Recalling that there didn’t seem to be any clear equivalent to the character of Cato in the time and place in which Addison wrote and was commenting upon, it would seem to bear come consideration whether or not the late-18th century American context offered a ready candidate in the same way it seemed to for the figure of prince Juba. To put this thought more clearly in the form of a question, was there an American Cato in the 1770s, and if so, who were they? The answer, as ever, rather depends on who is being asked.
Statesmen like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin would likely have answered that there was not such figure, though Franklin might privately have fancied that he personally came closest. To these men, the American struggle for independence from Great Britain was not about singular leadership or individual ideals. They had not pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the service of one man, but to each other. And while Franklin, again, may have taken some amount of pride in the fact that he was one of the most famous living Americans, that he had been previously regarded by the British as representative of his countrymen’s values and opinions, and that the French had come to see him as a kind of symbolic avatar of the American struggle, even he would not have called himself the leader of the Revolution. An important voice, perhaps, a man of consequence, but not the leader. The Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, one George Washington, would most definitely have been of like mind with his colleagues in Congress, notwithstanding his position as the most senior officer in the armed forces of the Continental Congress and the maneuvering which he engaged in to maintain that position. Indeed, he would likely have been among the last people to acknowledge the superior qualities and fitness for leadership of any one man, let alone to imagine himself in such a role. Whatever he thought about his own abilities in private, Washington’s public persona was too closely identified with traits like humility, prudence, and restraint for him to ever dream of grasping the role of great man, avatar, or symbol for himself. If such things came to him, so be it. He would ward them off, but not reject them. He was ever at the service of his fellow man, and they could make of him what they would.
Not everyone supportive of American independence from Great Britain, mind you, was as scrupulous as the gentlemen named above when it came to identifying their chosen cause with the behavior and values of a particular individual. Farmers in the countryside, laborers in the cities, shopkeepers in villages, and merchant sailors at sea all probably needed some kind of singular figure with which to identify their struggles and convictions, being all of them variously educated and not always particularly adept at grasping the often abstract philosophical concepts that Congress was attempting to promote. The idea of the social contract and the right of a free people to revolt – as originated by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1769), refined by John Locke (1632-1704), and deployed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence – was absolutely a key ideological underpinning of the American Revolution, but not everyone living in the Thirteen Colonies was equipped to understand the implications of these concepts without some exemplary living figure around which they could rally. Dry philosophical theory was one thing, relevant though it may be to the situation at hand, but a man who embodies the ideals in question, and who seeks to enact them in his every word and deed with a certain quality of charisma, can go a long way towards encouraging others to follow the same path. Just so, the common soldiers and many of the younger officers then serving in the aforementioned Continental Army were similarly inclined to connect the values for which they were ostensibly fighting with a specific individual in a position of leadership. Doubtless, this was in large part due to the essential nature of military life. Formal hierarchies encourage obedience, shared suffering breeds loyalty, and most command structures vest paramount authority in a single position at the top. As to whom these common folk and common soldiers almost universally identified as their inspiration and their savior – their “Cato,” as it were – the answer is both completely understandable and deeply ironic. It was none other than the aforementioned George Washington.
The reason that this was such an ironic choice, again, was that it cut directly against the public persona that Washington had long evinced. The master of Mount Vernon would have been among the last people in the world to have read Addison’s Cato – a play of which he was reportedly quite fond and from which he quoted quite often – and identified himself with the titular protagonist. Cato, recall, spend much of the drama that bears his name being spoken about in the most glowing terms imaginable by his colleagues, family, and allies. He is often called great, at least once he is called godlike, and his death is referred to with all sincerity by his surviving son Portius as an unparalleled tragedy. George Washington would never have considered himself worthy of such accolades, nor dreamed that under any circumstances that his countrymen would offer them freely. No doubt he saw in Cato – as Addison surely intended – an inspirational figure whose virtues he would gladly aspire to in all aspects of his life. But a mirror of himself? A presage of things to come? Never. Washington simply wasn’t that guy. This humility, of course, formed a large part of what endeared him to his legions of devotees, and so keenly fitted him to play the role of America’s Cato. By never outwardly seeking after fame, he showed himself to be deserving of just that. But claiming as his fondest wish that he be permitted only to serve his countrymen, he inspired others to render faithful service to him in turn. And by requesting, at long last, nothing more in exchange for his efforts than an obscure and peaceful retirement, he validated his selection as the single-most powerful official in the nascent American republic. Was this self-conscious on Washington’s part? Was he knowingly trying to play the part of Cato in the drama that was the American founding? Quite possibly, it was. Quite possibly, he was.
Consider, by way of example, some of the things that Cato said over the course of the play which bears his name as compared to some of what was publicly expressed by Washington over the course of his military and political career. When attempting, in Act 2, Scene I, to convince his fellow Senator, Lucius, that the time had not yet come to surrender to the approaching forces of Caesar, for example, Cato famously declared that, “A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty, / Is worth a whole eternity of bondage.” What he meant by this, of course, is that freedom is too precious a thing to dispense with until the last possible moment, and that being robbed of it in the long term is worth cherishing it in the short term. While Washington never expressed himself in quite the same way as Cato, he gave voice to much the same sentiment to fellow Virginia planter George William Fairfax (1724-1787) in a letter dated May 31st, 1775. “Unhappy it is though to reflect,” the latter therein observed,
That a Brother's Sword has been
sheathed in a Brother's breast, and that, the once happy and peaceful
plains of America are either to be drenched with Blood, or Inhabited by Slaves.
Sad alternative! But can a virtuous Man hesitate in his choice?”
Though the words
may differ, Washington’s meaning is just that of Cato’s. However unpleasant the
consequence may ultimately be when one stands fast to defend the liberty that
is their birthright, what choice can there be but to defend it? Bloodshed may
be the result. Defeat may be the result. But as long as liberty yet retains
some hope of survival – for but a day, or even an hour – then, “A whole
eternity of bondage” is worth the risk of saving it. Cato and Washington are
thus united in their shared conviction – or Washington is united with one his
literary heroes –that even the possibility of freedom gives value to the worst
kind of suffering.
Further similarities arise when one compares the two men’s attitudes towards soldiers under their command who feel as though they have been ill-used. Addressing a group of mutinous legionaries ostensibly pledged to his service in Act 3, Scene II, Cato comes up rather short of being the soul of forgiveness. “Perfidious men!” he laments,
And will you thus dishonour
Your past exploits, and sully all your wars!
[…]
Behold, ungrateful men,
Behold my bosom naked to your swords,
And let the man that’s injured strike the blow.
Which of you all suspects he is wrong’d
Or thinks he suffers greater ills than Cato? Am I
distinguished from you but by toils,
Superior
toils, and heavier weight of care? / Painful pre-eminence!
The emotions which Cato here gives vent to would seem to be a
combination of disappointment and frustration. On one hand, he is troubled that
men who have thus far performed their duties faithfully and well – who have
acquitted themselves in Cato’s eyes as good soldiers and good citizens of Rome
– should decide to besmirch their collective reputation for diligent service by
suddenly deciding to act of out purest self-interest. It is, to one such as
Addison’s hero, an exceedingly distasteful turn. And on the other hand, having
marched, and toiled, and risked death alongside these same men through any
number of battles and hardships, Cato is understandably irritated at being
accused of having used them to his own advantage. “I have been beside you all
along,” he tells them, “Bearing the same adversities as you, and with the
additional weight of all of your lives upon my conscience. And you think you
have somehow been mistreated? How am I to respond to such ingratitude?”
Washington,
speaking to the soldiers of the Continental Army encamped at Newburgh, New York
in the spring of 1783, expressed a similar mixture of disappointment and
frustration when it came to his attention that certain of their number were
planning to march on Congress and essentially extort their promised pensions.
Granted, his tone was somewhat less heated than Cato’s – nor, for that matter,
did he have the accused immediately sentenced to death – but he nevertheless
touched on very similar ideas. For example, in light of the services thus far
rendered by the membership of the Continental Army, the Commander-in-Chief of
the same requested that the alleged conspirators therein, “Not to take any measures which, viewed in the calm light of reason,
will lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained [.]” Like
Cato, Washington was troubled that men who had thus far rendered good and noble
service should be willing to cast aside the honor they had earned over a
relatively minor disappointment. Later on in the same address, Washington
arguably gave voice to another of Cato’s sentiments when he made a point of
reminding the soldiers stationed at Newburgh that he should not have been
thought of as unsympathetic to their hardships. “But as I was among the first
who embarked in the cause of our common country,” he noted accordingly,
As I have never left your side one
moment, but when called from you on public duty [,] As I have been the constant
companion and witness of your distresses, and not among the last to feel and
acknowledge your merits [,] As I have ever considered my own military reputation
as inseparably connected with that of the army [,] As my heart has ever
expanded with joy, when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has
arisen, when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can
scarcely be supposed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indifferent to
its interests.
Again, though
Washington adopted a much softer tone than Cato when presented with a similar
set of circumstances, the significance of what he says is essentially the same.
Like his literary hero, the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army was
frustrated – in his own quiet, self-effacing way – that the soldiers under his
command should have thought themselves so ill-used by their leaders that they
felt the need to separate themselves from the man who had suffered at theirs
sides since 1775. “Have I not always been with you?” Washington asks them.
“Have I not always kept your interests close to my heart? And this is how you
act?”
There would also seem to be a common
subtext to each of the complaints levelled by Cato and Washington, though
neither man gave voice to it. The honor of these men was reflected in the
behavior of the soldiers under their command. When the soldiers acted
selfishly, this cast shame upon those who led them. Cato, who was trying to
uphold the integrity of the ancient Roman Constitution against the overawing
power at the disposal of one Julius Caesar, was understandably disconcerted
when some of the soldiers who had ostensibly pledged themselves to his cause
suddenly showed themselves to be as selfish as any conqueror. Likewise, it was
entirely justifiable for Washington, who was attempting to secure the
independence of the American people from callous British authorities, to be
somewhat bothered when the men whose interests he was attempting to promote
acted as though their only concern was whether and how much they were paid for
their services. What did such behavior on the part of fighting men say about
their leaders? Why shouldn’t a given observer have concluded that these men
learned their rapaciousness from those who commanded them? Both Cato and
Washington had essentially staked their respective reputations – nay, their
very lives – on the success of those they led into battle and on the manner in
which they conducted themselves. It was thus only natural that the
fictionalized Roman statesman and his later American admirer should have
reacted as they did. Not only were the relevant mutineers potentially
besmirching the cause for which they claimed to fight, but they were calling
into question the virtue of the men who led them.
The extent to which this sense of personal
virtue mattered to the individuals in question provides another point of
commonality between the literary Cato and the real-life George Washington. Cato,
having been much dismayed by the aforementioned attempted mutiny depicted in Act
3, Scene II, shortly thereafter exhorts all within earshot to,
Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights,
The gen’rous plan of power delivered down
From age to age by your renown’d forefathers,
(So dearly bought, the price of so much blood:)
Oh, let it never perish in your hands! But piously
transmit it to your children.
Having been given, but a moment before, some reason to doubt the
sincerity of those who claim to share his convictions, Cato thus attempts to
make it plain to all concerned both what it is he values and what it is they
should value. The conflict at hand weighs heavily on the opponents of Caesar,
to be sure. They’ve lost more battles than they’ve won and have spent untold
days and weeks marching across the Libyan desert to an uncertain fate at Utica.
But while Cato is not dismissive of these hardships – indeed, he reminds the
treacherous soldiers that he has shared in every one of them – he does attempt
to contextualize them against the principal cause for which they were endured.
“Yes,” he admits,” we have all suffered. “Only remember what we have suffered
for.”
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