One of the most striking aspects of Letter III, indeed one of the chief reasons I chose to feature it
here, is the way it very much lays bare the social, political, and moral values
of its author. One of the reasons that I began this very series was the desire on
my part to develop a deeper understanding of who the Founder Fathers were as
human beings. I wanted to know, and to share with others, where these men came
from, what they believed, and how they expressed themselves, and I wanted to
contemplate what all of those things could tell me about what kind of people
created the strange and beautiful land we know as the U.S. of A. Some of the
documents they left behind reveal a great deal. Some are deeply infused with
the personal sensibilities of Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and Hamilton, and
so act as unparalleled windows into their minds, their emotions, and even their
flaws. Others are somewhat more opaque. Marbury
v. Madison, undeniably important though it is within the history of
American jurisprudence, by necessity allows little room for Chief Justice
Marshall’s character to shine forth amidst its dry, sensible legalese. Marbury v. Madison was worth discussing
for other reasons, but revealing of the personality and sensibilities of
perhaps America’s greatest Chief Justice it is not.
The third entry in John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is another beast altogether,
and a somewhat contradictory one at that. While stylistically very much in keeping
with the scholarly mode of debate perfected by such English writers as Thomas
Gordon and John Trenchard in their reformist Cato’s Letters (written between 1720 and 1723), it is perhaps among
the most personally resonant documents I've yet encountered from a member of
the Founding Generation. Within its scant lines and paragraphs Dickinson
reveals himself most plainly, whether it was his intention to do so or not. At
once formal and sincere, stiff and passionate, Letter III reveals in its form and subject the distinct tension at
the heart of John Dickinson’s career as an advocate for the cause of American
liberty. A lover of Britain and a lover of his native soil, he seemed ever
trapped by dual loyalties, pushed and pulled by the seemingly incompatible
desire to both uphold the inherited traditions he had come to revere and fight
for the rights he knew to be sacred. Letter
III encapsulates Dickinson’s attempt to mesh these sensibilities and
values, successfully or otherwise, and so presages the rather difficult
position he found himself in once the conflict between colonies and Crown
spilled over into bloodshed and both sides began to lose their taste for talk.
But now I'm getting ahead of myself. Not every element of Letter III represents a conflict of
interests and sensibilities. Some of the influences that are most prevalent
seem to mingle quite harmoniously, and so give insight into how different
strands of moral, intellectual, and political philosophy contemporary to the
late-18th century shaped the perspective of men like John Dickinson.
Two prevailing elements of Dickinson’s character that shine through the text of
Letter III are what we shall call his
Quaker sensibilities on the one hand, and his attachment to Enlightenment
values on the other. The former was doubtless a product of Dickinson’s
upbringing and the influence of his family. The Quakers, or Religious Society
of Friends, are a famously non-violent sect, and their devotion to avoiding
bloodshed at all costs is deeply engrained in the arguments Dickinson offered
in Letter III. The latter, meanwhile,
was almost certainly owing to his education. The Enlightenment was a
multinational, multi-confessional intellectual movement, rooted in the 17th
and 18th centuries, that emphasized reason, equality, and liberality
as a remedy for the intolerance, superstition, and jealousy that defined
centuries of bloodshed in medieval and Renaissance Europe. Dickinson’s calls in
Letter III for prudence and
equanimity to triumph over impulsiveness and anger are very much in keeping
with these philosophical values and the reformist sentiments that inspired
them. Though these two distinct intellectual and moral influences are rooted in
different traditions, Dickinson attempted to combine them in the text of Letter III in such a way that they might
appear as facets of the same core ideal.
Now that I look back on it, that probably didn't make a
whole lot of sense. Perhaps I should just show you what I mean.
In the eight paragraph of Letter III Dickinson stated, as a warning against any rash response
to the Townshend Acts, that,
The cause of liberty is a cause of
too much dignity to be sullied by turbulence and tumult. It ought to be
maintained in a manner suitable to her nature. Those who engage in it, should
breathe a sedate, yet fervent spirit, animating them to actions of prudence,
justice, modesty, bravery, humanity and magnanimity.
This was, in many ways, the thesis
of Dickinson’s public life, and in it can be found principles endemic to both
the Enlightenment and Quaker traditions. Talk of liberty, for instance, would
seem to belong to both. Quakerism is a self-consciously anti-hierarchical
system of belief that lays emphasis on the relationship between God and the
individual directly rather than through the mediating influence of a church or
ministry. Thus inherent to practising the Quaker faith would seem to be the
cultivation of individual freedom from arbitrary outside control or direction.
The Enlightenment was also greatly concerned with liberty, its foundation in
the human spirit, its limits within political society, and the need for its
protection. English Enlightenment political philosopher John Locke posited in
the late-17th century that the preservation of individual liberty
was the reason that complex social organization existed in human culture; man
ceded a portion of his liberty to some form of government in return for
protection against said liberty’s violation. Thus inherent in the existence of
a state or government, in theory, is a core desire to preserve the liberty of
the individuals of whom it is composed. Though Quakerism and the Enlightenment
didn't necessarily conceive of it in the same way, liberty was still one of the
most important values within their respective moral and intellectual
frameworks. So it perhaps seemed to Dickinson that the faith in which he had
been raised and the philosophy he had imbibed as a young man both preached of
the paramount value of liberty to human existence.
Liberty
was not the only sphere in which Quakerism and the Enlightenment seemed to
cross over. Look again to the cited paragraph, and in particular at the values
explicitly named. Dickinson believed, if Letter
III is any indication, that true guardians of liberty needed to be animated
by a sense of, “prudence, justice, modesty, bravery, humanity and magnanimity.”
These are certainly lofty ideals to aspire to, and ones which seem quite at
home in either Quaker theology or Enlightenment philosophy. Prudence, modesty and
humanity seem particularly Quaker, given that sect’s past prizing of plain
speech, plain dress, equanimity in behavior, and social justice. Quaker meeting
houses are known for their lack or ornamentation and their services for a lack
of rigid structure, and members of the American Quaker community were among the
most fervent anti-slavery activists of the 19th century. Likewise
magnanimity and justice smack of the Enlightenment, which was again a
philosophical movement rooted in the reform of human behavior and social
organization as a means of preventing bloodshed. Enlightenment scholars and
reformers generally regarded disagreements of faith as one of the roots of
organized human conflict. Regimes that believed themselves the only purveyor of
truth, as in cases of state religious establishments, took a dim view towards potentially
threatening religious diversity. Repression and warfare was the common result,
the unprecedented brutality of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) being the most
stark example. Tolerance, openness, or perhaps even magnanimity, were the
values Enlightenment thinkers came to believe human civilization needed to
embrace if further and more-destructive conflict was to be avoided.
Quakers
valued magnanimity as well, and justice. Derisively labelled in their early
existence as “levellers,” members of Religious Society of Friends attach no
inherent value to social advancement or hierarchy. In the Quaker mindset, to
make a broad generalization, all people are fundamentally equal, and so the arbitrary
raising up or holding down of individuals or populations represents a
contravention of God’s will. Thus when Dickinson spoke of justice in Letter III he could well have meant it
in the Quaker sense of desiring to balance the scales of human existence in
accord with divine purpose. At the same time, the Enlightenment attached value
to concepts like prudence as well, and humanity in particular. One of the great
projects of the philosophical Enlightenment was the cultivation of a sense of
universalism; that is, a sense that all people are of a common substance,
possess a common inherent worth, and are capable of achieving the same common
goals. Though most often associated with Europe and its direct sphere of
influence, the scope of the Enlightenment was theoretically planet-wide. The
scholars, reformers, public servants and philosophers of the Enlightenment
regarded their efforts as being directed at all humanity, from the most base to
the most exalted. Thus, when Dickinson wrote of a need from his American
countrymen to react to British insults with prudence and humanity he may well
have meant it in the Enlightenment sense.
The
point, which has hopefully became a little clearer, is that at least some of
what Dickinson expressed in Letter III,
some of the values he hoped his fellow colonists would endeavor to embody,
could easily have been the product of either his moral or philosophical
outlook. Indeed it’s likely they represented a blending of both. As Dickinson consciously
or unconsciously filtered his scholarly, philosophical understanding of the
conflict between Britain and the American colonies, which prized prudence over
rash action and embraced a strong sense of humanist empathy, through the lens
of his moral sensibility, which abhorred violence and valued humility and
self-control, what perhaps emerged was a personal ideology that embraced
rational thought, peaceful manners, dignity, sympathy, and righteousness. To
Dickinson this was doubtless a harmonious mixture, combining reason and
compassion in a way that was mutually reinforcing. Anger, after all, was the
enemy of both reason and peace; clear-thinking, and thus problem-solving, could
best be accomplished in a state of composure, accompanied by a clear assessment
of one’s abilities and of the conflict at hand. This much he stated in the
sixteenth paragraph of Letter III,
writing that, “Anger produces anger; and differences, that might be accommodated
by kind and respectful behavior, may, by imprudence, be enlarged to an
incurable rage.” If this rage were permitted to be prolonged, Dickinson
continued, it would soon enough cloud the minds of all concerned to the point
that the original cause of their conflict would be forgotten, replaced only
with greater anger at the memory of past offences and mounting thoughts of
revenge. This vicious cycle, once entered, was near impossible to escape from
unscathed. The best solution was to simply avoid giving over one’s reason to
considerations of violence and conflict, thereby averting needless bloodshed
and permitting the unfettered mind to arrive at a resolution. Not only was this right, in the moral terms
that Dickinson understood, but it made sense. Unfortunately, and as he was
perhaps aware, not everyone shared John Dickinson’s strong moral aversion to
conflict. Though the reformers of the Enlightenment were devoted to avoiding
the outbreak of further destructive wars in Europe and abroad, their
philosophies not infrequently sanctioned violence and political upheaval in
service of preserving certain fundamental rights.
Look
again at some of the words Dickinson used in the above-cited paragraph. Think
about some of the ideas he was expressing. Liberty, he asserted, was too
dignified an idea to be tainted by calls to violent action. This is an idea
very amenable to Quaker sensibilities, liberty being the foundation of an
individual expression of faith, but doesn't necessarily square with certain
aspects of Enlightenment philosophy that this series has previously explored. Remember
John Locke’s social contract theory from Two
Treatises of Government? Locke’s innovation, embraced by Thomas Jefferson
in the Declaration of Independence, was in describing a “right of revolution”
whereby a free people could rightfully overthrow a government that had become
abusive or tyrannical. Dry as this might sound, some application to force would
seem unavoidable in cases where the tyranny of a government stemmed from its
own application of state-sanctioned and directed violence. In this mode, which
seemed to be that favored by the majority of the Founders following the Battle
of Lexington and Concord in April, 1775, how could liberty be too dignified to
be “sullied” by tumult? Was not some form of tumult at times required in order
to ensure the preservation of liberty? In the aforementioned paragraph
Dickinson also claimed that liberty, “ought to be maintained in a manner
suitable to her nature.” As I'm sure that his contemporaries asked of him at
some point or another, was not the maintenance of liberty worth sacrificing
one’s life for? To this the scion of Poplar
Hall might had agreed, though his
moral sensibilities likely would have compelled him to add that it was only in
the most extreme cases worth killing for.
This
apparent contradiction between Dickinson’s personal interpretation of the
meaning and significance of liberty and that embraced by the majority of his
contemporaries is captured clearer still in the eleventh paragraph of Letter III. Therein Dickinson stated
that though, “Every government at some time or another fall into wrong measures
[…] every such measure does not dissolve the obligation between the governors
and the governed.” While Locke – and Jefferson, and any number of his fellow
revolutionaries – may have agreed that not every error committed by a
government at the expense of its citizens was reason enough for revolt, the
admonition that Dickinson next deployed would likely have seemed overly
permissive of continued abuse. “It is the duty of the governed,”
Dickinson implored,
To endeavor to rectify the mistake,
and to appease the passion. They have not at first any other right, than to
represent their grievances, and to pray for redress, unless an emergency is so
pressing as not to allow time for receiving an answer to their applications,
which rarely happens. If their applications are disregarded, then that kind of
opposition becomes justifiable which can be made without breaking the laws or
disturbing the public peace.
Whereas Locke
emphasized the right of revolution as a fundamental check against thee emergence of tyranny in
government, to the point of it almost becoming a kind of social obligation,
Dickinson associated the immediate response to perceived abuses with patience,
caution, and reverence for authority. Even in cases of continued government intransigence,
which he argued would “rarely happen,” he maintained that the people’s reaction
should still be fundamentally lawful and peaceful. Though again it should not be
doubted that men like Locke would have agreed with Dickinson’s general desire
to avoid bloodshed if at all possible, the extent to which Dickinson preached
deference and appeasement would likely have struck them with a degree of
distaste.
It
isn't that Dickinson’s strongly-expressed desire to avoid conflict was a value
that his fellow Founders were unable to appreciate. They were, by and large,
not warlike men. They understood, when push came to shove during the events of
April, 1775, that taking up arms against Britain was undertaking from which it
would be impossible to escape unscathed. They thus did not enter into war
lightly, though they believed it in service of a thoroughly just cause, and
remained throughout its prosecution sensible of the suffering the effort to
secure American liberty were mingled with. There was, however, something in
Dickinson’s tireless devotion to peace at all costs that many of them doubtless
found troubling. Avoiding unnecessary conflict, and maintaining a sense of
dispassion and reason, were values very much at the core of the gentlemanly and
scholarly ideals embraced by most of the Founders regardless of their
profession or from which of the colonies they hailed. Yet these were also men
who had largely been educated in a distinctly English tradition that placed
special attention on traditional rights, their irreducible value, and the need
to guard against their abrogation. Peace was a great virtue, they understood,
but their nevertheless came a time when it became necessary for a person to
stand up and fight for what they believed. From this perspective Dickinson’s
adamant calls for humility, non-violence, and absolute respect for the “public
peace” would perhaps have seemed overly permissive. Continue to appease corruption,
to bow to tyrants, and do nothing more but beg redress and how long would it
take for the offenders to become accustomed to their subjects’ leniency? Without
a short, sharp shock, could British authorities be depended on to come to their
senses and reform the policies that had raised such alarm in the American
colonies? Dickinson seemed unwilling to even entertain these questions, so
utterly convinced was he that reason could only ever be given free expression
when paired with peace and dispassion.
The
lengths to which Dickinson believed this, if Letter III is any indication, extended to a point beyond which
might seem possible for someone considered to be among America’s Founding
Fathers. In the eighteenth paragraph of Letter
III he appeared to sum up his position on the conflict that had emerged
between the American colonies and the British Crown. Whereas someone like
Thomas Paine might have signed off with the 18th-century equivalent
of “George III is a wanker,” or Benjamin Franklin would likely have tossed off
an irony-drenched appeal to the enduring wisdom of the British political
establishment, Dickinson adopted a very different tack indeed. “We have an excellent prince,” he
wrote,
In whose good disposition towards is
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. Let us behave like dutiful children who have received
unmerited blows from a beloved parent. Let us complain to our parent; but let
our complaints speak at the same time the language of affliction and
veneration.
It would seem
difficult, knowing what came next, not to consider Dickinson hopelessly naïve. Yet naïveté was
most certainly not what motivated him to put forth a statement such as that
quoted above. John Dickinson was not a foolish man, nor was he unacquainted
with some of the less virtuous aspects of British political culture. But he was
someone, as will be discussed in weeks to come, for whom Britain loomed large
as a source of pride, inspiration and affection. And he was also a man who
attached a great deal of social and moral value to ideals like patience and
forbearance. As the first several paragraphs of Letter III make quite clear he would not have denied for a moment
that the policies enacted by the British Parliament in 1767 and aimed at the
American colonies represented an imminent threat to the liberties of the citizens
thereof. To speak against the same he characterized as a kind of moral
obligation, writing in the second paragraph that, “While Divine Providence […]
permits my head to think, my lips to speak, and my hands to move, I shall so
highly and gratefully value the blessing received as to take care that my
silence and inactivity shall not give my implied assent to any act, degrading
to my brethren and myself [.]”
In spite of this apparent enthusiasm, which
seems fairly characterized as an expression of Enlightenment activist zeal,
Dickinson was seemingly constrained in how far he would be willing to go and
what he would be willing to sanction by an ingrained moral revulsion to
violence. To the modern reader these two impulses, both evident in Letter III, doubtless seem somewhat
contradictory. Yet for Dickinson they were not, or perhaps he simply hoped so.
Clearly he believed with great conviction that the injuries visited upon his
fellow colonists could not go unanswered, but his suggestion as to the proper
response seems so restrained. The right of Britain’s American citizens to
representation in the political process, to govern themselves in accordance
with British parliamentary tradition, and to enjoy the benefits of trial by
jury were all being seriously threatened. Dickinson’s answer to these
challenges was to “behave like a dutiful child,” “complain to our parent,” and
make use of “the language of affliction and veneration.” Veneration, yet? What
was there to venerate in the behavior of the British officials who intended to
rob the colonists of their traditional relationship to their governors while
claiming an unrestricted right of taxation? What sort of parent deserves the
loyalty of their child after they've taken pains to force their offspring to
pay for enjoying the security of the familial household? These are questions
which many of the Founders were very intent to discuss in the 1760s and 1770s,
but which Dickinson seemed reluctant to acknowledge. Perhaps the reason for
this stemmed from an inability to truly reconcile the two halves of his
philosophical and moral universe, the Enlightenment of his education and the
Quakerism of his upbringing. Harmonious though they seemed in many aspects, and
in which harmony Dickinson seemed most comfortable, the crises facing the
residents of the Thirteen Colonies in the 1760s and 1770s seemed to expose a
critical incongruity between the extremes of Quaker pacifism and the
Enlightenment’s veneration of natural liberty. This incongruity arguably came
to dominate Dickinson’s subsequent career as a revolutionary and early American
statesman, and to this day significantly colors how he has been remembered.
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