the written word as yet another creative enterprise that was the domain of men. Warren was obviously not dissuaded by the lack of visible role models or exemplars, though she did choose to publish most of her work (until the early 1790s) under a series of assumed names. This would seem to indicate that she was particularly strong-willed – willing to defy the sexual status quo of the Anglo-American community – as well as humble – simultaneously unwilling to publicly engage in behavior that might easily have been regarded with a degree of sensationalism. Her decision to publish anonymously was therefore possibly owing to an aversion to becoming an object of attention while contributing meaningfully to the political events unfolding around her.

            The events of Mercy Otis Warren’s life would also seem to indicate on her part an abiding passion for knowledge and intellectual stimulation. Though Johnathan Russell had been tasked by the Otis family with preparing their eldest sons to attend Harvard, Mercy proved herself as capable a student as her brothers, and so impressed her tutor that he encouraged further study and provided her with the appropriate materials. She exhibited the desire for stimulation and self-improvement again upon the return of James, Jr. from Harvard; though no doubt her offer of assistance was genuine, she doubtless also understood that aiding him in his study presented an opportunity for her to expand her own base of knowledge. This sense of initiative is remarkable considering that learning was not something that was required of her gender. There were no women’s colleges in the colonial Massachusetts of her youth, and an advanced knowledge of history, philosophy, or literature would not have been necessary to fulfil the role of wife and mother that was life’s culmination for the great majority of 18th-century women. Though Mercy Otis Warren was indeed a faithful wife to her husband James, and a mother to his children, she succeeded in becoming so much more thanks to a sense of curiosity and self-assuredness on par with that of her male colleagues. This confidence and keen interest in the world around her manifested itself again during her married life when she became an active participant in the political gatherings that the Warrens hosted in their Plymouth home. Rather than listen, council her husband, and otherwise keep to herself, she reacted to the events of the day by becoming a playwright. Her views on the political situation in Massachusetts in the 1770s became fodder for public consumption and debate because she took steps to make them so. In the 1780s she did so again on the topic of the proposed constitution, on an equal basis with her husband, the various Anti-Federalists, and the likes of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. At every step along the way she may well have received encouragement from her male family members and friends, but without some innate sense of purpose, without feeling on some level like she needed to be a part of the world of knowledge and debate, Mercy Otis Warren would likely be a name of little consequence. She made it otherwise.

Friday, December 4, 2015

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania III, Part V: Philosophy, the Classics, and the Manner of Gentlemen

Having thus far explored the various intellectual, moral, and personal influences at play in John Dickinson’s Letter III, and discussed at length the way some of them seem to mesh quite successfully while others appear utterly contradictory, it might seem to be – how shall we say – gilding the lily to continue a further dissection of the above-mentioned document. Yes, it may be just that, brevity being the soul of wit, and so forth. But if my readers have learned anything about me at all, lo these many months, it’s that I don’t feel there can ever be such a thing as too many words set forth on a topic as rich and complex as the American Founding Fathers. So I expect that they’ll forgive me for deciding one last time in this present series to upend my cranium above the page in an attempt to shake lose what thoughts remain about Letter III and its estimable author.

            Because there are, I feel, several more things to learn from a reading of the third of John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. In particular, there are elements of what Dickinson wrote in an attempt to make clear his position on the emerging crisis between the British government and the colonies that provide evidence as to some of his philosophical inclinations which have not already been explored. Several references that Dickinson put forward, for example, hint at an affinity for classical references that would appear to place Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania in the realm of the “high discourse” tradition of English political writing. This quite emphatically sets Dickinson apart from other American political activists of the era who tended toward the radical, such as Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson, and says a great deal about how he viewed himself and his efforts within the larger sphere of Anglo-American politics and philosophy. By the same token, remarks made by Dickinson in Letter III about the nature of Lockean social contract theory and its application to the American colonial context provide clear evidence of how he differed from his revolutionary colleagues in terms of philosophical outlook. By studying these instances of Dickinson giving voice to some of his less obvious intellectual preferences, it is possible to further pinpoint where exactly on the ideological spectrum of the American Revolution the “Farmer in Pennsylvania” sat, and in turn develop a broader, richer sense of just how many distinct points of view the Founders held between them.

            As mentioned some weeks ago, the tone of John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania place them very much in league with the collection of 144 missives published between 1720 and 1723 in the London Journal known collectively as Cato’s Letters. The work of Englishman John Trenchard and Scotsman Thomas Gordon, both outspoken members of the reformist Country Party in 18th-century Britain, the Letters were concisely argued attacks against the perceived corruption of the government of George I following a financially disastrous investment scheme. In exchange for a series of bribes members of the government authorized a trade in early 1720 whereby holders of British securities (i.e. the national debt) could trade them to the South Sea Company in exchange for stock at a favorable rate of exchange. Because the company had been granted a trade monopoly for South America it was expected that its stock value would increase precipitously, thereby enticing bond-holders to make the trade. Thereafter the high-interest government securities that had been a constant drain on the Treasury would be redeemed, and both parties involved in the transaction would be beneficiaries of a financial windfall. For a time this seemed to work. In January 1720, South Sea Company stocks traded at £128 per share; by May they had increased to £500, and by June to a peak of £1050. Unfortunately this flurry of activity led to widespread speculation in the shares of other companies, and in an attempt to tamp down on runaway inflation the government passed the Bubble Act in June, 1720. This piece of legislation made all joint-stock companies that did not possess a Royal Charter illegal, and quickly put a stop to the rampant trading the South Sea Company’s success had encouraged. This had the unanticipated knock-on effect of driving down the value of South Sea stock as well, and vast sums of money were lost by some of Britain’s wealthiest and most influential citizens.

            In view of this naked, and catastrophic, display of corruption and patronage, Trenchard and Gordon took it upon themselves to give vent to the public frustrations that resulted. After a dozen or so letters to that effect, the pair thereafter dedicated themselves to holding forth on any number of topics of public import, from incidents of contemporary significance (the threatened loss of recently-acquired Gibraltar) to general topics of universal application (the value of free speech, loyalty, and liberty). Over the many, many entries that followed the pair argued extensively and effectively for transparency in government, freedom of expression, and the inviolable nature of individual liberty, in the process deploying a raft of references to ancient Greek and Roman philosophers as well as to more contemporary figures like English republican theorist Algernon Sidney. Thereafter collected and reprinted, Cato’s Letters became a bestseller in Britain, going through six editions as of 1755. Significant to the present discussion, they also became a particular favorite of the North American audience. The text of the Letters were widely distributed in the Thirteen Colonies and were freely quoted in newspapers, and bound editions found their way into roughly half the private libraries on the continent. In homage, Cato became a common pseudonym for authors of tracts from across the political spectrum, including those who argued for and against the Revolution in the 1770s and the adoption of the Constitution in the 1780s. John Dickinson appeared to wear the influence of Cato’s Letters in his own Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, both in the latter’s use of classical references and the importance they attached to the ideal of disinterestedness.

Evidence of second tendency, of declaring the importance of political disinterestedness, can be found specifically in the second paragraph of Letter III. Therein, after first declaring in the opening paragraph that the only motives behind publishing his missives was, “a lively resentment of every insult and injury offered to you,” he clarified for his readers just where he stood in relation to the unfolding crisis between the colonies and the British government. “I am no further concerned,” Dickinson wrote, “in anything affecting America, than any one of you; and when liberty leaves it, I can quit it much more conveniently than most of you [.]” This probably sounds a bit strange coming from a man who claims to have the best interests of his countrymen at heart – it certainly did to me on first blush – but statements like this were meant to demonstrate a person’s impartiality, and therefore their credibility. While it has since come to have the same meaning as “uninterested,” the 18th-century connotation of “disinterested” was something closer to non-partisan. To be disinterested was considered a political virtue in an era that still demonized political parties and at least paid lip service to ideals like public service and self-sacrifice. Cato’s Letters are chock-a-block with references to disinterest as an ideal, and the nefarious influence of “the moneyed interest in England” and, “the destructive interests of societies of stock-jobbers, combined with publick plunderers [.]” Though Dickinson avoided using such unambiguous terminology in Letter III, the general sentiment he attempted to express falls under the same general category.

When he wrote, “I am no further concerned in anything affecting America, than any one of you,” he meant that he was not, for instance, a member of any branch of any colonial government, or a royal official of any kind, or the owner of a business that benefited directly from British patronage or trade policy. His claimed impartially thus stemmed from the fact that he was not bound to speak in favor of maintaining the Anglo-American relationship by any fear of reprisal or financial loss. A royally-appointed tax assessor could not say the same, nor could a merchant with strong ties to London, or a Crown attorney. In 1767 Dickinson was little more than a private citizen, and this fact he wanted to make clear. Lacking formal ties to any organization, decision-making body or sovereign authority, he believed that he possessed the ability to speak for the good of all rather than some narrow and parochial financial or political interest. If he did happen to speak favorably of the Crown, or Parliament, or of generally avoiding rash action, it would thus have been the result of an objective assessment of what was in the best interests of the colonial population rather than what would benefit his position or his designs.

He had much the same sentiment in mind when he added, “when liberty leaves it, I can quit it much more conveniently than most of you.” The significance of this passage is somewhat less obvious than the one that preceded it. Here Dickinson was attempting to point to his personal wealth as a positive factor in his impartiality. Someone who worked in a trade, like a farmer or an artisan, would naturally have felt that the quality of their life was strongly tied to the economic and political situation of the community in which their lived. Colonial trade and taxation, both policy areas that the British Parliament had claimed exclusive jurisdiction over, affected what most Americans were able to purchase in shops, how much money they were able to save, and in turn the general quality of their existence. Consequently, the average, workaday colonist might regard the mounting disagreement between British America and Parliament as bad for business and their life in turn, and thus seek a speedy remedy by whatever means were most convenient. No matter if this led them to support reconciliation or confrontation; whichever quickly reasserted the status quo was preferable. As of 1767 Dickinson was an independently wealthy barrister whose ability to live a comfortable life had little connection to the manner or logic of colonial taxation. Free from such pedestrian considerations, and by his own admission able to depart the colonies “more conveniently than most” if matters took an unpleasant turn, he evidently felt himself capable of speaking to more abstract concerns than the majority of his fellow colonists. Where they might be swayed by thoughts of price and profit, and eventual privation, he could consider loftier ideas, like truth, justice, and the laws of nature.

Patronising though this notion might seem – and make no mistake, it does – it was very much in keeping with the 18th-century ideals of public service and self-sacrifice that characterized the writings of the Country Party reformers. It was their firm belief that the administration of the British government was best left in the hands of the landed gentry because of the unique qualities that group possessed. As a species independently wealthy (in theory), they were the pawns of no other faction, individual, or interest, and could thus be depended on to make decisions based on an objective assessment of the greater good rather than their own personal financial needs. At the same time, the fact of their wealth made them both capable of engaging in public service and obligated to do so. Because they were blessed with advantages well beyond most people’s dreams, it was felt by members of the Country Party that the gentry were bound by a concomitant impulse of social responsibility to put those advantages to good use. Their wealth in turn allowed them to do this without sacrificing their comfort. John Dickinson, born into one of the wealthiest families in colonial America, seemed to both embody and personally support this conception of the link between wealth and impartiality, privilege and service. This, again, placed him very much in the same camp as purveyors of British “high discourse” political commentary like Trenchard and Gordon, and Country Party founder Lord Bolingbroke, and a good distance from "lowborn" activists like ideologue Thomas Paine and popular satirist Benjamin Franklin.

Another indication of the connection between Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania and the elevated, sober style of political commentary utilized by early 18th-century British reformers can be found in their common affection for, and use of, classical references. A cursory examination of the aforementioned Cato’s Letters reveals a particularly strong affinity for the same. Subjects under discussion in that 144-part series include the titular Roman statesman Cato the Younger, Julius Caesar and his assassin Brutus, ancient Persian king and conquer of Egypt Cambyses II, and the nature of corruption in the Roman Republic. Though Dickinson was not as absorbed as Trenchard and Gordon by the lessons embodied in these ancient exemplars, going only so far as to occasionally reference a classical figure or event in support of a broader argument, that he felt comfortable at all dipping his toe into this intellectual sphere is telling. Look, for example, to the ninth paragraph of Letter III. In it, Dickinson recalled the ancient Spartans as a people worthy of emulation by his fellow colonists because they were a, “brave and free people,” who were inspired by a, “happy temperament of soul [.]” He then went on to quote Greco-Roman historian and essayist Plutarch’s description of the Spartans, with the seeming intent of drawing a comparison between the virtues therein described and those Dickinson hoped his fellow colonists would embody.  

In the sixteenth paragraph of Letter III, Dickinson made use of another explicit reference to figures from classical antiquity when he attempted to warn his fellow colonists against falling victim to the, “sway of the Cleons and Clodiuses, the designing and detectable flatterers of the prevailing passion [.]” Cleon, for the record, was an Athenian statesman who held sway during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) and was widely regarded as a warmonger and a demagogue. Publius Clodius Pulcher, meanwhile, was a Roman politician during the late Republic known for his radical populism. Dickinson’s intent was accordingly to project an image of flattery and corruption as a warning to the population of the colonies against what he believed would be the inevitable result of allowing anger and resentment to cloud their collective judgement. Give in to anger and inevitably fall prey to demagogues, essentially. Of course, in order to absorb this message a person would need to know who Cleon and Clodius were; the majority of the population of the Thirteen Colonies in 1767 almost certainly did not.

That Dickinson was familiar with the works of Plutarch, or the history of Athens or Ancient Rome, is not in the least bit surprising. He was, after all, the recipient of a classical education that emphasized the moral and rhetorical value of the great Greek and Roman poets, historians, and playwrights of antiquity. And he was far from the only one of the Founders to have been taught via this style of curriculum. What is noteworthy about the appearance of this kind of classical knowledge in his written political commentary, however, is how clearly it serves to differentiate Dickinson’s work from that of his revolutionary contemporaries. Consider, for instance, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Both received a similar education to Dickinson, both were intimately familiar with the classics, and both reportedly filled their private libraries with volumes by men like Cicero, Ovid, Livy, Tacitus, Demosthenes, and Aristotle (among others), almost certainly in the original Greek or Latin. In this sense, of belonging to a particular social and intellectual class of men in 18th-century Anglo-American world, they were cut from the same cloth as Dickinson himself. Yet an examination of Jefferson’s A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774) and Adams’ Thoughts on Government (1776) reveal not a single reference to any Ancient Greek or Roman figures or events. Though there could be any number of reason for this, there would seem to be at least one clear and undeniable consequence: portions of Dickinson’s Letter III required a degree of classical knowledge to fully grasp, while no part of either Jefferson’s or Adams’ aforementioned works asked the same of their audience. This important because of what it says about Dickinson’s intended readership; that is, who he wanted to reach, and why.

In many ways possessing a classical education in the 18th century was like being able to speak a language (besides Greek and Latin, of course) that was known only to a select few. Possessing a strong familiarity with Plutarch’s Parallel Lives or Demosthenes’ public orations signified the attainment of an elevated awareness of moral philosophy, history, and rhetoric, and being able to utilize these sources in order to craft a convincing argument signified one’s membership in a community of shared sentiment and means (education being mainly the province of the wealthy). Trenchard and Gordon, in this mold, knew that the average English person would not have the slightest interest in their meditations on the corruption of the Roman political classes in the late Republican era. It was not their intention to reach as wide an audience as possible, but to communication to those few who could grasp the source material that underpinned their reflections, and perhaps possessed the means to respond in a meaningful way. Though, again, Dickinson’s Letter III contains relatively few references to topics from classical antiquity, their modest inclusion nonetheless speaks volumes as to who the titular Farmer from Pennsylvania was trying to reach. By resorting in the arguments contained within Letter III to classical comparisons or analogies Dickinson actively made it harder, if not impossible, for certain people to read and understand what he was trying to say.

 There are a number of potential reasons why Dickinson nonetheless proceeded in this way.   He was, on the one hand, an 18th-century gentleman, educated and socialized to behave, think, and communicate in a certain way. He was, furthermore, a noted anglophile who attached particular significance to English traditions, English history, and English political thought. He may have intended, accordingly, to communicate to other gentlemen in the language he knew they all shared, and in a manner very much in keeping with the English political commentators with which he was surely familiar. Jefferson and Adams were gentlemen too, though they managed to avoid relying on some of the more esoteric elements of classical vocabulary when attempting to communicate a political message to their fellow colonists. Perhaps this was because the pair nurtured a self-image that was not quite so elevated above them common man as their education wold indicate – though in Adams’ case this seems unlikely. Or perhaps they chose to distance themselves from a mode of thought and expression that had become distinctly associated in the American mindset with a particular style of English political discourse. If this was the case, if they felt a self-conscious impulse to appear to their readers less British in tone and substance, then it is noteworthy indeed that their colleague Dickinson felt no such need to “dress down” his rhetorical style.

That being said, it is perhaps not all that surprising. As is hopefully clear by now, John Dickinson was, among the pantheon of the Founding Fathers, something of an odd duck. He was a man of conviction, sometimes to the point of stiffness; he as a pacifist whose moral aversion of violence ran very deep; he was a lover of Britain, its people, history, and culture. Though he shared with his revolutionary colleagues a common grounding in the classics and the philosophical ideals of the European Enlightenment, it seemed that the former traits most strongly defined his character, outlook, and actions. If the style of commentary he favored in his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is any indication, he regarded himself as a gentleman in the mold of the British Country Party reformers whose works had been so warmly received by the colonial American elite. Accordingly, he favored calm, measured debate to rash action, abhorred corruption and tyranny, sought examples of proper or improper moral behavior in the classical texts of Ancient Greece and Rome, and endeavored always to maintain the traditions of British constitutionalism. Likely these principles were favored by many among the Founding Generation, but few seemed to hold to them as rigidly as John Dickinson of Poplar Hall.

And it’s this rigidity of conviction that makes reading and attempting to understand Dickinson’s work, like Letter III, such an interesting endeavor. Whereas certain among the early revolutionaries, like Massachusetts agitator Samuel Adams or Virginia rabble-rouser Patrick Henry, responded to perceived British injustices with increasing vitriol, John Dickinson ever maintained a mask of calm deliberation. Unwilling to be swept up in the anger that events in the 1760s and 1770s seemed to breed so readily, he attempted always to speak to the objective good, the reasonable, the just. While many in the colonies began to question the legitimacy of the bond between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, Dickinson advised the need for peaceful petitions, warned against the evils that accompany blind anger, and preached loyalty to the royal regime that had for so long been the attendant of American prosperity. Truly, there seems not a trace of cynicism in Dickinson’s fervent calls for even-handedness and even-tempers, yet there appears a hint of thinly-veiled desperation.   

Because the American Revolution was more than just a philosophical disagreement that could be solved if men of good conscience sat in the same room and exchanged obscure Latin quotations. The ideas at its root were, and are, fundamental to human existence: liberty, justice, authority, and community. Consequently the Revolution could not very long remain a debate about taxes or political representation. Dickinson’s contemporaries seemed to sense this, and responded accordingly. Men like Jefferson and Adams spoke plainly, of politics, and economics, and the inalienable rights of a free people. Their assessments tended towards the pragmatic; they began to speak not of avoiding war but of limiting its destructive effects. And they acknowledged that the relationship between Britain and America had run its course. Yet there was John Dickinson, clinging to a very British ideal of gentlemanly behavior, and an accompanying sense of decorum, loyalty, and morality that was quickly becoming outmoded.

 And this too it what makes him such an intriguing figure. In spite his often fundamental disagreements with other members of the Founding Generation, he shared their essential dedication to public service and self-sacrifice. Few of the Founders compromised more than did Dickinson; few were forced to bend their ideals or silence their convictions to a greater extent in order to see through to the end their nation’s troubled birth. He was not a Loyalist, though it may have been easier for him if he had been. He believed, as did his cohorts, that the rights of man were inherent and irrepressible. He had not been willing to fight for those rights, or at least dreaded the thought of sending others to die for them. But his dedication to the great causes of the Revolution – to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – forced him to confront a great many things that he was not comfortable with. For that reason alone his is worthy of admiration, study, and contemplation. He was, after all, one the first to speak against the abuses of a distant government and call for unity among those who had the most to lose. And he was also one of the last to admit that the defenders of American liberty were no better than their oppressors.

Anyway, that’s how I see it. Take a look for yourself:

Letter from a Farmer in Pennsylvania III by John Dickenson: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/690

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania III, Part IV: Convictions, Blind and Otherwise

Though John Dickinson endeavoured throughout Letter III to make clear his distaste for violent rebellion and his belief that resistance by force would have run counter to many of the ideals he and his fellow colonist were keen to assert, he was willing to admit that armed insurrection was a viable final resort. This he was prepared to acknowledge seemingly, and tellingly, because rebellion against an established authority was itself a precedent within the British historical context. This apparent clash of influences – non-violence on the one hand and regard for British/English precedent on the other – is highly characteristic of the tone of Letter III, and of Dickinson’s public career more broadly. Always there seemed to be a tension between his moral impulse to avoid conflict and his intellectual desire to preserve the rights he believed were the birthright of all mankind. To this clash Dickinson’s regard for British culture and history piled on further demands, molding his perspective and the ideas he was willing to consider in ways that were at times uncomfortable, and not infrequently exposed him to frustration and professional disagreement. Letter III is a microcosm of these tensions; within its paragraphs are ideas and principles that sometimes mesh and sometimes clash, that show their author staunchly opposed to violence in one instance and agreeing that armed resistance is in keeping with English historical precedent in another.       

Speaking to that specific example, Dickinson wrote in the twelfth paragraph of Letter III, “If at length it becomes undoubted that an inveterate resolution is formed to annihilate the liberties of the governed, the English history affords frequent examples of resistance by force.” A cursory examination of the history in question would seem to amply bear out Dickinson’s claim. The First (1215-1217) and Second (1264-1267) Barons’ Wars occurred between rebellious alliances of nobles and Kings John and Henry III, respectively, while the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was a consequence of the social tensions unleashed by the Hundred Years War and the Black Death.  The popular revolt known as the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536-37) resulted from Henry VIII’s desire to reform the English church, while the English Civil War (1642-1651) and the Glorious Revolution (1688-89) both constituted mixed popular/elite reactions to the political absolutism of the House of Stuart and their accordant denigration of the role of Parliament.

While these conflicts occurred at different times, under different circumstances, and in response to many different aggravating factors, they all nevertheless speak to the strength of tradition as a motivating factor in English/British political and cultural life. The barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta because they felt their customary privileges were being curtailed, Northern English Catholics rose against Henry VIII because he threatened the sanctity of their church establishment, and the Roundheads raised their banners against Charles I as a direct result of his flagrant disregard for the conventions of Parliament. The history of popular revolt in Britain, it could fairly be said in 1767, was not a testament to the appeal of revolution, but to the power of reaction. This is perhaps why Dickinson felt comfortable (or at least comfortable enough) acknowledging “the English history” and its “frequent examples of resistance by force.” Troubled though he was by the concept of political violence, there was very little in the history of his and his contemporaries’ mother country to suggest that the end result of armed rebellion was inevitably the complete and irrevocable overthrow of the established order. Occasionally the Crown or its ministers went awry and had to be set right by force of arms. Sometimes the events that followed were bloody, and on at least one occasion played out over the better part of a decade, but balance always returned in the end. And if that had been the case in Britain, why wouldn't it come to pass in British America as well?

But of course Dickinson hoped it would not come to this. He was willing to acknowledge that there was precedent in British history for armed resistance to the abrogation of established rights, but no part of him seemed ready to admit that such an outcome was inevitable in the American context. As aforementioned, this was likely due in no small part to the way his Quaker sensibilities and Enlightenment-derived intellectual values meshed to produce an absolute conviction that violence of any kind was abhorrent and political violence particularly counter-productive. This may have proved to be, over the course of the 1760s and 1770s, a rather difficult position to continue to uphold in the face of Britain’s increasingly harsh reactions to American resistance. Nevertheless, it was one that most of Dickinson’s contemporaries could at least respect if not agree with. The Founders, again, were not men who necessarily sought out conflict or relished violence. Dickinson’s steadfast refusal to sanction independence in the summer of 1776, a consequence of his belief that separation from Britain would expose the colonies to a brutal reprisal, did prove to be problematic. Yet few, if any, of his fellow delegates were willing to fault the gentleman from Pennsylvania simply because he wished to avoid bloodshed. Dickinson’s steadfast conviction in favor of non-violence was doubtless harder to swallow, however, when it combined with his avowed regard for Britain, British culture, and the British monarchy as in Letter III.    

 Returning to the eighteenth paragraph of Letter III, it bears repeating that Dickinson averred,

We have an excellent prince, in whose good disposition towards us we can confide. We have a generous, sensible and humane nation, to whom we may apply. They may be deceived. They may, by artful men, be provoked to anger against us. I cannot believe they will be cruel and unjust; or that their anger will be implacable.

This may appear, considering the behavior British ministers and military strategists would later display, a rather naïve declaration on Dickinson’s part. Perhaps it was, to a degree. Yet within this passage there would seem to be mingled the moral and intellectual stands, previously discussed, that defined his outlook, his principles, and his public career. He claimed that George III was an excellent prince. While there were others among the Founding Generation who would have disagreed, the then-present monarch, who was neither a spendthrift nor a rake, still compared favorably to the later members of the departed House of Stuart. Dickinson claimed that Britain was a generous, sensible and humane nation. Doubtless it was in certain aspects. Having travelled to London as a young man and seen beyond the imperial façade most familiar to his fellow colonists in distant America he would certainly have been more inclined than many of his contemporaries to describe the mother county in such glowing terms. 

            Dickinson also claimed that the British people may have been misled by “artful men,” and thus provoked to anger against the American colonies. This was a conclusion derived from a distinctly Enlightenment-tinged view of the universe. Whereas in prior ages a great deal of significance had been attached in European intellectual circles to the role that fate and divine intervention played in the affairs of humanity, the 17th and 18th centuries witnessed a shift towards scepticism and rationalism. God, many Enlightenment thinkers argued, did not move human events forward; all human effects had human causes, whether they was obvious or not. This in turn nurtured a paranoid strain in Enlightenment thought, revolving around attempts to discern and uncover the human intelligence that directed great events. The reaction of many early American revolutionaries to British trade and taxation policies deployed in the 1760s – their refusal to believe that Britain wasn't attempting to restrain the colonies’ economic growth out of a sense of jealousy or fear – fit very neatly in this mold. John Dickinson was not immune from following a similar thought process, though his conclusion was markedly unlike those of the majority of his contemporaries. Rather than perceive the citizens of British America as the victims of an underhanded conspiracy, the scion of Poplar Hall appeared convinced that the British public, and perhaps even the king, were the ones being deceived for some ill and unknown purpose. Considering how prominently the values embedded in the Enlightenment seem to have shaped Dickinson’s worldview this sort of deduction is understandable, particularly when one also considers his general willingness to look upon the British nation with familiarity and sympathy.

            Finally, Dickinson declared a belief that British authorities, if approached via the customary and “constitutional” means he outlined in Letter III, would not react in a manner that was “cruel or unjust.” Nor could he conceive that their anger, such as it was, would be “implacable.” Herein Dickinson’s moderation, and his unflagging optimism, is perhaps hardest to explain. Clearly he was wrong. He had no way of knowing that, of course, and so ought not to be judged for it. Yet he drastically miscalculated the tenor of response even moderate resistance to certain British tax and trade policies would receive. The British government, as it would very shortly turn out, was entirely capable of being cruel, and of treating those who considered themselves citizens of the empire in a manifestly unjust fashion. This, in truth, should not have come as much of a surprise.

            Look, for instance, at the Jacobite Uprisings. Now, it’s important to remember that the Scottish Jacobites, who as Catholics opposed the overthrow of James II that was the main result of the Glorious Revolution, became guilty of treason against the Crown when they took up arms against the House of Brunswick and the authority of George II. Consequently, a somewhat forceful response on the part of the British government was not unexpected. However, the manner in which the culture of the Scottish Highlands, where Jacobitism found many of its strongest adherents, was accordingly suppressed by British government policy in an attempt to break down the power structure of the Jacobite clans could fairly be characterized as cruel and unusual. The final battle of the last Jacobite Uprising took place in 1746 on a windswept moor at a place in Scotland called Culloden. The government forces, led by the Duke of Cumberland, emerged victorious, and thereafter ordered that the wounded that still lay on the field of battle be sought out and killed over the course of the two days that followed. Thereafter some 20,000 head of privately-owned livestock taken from surrounding farms were driven off to nearby Fort Augustus and sold, the profits being split among the government forces. Later that same year Parliament passed the Act of Proscription, making it a punishable offence for residents of certain regions of Scotland to possess or use weapons without prior authorization, the Dress Act, which forbade the wearing of kilts or tartans within Scotland, and the Heritable Jurisdictions Act, which transferred the power of Scottish clan chiefs to preside over the civil and criminal trials of their dependants to officials appointed by the British Crown.  
        
            While it must again be emphasized that these punishments were meted out in response to an armed uprising against the authority of the Crown, an act far in excess of what Dickinson proposed he and his follow colonists might pursue in the most extreme scenario, their effects still appear needlessly draconian. Worse yet, they seem to constitute a systemic violation of the traditional rights held by a portion of the British population. The Bill of Rights of 1689, a document that defined the relationship between Parliament and the Crown for centuries thereafter, stated that Protestant subjects were to be permitted to bear arms “suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” Admittedly the clause “as allowed by law” may have permitted a certain amount of leeway as to how and why Parliament determined certain populations within Britain were to be disarmed. However, the fact that a guarantee of this kind was considered important enough to include in the Bill of Rights at all would seem to indicate that such restrictions would only be put in place in particularly uncommon cases. Furthermore, though the core of Jacobite support in Scotland came from the Catholic clans and their Chieftains, who by their faith were not protected by the relevant passage of the Bill of Rights, the Act of Proscription made no distinction as to the faith of those it was intended to effect. Therefore, Protestants who perhaps had no intention of raising their hand against the authority of Parliament may well have suffered a violation of what was otherwise considered a vital civil right simply because of what region of the country they lived in.

            Furthermore, though the traditional legal jurisdiction possessed by Scottish clan Chieftains that the Heritable Jurisdictions Act revoked were not guaranteed by the terms of the Bill of Rights, they would seem to fit within the same realm of customary or inherited sovereignty as trial by jury, which was. Perhaps English Parliamentarians did not see it that way in 1746. Perhaps in their minds there existed a very important distinction between the right of every English person, embedded in common law traditions, to be tried before an assembly of their peers, and the Scottish clan right to have individual offences judged by the Chieftain to which a person owed fealty. Doubtless trial by jury, to these individuals, seemed open, transparent, and communitarian, while clan jurisdiction seemed narrow-minded, parochial, and, well, clannish. Thus, while in the English common law sense that precedent was equal to value the Scottish clan jurisdiction was as valid as trial by jury, the former was preserved by statute while the latter was easily done away with. As with the disarming of certain segments of the Scottish population inherent in the Act of Proscription, the complete disregard for Scottish legal tradition at the core of the Heritable Jurisdictions Act would seem to constitute a punishment that was both cruel and unjust.

            As to what any of this has to do with John Dickinson, well, that rather depends on what one imagines his sense of political and historical awareness was like. Less than ten years after the Battle of Culloden and the passage of the aforementioned punitive measures Dickinson came to London for a three year period to study the law. He was, if there is any truth to the accounts, an intelligent, well-read young man. Though occasionally dazzled by what the imperial capital had to show him, his letters home attest to a critical eye that was perfectly capable of seeing through the pomp and circumstance and evaluating British political culture with a degree of detachment and pragmatism. It would thus seem strange, upon reflection, for Dickinson to have had no knowledge whatsoever of the most recent Jacobite Uprising, its implications, and consequences. He was, by his own admission in Letter III, someone who greatly admired the reigning royal House of Brunswick, and “the ‘45” as the rebellion became colloquially known, was one of the most significant challenges to that family’s authority during the whole of its time on the throne. Having also paraphrased a Parliamentary speech dating from 1660 in Letter III, that of Lord Clarendon, it would also appear that Dickinson was familiar with Parliamentary proceedings dating back at least a century, easily encompassing the events of the 1745 revolt and its legal after-effects. Yet, if the above-quoted passage from Letter III is any indication, he did not believe it likely that Britain would react harshly to American resistance.

            There are several possible explanations for Dickinson’s rather optimistic characterization of the British government’s potential reaction to American disobedience. Accepting that he was likely aware of the draconian measures Parliament had enforced within his own lifetime against certain segments of the British population, it’s possible he believed there was a significant difference between what his discontented fellow colonists were leaning towards and what the disgruntled Jacobites actually did. This, in fairness, is a perfectly valid perspective. The Scottish Highlanders who took up arms against the British government in 1745 did so in order to overthrow George II and replace him with James Francis Edward Stuart, son of the deposed James II. The measures that Dickinson proposed in response to continued British violation of traditional colonial prerogatives came up far short of such an obvious act of treason, and so any resultant retaliation might reasonably have been expected to be similarly modest. It’s also possible that Dickinson did not consider the punitive measures meted out against the Scottish Jacobites to constitute acts of cruelty or implacable anger because they were not directed against people of English extraction. Scotland did not share England’s common law traditions, and so the fundamental protections embedded in the 1689 Bill of Rights might perhaps have been construed not to have applied to the Scottish people in the same way they did to the English. Because of how parochial a view this would encompass it appears a poor fit for John Dickinson, student of the Enlightenment and compassionate supporter of peace and humanity that he was.

            It’s also possible that John Dickinson’s stated belief in Letter III that Britain would not react in a cruel or unjust manner to American petitions for relief from unprecedented taxation was a consequence of his own anxiety to forestall a violent confrontation. Imagine, for a moment, that Dickinson had offered the opposite assessment at the conclusion of Letter III. Imagine he made it clear that the British government was sure to react to any challenge to its authority with anger, violence, and a complete lack of concern for the well-being of its American subjects. Any reasonably intelligent American colonist who read this might thereafter reasonably conclude that if Britain’s anger was to be aroused regardless of the manner in which the colonies registered their discontent, said colonies might as well take up arms in an attempt to gain a better result in the long run. That Dickinson argued in favor of a peaceful, “constitutional” response to British intransigence at the same time that he avowed the magnanimity of a potential British response was perhaps an attempt on his part to anticipate just such a conclusion. If, as he claimed, the British government were likely to look upon non-violent colonial resistance with a degree of forbearance it would perhaps have behooved his fellow colonists to resist any sudden urge to begin an armed struggle and instead place their faith in the peaceful measures Dickinson described.

            Had this, in fact, been Dickinson’s intention, it would seem to reveal something of the desperation that appears to permeate much of Letter III. This desperation, as mentioned previously, is rooted in the some of the impulses and influences that Dickinson responded to and channelled when he sat down to write Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. On the one hand he truly believed that the rights of his fellow colonists, to govern themselves and to be taxed only in exchange for legislative representation, had been violated by a string of British government policies, the most recent being the Townsend Acts of 1767. Said violations, he stated in no uncertain terms, could not go unanswered lest they, “acquire strength by continuance, and thus become irresistible [.]” This would seem to have placed Dickinson in the same camp as the other Founders, most of whom rose to prominence in their respective colonies in the 1760s and 1770s by speaking out against the Stamp Act and Townsend Acts and exhorting their fellow colonists to take action to oppose them. Where Dickinson differed, however, was in the way he accompanied calls for political action with a strong admonition against the use of violence and a general show of support for the British monarchy. This curious mix was, again, owing to Dickinson’s Quaker upbringing, and his time spent in London in the 1750s. Though Dickinson of course had no way of knowing how difficult the British government would make it for its North American subjects to assert their rights whilst standing firm upon a platform of non-violence, certain aspects of his written work from the immediate pre-Revolutionary era nonetheless betray a hint of apprehension as to that very subject.

            The final paragraph of Letter III appears to give evidence of this sense of uncertainty and trepidation. After spending the better part of eighteen paragraphs recommending to his fellow colonists that they seek to remedy the abrogation of their rights by organizing their efforts, by pursuing petitions, and by above-all maintaining a sense of calm and focus, Dickinson admitted that resorting to “constitutional” methods might not be enough to achieve the ends they desired. “If,” he wrote in the nineteenth paragraph of Letter III,

It shall happen, by an unfortunate course of affairs, that our applications to his Majesty and the parliament for redress, prove ineffectual, let us then take another step, by withholding from Great Britain all the advantages she has been used to receive from us. Then let us try, if our ingenuity, industry, and frugality, will not give weight to our remonstrances. Let us all be united with one spirit, in one cause. Let us invent–let us work–let us save–let us, continually, keep up our claim, and incessantly repeat out complaints.

Dickinson’s passion is herein clear enough, but not so is what he actually intended his fellow colonists to do. He asked them to withhold from Britain, “all the advantages she has been used to receive from us,” without explaining what that might entail, or giving any sense of the level of coordination such an effort would require. He asked them to marshal their “ingenuity, industry, and frugality,” again without going into any explicit detail as to what these estimable qualities were supposed to refer to. And then, if the combined force of a boycott on British goods (maybe?) and the application of old-fashioned colonial know-how were not sufficient to secure a desirable result, he requested that the colonies invent (what?), work (on what?), and save (what?), all the while repeating the petitions which by this point had presumably proven ineffectual. As 18th-century English rhetoric went Dickinson could have done far worse, but as to meaningful reassurance that the cause of colonial rights had many options yet available to it, this final paragraph of Letter III is troubling in its lack of substance.

Likely this was because Dickinson simply didn't know what else to say. Dedicated though he was to both the cause of colonial rights and non-violence, he may have suspected on some level that the two would prove incompatible in the American context. Rather than admit this, rather than nod in the direction of political violence and thereby give sanction to the deaths of untold numbers, he instead restated his prior position, mouthed platitudes about ingenuity and invention, and called for unity of purpose among the various colonies.           

Friday, November 20, 2015

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania III, Part III: Motherland

            Following his attachment to the moral sensibilities of 18th-century Quakerism and the philosophical values most commonly associated with the European Enlightenment, the aspect of John Dickinson’s personality that seems most strongly imprinted on the text of Letter III (and in turn on his entire public career) is his abiding affection for Great Britain, its culture, and its role as mother country to the Thirteen Colonies. In this veneration of the colonial motherland he was far from alone among his fellow revolutionaries. No less illustrious a figure than John Adams, second President of the United States, was a noted Anglophile whose association of stability, tradition, and good government with the British example became a source of ridicule in his later career. Alexander Hamilton too, the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury, found much to admire in the British system of government, and in many ways modelled his plan for the 1st Bank of the United States on that of the Bank of England. Indeed, some degree of fondness for British law, history, culture, or art was hardly uncommon in the American colonies in the years leading up to their fateful break with king and country. The great majority of the colonial population on the eve of revolution were of British descent, the rights and liberties many of them venerated were of British origins, and the literature, theatre, and music they consumed were almost all products of British writers, playwrights and composers. Britain was the font of their civilization, law, and culture, and though many among them found fault with how British authorities had taken to administering the colonies, comparatively few had no use for Britain at all.

            That being said, that fact that John Dickinson actually travelled to Britain as a young man did set him apart from the great majority of his fellow colonists. To them the motherland was a source of history, culture, and legal precedent, and perhaps also a distant familial origin point. To Dickinson, however, it was something much more tangible. In his aforementioned letters home during his youthful sojourn in the 1750s he regularly described with wonder the sheer variety of people who walked the streets of London, the quality of the buildings, palaces, and cathedrals, the beauty of the carefully manicured gardens, and the consummate skill on display during theatrical performances. For him, Britain was much more than an idea to be venerated or a culture to be emulated; it was a living, breathing, bustling place full of people of intelligence, ability and wit who were day by day working to expand the borders of the greatest empire the world had ever known. While his stay in Britain inspired its share of diffidence as well, particularly where it touched upon the topic of social advancement, Dickinson could not have but come away from his time in distant Albion with a very vivid sense of what Britain had to offer the colonies and what they stood to learn.

            Evidence of Dickinson’s particular affinity for Britain can be found peppered throughout the text of the third of his venerable Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. To his credit, the sum of said references do not paint the author of Letter III as naïve, thoughtlessly loyal, or particularly unrealistic in his assessment of the crisis then unfolding between the colonies and the British government. Some display a certain amount of respectful deference, another a slightly more practical, if familiar, tone, while others still verify Dickinson’s affinity for and knowledge of British law and history. At no point does Dickinson exhibit the excessive credulity or filial loyalty frequently associated by later revolutionary critics with those who openly professed pro-British sentiments. The scion of Poplar Hall seemed not to ground his affection for the mother country in catechistic tradition. Rather his loyalty appeared to stem from a fairly pragmatic, engaged consideration of British virtues, the lessons contained in British history, and the usefulness of continuing a harmonious association between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies.  

In the fifteenth paragraph of Letter III, for instance, Dickinson stated very plainly that,

The prosperity of these provinces is founded in their dependence on Great Britain; and when she returns to her “old good humour, and her old good nature,” as Lord Clarendon expresses it, I hope they will always think it their duty and interest, as it most certainly will be, to promote her welfare by all the means in their power.

Rather than couch an argument against any sudden break between Britain and the colonies in terms of intangibles like loyalty, duty, or honor, Dickinson resorted in Letter III to economics and a close knowledge of British intentions. The Thirteen Colonies, he argued, owed whatever financial success they enjoyed in 1767 to their relationship with Great Britain; severing that bond, however it might address certain philosophical disputes in the short run, would adversely affect the lives and livelihoods of countless colonists in the long run. At the same time that this assertion ran decidedly counter to that later put forth in Thomas Jefferson’s 1774 publication A Summary View of the Rights of British America, in which the Sage of Monticello claimed that the colonies principally owed their existence, stability, and economic viability to the hard work and sacrifice of the citizens, Dickinson’s argument was also at least partially true. 

As mentioned in weeks past, Britain’s colonial empire was administered on broadly mercantilist principles. This meant, in general, that raw materials from the colonies were directed toward the mother country, manufactured goods were exported and sold in the colonies, and strict regulations were put in place that prevented said colonies from trading with other European powers or their imperial possessions. Consequently the economies of the Thirteen Colonies at the end of the 18th century were mainly agrarian, placed little emphasis on manufacturing, and relied exclusively on British markets for various necessities, luxury goods, and customers for their produce, iron, fish, timber, and furs. This relationship mainly benefited British manufacturers, though the colonies were able to make up some of the trade imbalance by establishing a major presence in the shipping and shipbuilding industries (the latter accounting for 5-20% of employment overall). The profits that these sectors generated, combined with the surplus of land, lack of large, crowded urban areas, and high agricultural output, ensured that the average standard of living (for people of European descent) in the colonies in the late-18th century was actually higher than in Britain itself.  Were Britain to suddenly cease to be the Thirteen Colonies’ sole trading partner, however, particularly as a result of a punitive blockade or embargo, the colonial economy would have greatly suffered for its lack of diversity, scarcity of credit, and industrial immaturity. In this sense the colonies were generally quite prosperous, and that prosperity was indeed based mainly in their dependence on Britain. Dickinson’s accompanying plea for the colonies to, “promote [Britain’s] welfare by all the means in their power” could thus be interpreted as an exhortation for his fellow colonists to place their own economic well-being before any sense of emotional or moral outrage recent events may have prompted.

Obviously the colonial American economy turned out to be far less dependent on Great Britain than Dickinson indicated in Letter III. Thanks to a combination of material and monetary support from European allies like France and the Netherlands, as well as the sale of bonds and the creation of financial institutions like the Bank of North America, the United States was able to weather the sudden lack of reliable export markets and sources of manufactured goods that colonial independence brought about in 1776. Dickinson, of course, had no way of knowing this, and so his admonition in favor of maintaining the established relationship between Britain and the colonies ought to be taken at face value as one motivated by legitimate concern. Capable as I am sure my own audience is of giving Dickinson a fair hearing, it was likely made more difficult for certain of his own readers to do the same because of his paraphrasing Lord Clarendon’s words in support of said argument.

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, was a royalist politician who served as a close advisor to Charles I and Charles II during the English Civil War (1642-1651), the exile of the House of Stuart, and their subsequent Restoration in 1660. In addition to serving as Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of the Exchequer, two of the Great Offices of State, Clarendon was later father-in-law to future king James II (1685-1688) and grandfather to Queens Mary II (1688-1694) and Anne (1702-1714). The passage that Dickinson chose to rephrase as “the old good humour, and the old good nature” was delivered by Clarendon during a speech before Parliament in September, 1660 in which he attempted to encourage his fellow countrymen to accept the legitimacy of the newly-restored Charles II in exchange for a general amnesty upon those who had fought for or otherwise supported the Parliamentarians. The King, Clarendon assured his audience, wished only, “That you will join him in restoring the whole Nation to its primitive Temper and Integrity, to its old good Manners, its old good Humour, and its old good Nature.”

Dickinson’s willingness to put forward the words of someone like Lord Clarendon as a model for the proper relationship between the colonies and the British government was doubtless made somewhat problematic by the fact that the House of Stuart and its supporters were generally not looked upon with favor by the citizens of British America. Indeed, he intimated as much himself in the fourteenth paragraph of Letter III. “Great Britain,” he wrote, “under the illustrious house of Brunswick, a house which seems to flourish for the happiness of mankind, has found a felicity unknown in the reigns of the Stuarts.” Though this was something of an exaggeration – the monarchs of the House of Brunswick, which as of 1767 included George I, George II and George III, were not particularly well-loved in the colonies at the time of Dickinson’s writing – the combined reign of the Brunswick monarchs tended to compare quite favorably among the citizens of British America to that of the prior House of Stuart.

Charles II (1660-1685), for instance, oversaw the resurgence of the Anglican Establishment in England, demonstrated strong Catholic sympathies, sided with the Tories during the Exclusion Crisis (thereby asserting his Catholic brother’s right to succeed him), and dissolved Parliament in 1681 so that he could rule on his own. In British America, wherein freedom of religion was widely held as a paramount right, Catholics were generally disliked or distrusted, and the Whigs (rather than the Tories) were heralded as the true guardians of English liberty, such actions and proclivities did not endear the restored House of Stuart to the general population. James II (1685-1689) did little to improve upon his dynasty’s reputation. An avowed Catholic, he oversaw the amalgamation of the New England colonies with New York and New Jersey to form the Boston-governed Dominion of New England in 1686, enlarged and strengthened England’s standing army in response to rebellions against his authority, and (like his brother and predecessor) dismissed Parliament in 1685 in order to circumvent their repeated objections. These were, once again, not actions that met with a kind reception among the citizens of British America. In keeping with their aforementioned reverence for the values enshrined in the Bill of Rights of 1689, and as evidenced by their frequent objections to the various iterations of the Quartering Act, they were particularly sensitive to the threat posed by a strong standing army and highly protective of what they perceived as their traditional right to political representation. Consequently, the reign of James II did great harm to the reputation of the Stuart dynasty in America, if not to the monarchy in general. The deposition of James in 1688-89 during the Glorious Revolution thus met with few objections in the Thirteen Colonies, and the accession of the sober, Protestant George I to the throne in 1714 was even viewed as cause for celebration.

Considering how poorly the Stuart dynasty was regraded in the American colonies after their deposition in 1688, and how closely many of his contemporaries identified with the Whigs who had opposed the often-arbitrary leadership of Charles II and James II, Dickinson’s choice of reference in Letter III does indeed seem rather odd. Lord Clarendon was, as aforementioned, a close personal advisor to Charles I and Charles II. He supported the latter’s re-establishment of Anglican supremacy and showed a very public distaste for the House of Commons during his times as Lord Chancellor after 1660, advising the younger Charles on more than one occasion to dissolve said body when it proved particularly uncooperative. If Dickinson truly hoped in 1767 to convince a colonial audience full of Whig-sympathizers, religious dissenters, and pseudo-republicans that although the colonies had been wronged by British ministers the greatest wisdom laid in continued loyalty combined with peaceful resistance, Lord Clarendon would seem among the least useful sources of rhetorical support.
 
As to why Dickinson then chose to draw inspiration from the royalist Lord Chancellor, it may simply have been the case that the author of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania was among that educated portion of the pre-revolutionary American population who in fact did not identify very strongly with the Whigs, the Country Party, Lord Bolingbroke, or any of the purveyors of social contract theory like Thomas Hobbes or John Locke. This is not to say, however, that he was dyed-in-the-wool Tory. As previously discussed, Dickinson was a student of the Enlightenment and a person with strong moral convictions shaped by a Quaker-influenced upbringing, neither of which would have been particularly amenable to the conservative Anglicanism of the Tory elite. Rather it may have been the case that Dickinson cultivated a royalist sympathy that was distinctly moderate and non-partisan. Though he might have agreed that Lord Clarendon was perhaps not an exemplar of particularly worthwhile values as of 1767, it’s entirely possible Dickinson also believed that the words Clarendon used to describe the ideal relationship between the English Crown and its subjects a century earlier were not thereby worthless. This would seem to have been a risk on Dickinson’s part, considering once again the general composition of his audience. Then again it may have been the case that at such an early period in the prelude to the American Revolution it was not yet clear where the fault lines of the coming ideological conflict were to be drawn. In 1767 it may have been possible for a person to quote Lord Clarendon or similar English statesmen and not be pilloried as a Loyalist, in a way that simply wasn't conceivable a decade later.

To be entirely fair to Dickinson he was not immovably opposed to any and all forms of resistance to British intransigence; only it was the means by which resistance accomplished that troubled him. In the seventeenth paragraph he tellingly asserted that, “The Constitutional modes of obtaining relief are those which I wish to see pursued on the present occasion; that is, by petitions of our assemblies, or where they are not permitted to meet, of the people, to the powers than can afford us relief.” This statement is of particular interest for several reasons. The first concerns Dickinson’s use of the term “Constitutional.” Because of the frequency with which the word, or related terminology, is thrown around in the contemporary new media, a modern reader of Letter III could be forgiven for misunderstanding its intended meaning in the above-quoted passage. Rather than refer to the United States Constitution, which of course didn't exist in 1767, Dickinson intended to put his readers in mind of the unwritten British Constitution, or more generally to the legal and cultural principles that support its existence and operation. Whereas American constitutionalism is based on codification, wherein the paramount law of the land takes the form of a single written text, British constitutionalism encompasses the interpretation of multiple documents, statutes, edicts, common law rulings, and political conventions, potentially from across the entirety of British history. Because the British Constitution is not a single document but rather a centuries-spanning accretion of legal concepts, tradition and precedent play a large role in determining what is and is not constitutional in any given situation. When Dickinson thus claimed to support, “The Constitutional modes of obtaining relief” in Letter III, he was effectively asserting the primacy of established methods over untested innovations. That this was in keeping with the British political and cultural traditions in which Dickinson and his contemporaries had been raised and educated, at the same time that it happened to discourage a quick resort to violence, was perhaps why he felt comfortable attempting to combine a respect for precedent with a general call for his fellow colonists to remain vigilant of their rights.    

            The second reason the above-quoted passage is worth considering is because it gives evidence of Dickinson’s apparent endorsement of some form of extra-legal assembly of “the people” as a means to circumvent the manipulation or dismissal of the colonial assemblies. Though the formation of such an assembly would have constituted an act of rebellion against the political establishment, it was on its face still a peaceful course of action. And while it may have constituted disobedience aimed at the authority of the Crown in the colonies, the fact that it recognized the innate sovereignty of the people themselves as possessing greater legitimacy (in keeping with Enlightenment ideals of natural law) perhaps made it seem acceptable to Dickinson. Furthermore, it likely appealed to him on a personal note because of his prior participation in an “assembly of the people” in the form of the 1765 Stamp Act Congress. This august body he mentioned in the fifth paragraph of Letter III as a symbol of the success that could be achieved via non-violent resistance. “If the behavior of the colonies was prudent and glorious then,” he wrote, “and successful too; it will be equally prudent and glorious to act in the same manner now, if our rights are equally invaded, and may be as successful.” Thus, the loyalty to and affection for Britain Dickinson put forward in Letter III were offered a subtle complication. While in one section he asserted the need to maintain the Anglo-American relationship in economic terms, and paraphrased the proto-Tory Lord Clarendon in support of the same, he seemed willing in another to endorse the colonists taking matters into their own hands when met with continued British obstinacy. Granted, the method by which Dickinson advised said colonists to assert their sovereignty was quite civil and restrained by the standards of the bloody conflict that was to follow. The principle of disobedience, however, remains inherent in the assertion; Dickinson may have nurtured a personal regard for Britain, its politics, and its culture, but his sense of political loyalty was evidently conditional. Provided violations of said loyalty were justified by the treatment received, and that actions taken in response were fundamentally peaceful, there was evidently a limit beyond which the scion of Poplar Hall could conceive of rebellion against his beloved mother country.