Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Part VII: A Great and Mighty Empire

One of the most sobering questions which Patrick Henry posed to his fellow delegates to the Virginia Ratifying Convention in the summer of 1788 was also one which at its core arguably possesses a perennial significance to just about any political endeavor in any context whatsoever. Citing admissions supposedly made by supporters of the proposed constitution that one of the advantages which a consolidated national government would confer upon the American people would be a resuscitation of their national image – particularly among the European nations which they were inclined to trade with – Henry expressed his unguarded contempt for any such inclination to attribute self-worth to such hollow pursuits as material splendor or foreign approbation. “Shall we imitate the example of those nations who have gone from a simple to a splendid government?” he asked. “Are those nations more worthy of our imitation?” In light of the sheer amount of effort that went into first drafting and then securing the ratification of the proposed constitution, and of the avowed virtues of the individuals responsible, it might have seemed more than slightly insulting to thus imply that the Framers and their allies were motivated solely by their collective ego. The authors of the prospective national charter, after all, included some of the most insightful, ingenious, and upright men to have ever served the United States of American in any capacity. And yet, in spite of their more sterling qualities, the Framers were still human. Their actions on behalf of the American cause during the late Revolutionary War – in Congress, state governments, and the various branches of the nascent American military – had most certainly earned them the gratitude of their countrymen and affirmed their credentials as public servants par excellence. But that same conflict had also exposed the extent to which these same men were given to fits of jealousy and pride, lusted after glory, and smarted at the implication that either they or their nation were in any sense inferior. Bearing this in mind, it was perhaps not so very unreasonable for someone like Patrick Henry to have asked his countrymen whether or not their motivations were perhaps shallower than they claimed. Perhaps, without knowing it, they had allowed the strains of vanity to overwhelm their sense of what was necessary and proper. Perhaps they had attempted to found a nation in order simply to satisfy their own feelings of self-importance.

It was, as aforementioned, a damning accusation, but not one which Henry believed was to be offered without cause. Whereas the people of the United States, he explained, had once thought themselves fit to treat with such European empires as France and the Dutch Republic on the grounds of mutual respect and consideration – evidenced by the Treaty of Alliance (1778) signed by the former and the reception of John Adams (1735-1826) as American ambassador permitted by the latter – the advancing years of the 1780s had witnessed an apparent shift in American self-perception. “An opinion has gone forth,” he thus avowed, “That we are a contemptable people […] we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble.” In consequence of this evident loss of confidence in America’s reputation abroad, Henry perceived that the attention of his countrymen had wandered far and wide in search of some form of remedy. “The American spirit had fled from hence [,]” he claimed, “It has gone to regions where it has never been expected; it has gone to the people of France, in search of a splendid government—a strong, energetic government.” Notwithstanding the apparent strength and the demonstrable prestige which empires like that of the French most certainly enjoyed, however, this could not but have been a foolish endeavor on the part of the contemporary American people.

Perhaps France was a splendid, powerful nation whose reputation was rarely called into question among the nations of the world. But at what cost had the French people purchased this privilege? “What can make an adequate satisfaction to them for the loss they have suffered in attaining such a government—for the loss of their liberty?” The French were hardly a free people at the end of the 18^th century. Their society was highly stratified, and their king possessed of near-absolute civil, political, and military power. Is this what the American people wanted for themselves? Was this a fair price for splendor? Henry plainly thought otherwise, though his countrymen appeared to him captivated by the trappings of the same. “Some way or other we must become a great and mighty empire [,]” he claimed was their conviction; “We must have an army, and a navy, and a number of things.” Lusting after such symbols of power seemed to Henry yet novel in the course of the American experience, and represented a most unwelcome change from former habits. “When the American spirit was in its youth,” he thus avowed, “The language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object.” The evident change in focus was indeed a stark one, but perhaps not as unexpected as a cursory glance might otherwise indicate.

Republicanism, by the late 1780s, may have become the dominant ideological foundation of society and government in the United States of America, but much of what had moved and continued to move individual Americans was explicitly un-republican. This was in no small part the case because the contemporary inhabitants of the American republic, notwithstanding the transformative experience of the Revolution, were still very much products of a complex web of cultural assumptions that were distinctly European in origin and imperial in character. Americans were accustomed to a less rigid stratification of society, it was true, when compared to their British or French counterparts, and they had come around to a wholesale rejection of hereditary authority within the realm of politics. But they still held fast to certain attitudes and expectations that equated social status with individual worth. Consider, by way of example, the character of the Continental Army, with particular reference to its corps of officers. Notwithstanding the cause for which the men in question were fighting – i.e. the recognition of the sovereign rights of the inhabitants of British America; later the independence of the same from British rule – several of the most prominent among them demonstrated as ardent a devotion to personal glory and public acknowledgment as to the ultimate success of their stated objective.

Charles Lee (1732-1782), for example, who served as the de-facto second-in-command of the Continental Army between 1775 and 1778, spent the early years of his professional career as something of military adventurer. Born in Cheshire to a Major General in the British Army, Lee enlisted in his father’s regiment as an ensign in 1747 – at the tender age of fifteen – became a lieutenant in 1751, and served in the North American theatre of the Seven Years War (1754-1763) between 1755 and 1760. The conquest of New France signaling the end of hostilities – and Lee’s ambitions apparently not yet slaked – he next returned to Europe and fought against the Spanish in Portugal in the early 1760s, offered his services to King Stanisław II of Poland (1732-1798) once the signing of the Peace of Paris (1763) resulting in the disbanding of his unit, and spent the latter half of the decade fighting Turks and seeking after the promotions which he could no longer expect in British service. Granting that Lee’s subsequent emigration to the Thirteen Colonies in 1773 was to some extent prompted by a sense of sympathy on his part for the plight of the American colonists in their ongoing conflict with successive British governments, sympathy nevertheless proved inadequate to entirely quench his thirst for the professional recognition he appeared to believe he deserved.

To that end, upon being informed of the outbreak of hostilities between American militiamen and British regulars in Massachusetts in April, 1775, Lee formally resigned his commission with the British Army in anticipation that he would be named Commander-in-Chief of the military forces thereafter authorized by Congress. He was, after all, perhaps the most experienced soldier then living in America, and one whose record of military success was clear and lengthy. When Congress ultimately selected George Washington to lead the Continental Army – in part because he was American-born and notoriously sober and fastidious compared to the British-born, crude, and unkempt Lee, and in part because Lee insisted on being paid for his services while Washington did not – Lee was accordingly outraged, loudly protested the supposed insult to his character, and formed an ongoing enmity against the man who he felt had stolen his chance for glory. “Washington,” he was thereafter heard to remark, “Is not fit enough to command a Sergeant's Guard.” His attitude did not much improve over the course of the subsequent conflict. Despite a relatively successful six-month stint as commander of the Southern Department through the summer of 1776, Lee spent the next several years complaining to Congress of Washington’s inadequacies and petitioning to have the Continental Army reorganized under his own leadership. When, in spite of having often disagreed with Washington’s strategies, Washington asked Lee to assume command of a vanguard force struggling to advance on the British at Monmouth, New Jersey in June, 1778 – a position which Lee had initially refused as being below the dignity of an officer of his station – Lee thus appeared intent on seizing the opportunity to demonstrate his military prowess.

The resulting engagement, though tactically inconclusive, was badly bungled on Lee’s part. Having failed to inform his subordinates of a sudden change in his plan of action, the units under his command were thrown into a disorganized retreat when suddenly faced with a numerically superior British force and no prospect of rapid reinforcement. Dressed down on the battlefield by Washington upon his arrival, Lee was at first thunderstruck, and then complained of bad intelligence. Though he ultimately seemed to accept in the moment that he had committed an error, the resulting court-martial saw him once more turn accusatory. Indeed, the court-martial itself was the direct result of his having charged Washington in a written missive with behaving towards him in a cruel and unjust fashion and demanding an official inquiry as a means of clearing his name. The hearing that followed saw Lee describe his failed attempt to coordinate a retreat at Monmouth as a “masterful manoeuvre” designed to lure the British into an ambush and characterize Washington’s account of the engagement as, “From beginning to end a most abominable damn'd lie [.]” Despite Washington endeavoring to remain detached from the proceedings so that he might not be accused of unduly influencing the outcome, his popularity with Congress and the American people nonetheless weighed heavily on the verdict. Found guilty on all three counts brought to bear against him – disobeying orders, conducting a “shameful” retreat, and disrespecting a superior officer – Lee was suspended from the Army for the span of a year, during which time he was challenged to several duels by certain of Washington’s junior officers and is known to have participated in at least one. When, in 1780, he sent yet another letter to Congress complaining of his treatment, the seated delegates decided finally to terminate his commission.

Granting that Charles Lee stands as perhaps the most notorious example of a certain kind of 18^th century European military officer who sought after glory above all else, several of the qualities which he took to an unpardonable extreme were present in many other officers who likewise served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Horatio Gates (1727-1806), likewise of British birth and a veteran of the British Army, arguably also came into American service precisely because of his inability to secure promotion at the conclusion of the Seven Years War. Lacking the money or the social connections to advance further than the rank of major, a frustrated Gates resigned his commission in 1769 and purchased a plantation in Virginia not far from Mount Vernon. He also, like Lee, immediately offered his services to the Continental Congress at the outset of the Revolutionary War in the spring of 1775, the result of which was his commissioning – at the urging of his friend and neighbor Washington – as the first Adjutant General of the Continental Army. While Gates, in this chiefly administrative role, flourished in a way that Charles Lee would surely not have been capable, he nevertheless did share his fellow Briton’s desire for recognition and often petitioned Congress for some kind of field command.

Though Gates’ request was ultimately granted when he was first given responsibility for the defense of Ticonderoga, followed by command of the entire Northern Department – during which he realized a significant victory over the forces of British General John Burgoyne (1722-1792) at the Battle of Saratoga – it appeared all the same that his ambition was not to be so easily satisfied. Like Lee, he, too, believed that leadership of the Continental Army should have fallen to him instead of Washington, though voiced his opinion in a much quieter, more cautious sort of way. Notably, he attempted to make use of his resources in Congress, and the goodwill generated by his victory at Saratoga, to achieve his desired objective by way of a petition signed by a number of his fellow officers. When this effort to replace the increasingly popular Washington was made public in the waning months of 1777, his supporters rallied to his defense and Gates was forced to apologize for his role in encouraging the plot. His subsequent command over the Southern Department heralded the end of his military career, culminating as it did in August, 1780 with a crushing defeat in South Carolina at the Battle of Camden. While the subsequent investigation into his conduct by Congress – most often a prelude to court martial – was ultimately stymied by his allies in that chamber, his reputation was nevertheless in shambles by the time the Revolutionary War formally concluded in 1783.

  

American-born officers were no less given to the kinds of egotistic impulses that arguably ruined the likes of Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, of course. Among Washington’s various military protégés were a number of young officers whose service in the Continental Army was in large part the product of – and was in large part shaped by – their shared desire for personal glory. John Laurens (1754-1782), for example, though born to one of the wealthiest families in the whole of British America and thus standing to inherent a tremendous fortune, chose instead to put aside the legal education that had been purchased for him at the prestigious Middle Temple in London – and leave behind his pregnant wife – to enlist in the Continental Army in the summer of 1777. Though initially serving in the role of aide-de-camp to Washington – a nominally administrative position – the young Lieutenant-Colonel nevertheless found himself often imperiled due to a combination of sheer recklessness and an abiding thirst for military adventure. Accordingly, between 1777 and 1781, he was almost wounded at the Battle of Brandywine (September 11th, 1777), took a musket-ball in the shoulder at the Battle of Germantown (October 4th, 1777), had his horse shot out from under him at the Battle of Monmouth (June 28th, 1778), shot the aforementioned Charles Lee in a duel (December 23rd, 1778), was wounded again at the Battle of Coosawatchie (May 3rd, 1779), was taken prisoner after the fall of Charleston (May 12th, 1780), and helped lead the successful – but exceedingly dangerous – capture of redoubt no. 10 during the Siege of Yorktown (October 14th, 1781). Notwithstanding the success which carried Laurens through each of these incidents, his evident sense of ego-driven carelessness was ultimately his downfall. Confined to bed with a fever for several days in August, 1782 outside British-occupied Charleston, Laurens nonetheless jumped at the chance to help intercept a British force sent from the city to forage for supplies near a redoubt on the Combahee River. When, upon approaching his assigned position and being fired upon by a numerically superior British detachment, Laurens ordered an immediate charge and was promptly cut down.

The wealth which he stood to inherent, the education which his father provided – at boarding schools in Switzerland and at the aforementioned Middle Temple – and the prospect of fatherhood and the life of a well-connected London barrister were evidently not enough to hold the interest of John Laurens. Glory was what he seemed to treasure most. The more dangerous the deed, the more he seemed drawn to it, and the brighter he felt his reputation would shine for their accomplishment. He was very brave, no doubt, and highly principled. Indeed, his opposition to slavery is well-attested, as are his numerous (though ultimately failed) attempts to petition Congress and the government of South Carolina to form a regiment of Black soldiers out of slaves granted their freedom in exchange for service. Leadership of this force would naturally have fallen to him, of course; its glories would have been his glories, its prestige a gloss upon his own. Even as late into the Revolutionary War as 1782, after having served for five years in some of the most famous engagements in American military history – including the aforementioned hand-to-hand assault at Yorktown – Laurens was yet still thirsty for fame, to the point that it arguably cost him his life. Tellingly, when later relating the events of the battle, a subordinate named William McKenna who was present at the moment of Laurens’ death remarked that, although the Americans were few in number, he seemed to believe they would be, “Sufficient to enable him to gain a laurel for his brow.” Indeed, McKenna observed, it appeared as though the young colonel, “Wanted to do all himself, and have all the honor.” 

John Laurens’ close companion and fellow aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) – incidentally, one of the principle authors and supporters of the proposed constitution to which Patrick Henry expressed his vehement opposition – seemed likewise to have been motivated in no small part by a sense of ego during his service in the Continental Army. Born and rasied in the West Indies – the Leeward Islands and the Virgin Islands, specifically – Hamilton first arrived in the Thirteen Colonies in October, 1772 after his neighbors in Danish Christiansted succeeded in raising a fund in furtherance of his education. Not long after his arrival, after beginning his studies at King’s College – now Columbia University – in New York City, he became involved in a dispute with Anglican clergyman Samuel Seabury (1729-1796) over the ongoing conflict between the colonies and Parliament. Though but nineteen years old, Hamilton – writing anonymously – published a series of rebuttals to Seabury’s contention that all intercolonial assemblies like the Stamp Act Congress and the Continental Congress were fundamentally unlawful, in the process demonstrating a degree of confidence in his mode of expression and reasoning that rivaled – if not exceeded – that of his much older opponent. Thus flush with success, and having solidified his conviction that Congress was in the right and Parliament in the wrong, it should accordingly come as little surprise that his response to the subsequent commencement of hostilities in April, 1775 was to help form a provincial militia company and hurl himself headlong into the fray.

Owing, no doubt, to the youth of many of its members, the resulting New York Provincial Company of Artillery was something of a precocious outfit during the early years of its existence. Having impetuously raided the British position at the Battery for the cannons which resulting in it becoming an artillery company to begin with, the “Hearts of Oak” – as they became known – proceeded with similar gusto to participate in the Battle of White Plains (October, 28^th, 1776), the Battle of Trenton (December 26^th, 1776), and the Battle of Princeton (January 3^rd, 1777). Following the last of these engagements – during which the Hearts of Oak helped bring matters to a swift conclusion by bringing three of their cannons to bear on an entrenched British position – Hamilton found himself in the enviable position of fielding offers from several American commanders eager to add him to their personal staff. Though initially uninterested in trading the prospect of hard-won glory for correspondence and administration, he did ultimately give way to the invitation of the Continental Army’s Commander-in-Chief to become one of his aides-de-camp. During the four years that followed, Hamilton proved himself indispensable to Washington’s leadership of the American war effort, writing the general’s correspondence, acting as his emissary, and even issuing orders at Washington’s behest. At the same time, as Washington’s prestige increased – from a low following the numerous reverses of the New York campaign to being heralded as the “Father of his Nation” by the early 1780s – so, too, did Hamilton’s own political capital enjoy a similar upturn as he forged connections with members of Congress and politicians and political stakeholders from across the United States. Though his post-war prospects were accordingly secured by his stellar record of administrative competence and the promise of Washington’s continued patronage, he nevertheless continued to pine after the kind of military adventure he had experienced during the first years of the Revolutionary War. Indeed, so eager was young Hamilton – not yet thirty years old in 1781 – to once more “gain a laurel for his brow” that he was willing to risk his future prospects and his life for the chance to once more tread the field of battle.

This chance came, alongside that of the aforementioned John Laurens, during the Siege of Yorktown in the early autumn of 1781. After petitioning Washington, along with other officers, for the opportunity of a field command before the war came to its increasingly inevitable conclusion, Hamilton finally succeeded in swaying his patron by effectively threatening to resign his commission unless his desire was fulfilled. At long last relenting, Washington assigned both Hamilton and Laurens to command a company of light infantry tasked with taking redoubt no. 10 alongside a simultaneous French assault on redoubt no. 9 on October 14^th, 1781. The resulting action, fought at night and with bayonets and hand grenades, was a bloody, chaotic struggle, but one which ultimately resulted in the surrender of an entire British garrison. The siege concluded less than a week later, heralding the end of principle combat during the Revolutionary War and permitting Hamilton to safely retire form the Continental Army with the record of bravery and valor which he so ardently craved. The successes which he later enjoyed – appointment to the Continental Congress in 1782, the beginnings of a law career in 1783, the founding of the Bank of New York in 1784, and participation in the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 – almost certainly did not require that he have risked his life so brazenly. Nor, indeed, did his later service as the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of America. But Hamilton did seem to require in on some personal, emotional level. Like Lee, Gates, and Laurens, his ego seemed inextricably linked to the recognition of others of his martial prowess and the accolades that went with it. Hamilton believed, of course, in the cause for which he was fighting, as his adolescent polemics well attest. But the cause, in the moment, arguably mattered less to him and his comrades in arms than the fight itself. He, and they, wanted to be objects of awe and reverence whose efforts were reflected in the respect tendered to them after the fact. They wanted, in short, to be glorious.