An Address to the People of the State of New-York, on the subject of the Federal Constitution, Part IV: the Glorious Past

In addition to stoking the fears and anxieties of his fellow Americans in order to persuade them to adopt a stronger central government, a tactic ostensibly lacking in nobility, John Jay seemed simultaneously willing to cut through the uncertainty of the post-Revolutionary era by appealing to the pride his countrymen felt in their hard-won independence. The Revolution was but a few years distant as of 1788, and the memory of what had been achieved on the battlefield and in the meeting hall continued to reverberate throughout the embryonic political and social culture of the United States. Names like Washington and Franklin were well on their way to becoming household words, and the events of the Revolution itself were quickly developing an almost mythic quality. Jay’s frequent invocation of the Philadelphia Convention and the men who attended in his 1788 Address is very much emblematic of this rapidly developing trend – many of the Convention delegates having served in the Continental Army, in Congress, or in state government during the trying years of 1775-1781, their dedication and selflessness was considered by many to be beyond reproach.

The specific tack that Jay adopted, far from unfamiliar in 21^st century American political culture, involved calling to mind the sacrifices of the Revolutionary War, the talents and efforts of members of Congress and the Continental Army, and the general success of the federal union during the earliest period of its existence, all with the intention of drawing favorable connections to the subject being discussed. Given the nearness of the Revolution, and the fact that Jay and many of his colleagues (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, etc.) were among its prime movers, this might seem an unusual avenue of argument. The “cult of the Founders” as it now exists has had over two centuries to develop, during which time the men who created the United States have become something akin to mythological figures. But surely, during their lifetimes, this kind of public deification had not yet taken hold?

Well, not exactly. The Founders of the United States, as I have taken pains to assert in the past, were not always the demigods they have been made out to be. In addition to acting in the capacity of philosophers, statesmen, and war heroes, many of them were also career politicians who went on the attack, and were attacked, as often and as viciously as just about any of their 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st century counterparts. Thomas Jefferson, among the most widely and passionately venerated of his colleagues by subsequent generations, was during his life as much hated as he was loved by the American public. The same could be said, to a greater or lesser degree, of just about any of the major figures in the Revolutionary pantheon. Washington, it is true, was rarely the object of popular scorn, but even he was occasionally seen as the flawed, limited, and imperfect human being he truly was. That being said, the Revolution really was a transformative moment for an entire generation of people. Against steep odds, a collection of backwater colonies had united to wrest their independence from one of the most powerful and sophisticated empires in the world. That their insurrection was a success which led to the creation of the world’s first modern republic imbued the events thereof with a significance and a spirit that Americans who had lived through it, both infamous and obscure, widely celebrated as one of the great achievements in world history. Moreover, because the Revolution was a collective accomplishment – a triumph in which all Americans could claim to share – invoking its memory was a broadly applicable and useful tactic, even as early as the late 1780s.

With this in mind, consider Jay’s abridged recounting of the events of the Revolution, found in the fourth paragraph of his 1788 Address. When faced with Parliament’s stubborn determination to levy and collect taxes in the American colonies, he declared,

They sent Delegates to Congress, and soldiers to the field. Confiding in the probity and wisdom of Congress, they received their recommendations as if they had been laws; and that ready acquiescence in their advice enabled those patriots to save their country.

While admirably succinct, this narration radically oversimplifies the process by which a campaign of civil disobedience and peaceful protest evolved into an armed rebellion. It took time for Congress to gain the trust of the American people, and for its advice and recommendations to achieve their full effect. Matters like war and independence were debated at length, and the decisions that resulted were not always unanimous. Indeed, a sizeable percentage of the colonial population remained loyal to the British Crown, refused to recognize the authority of Congress, and came to regard its edicts as tantamount to treason. As Jay would have it, however, Congress and the American people worked at all times in perfect harmony during the struggle for independence. While this may have been a useful characterization of recent American history in 1788 – a reminder to a people in deep disagreement with one another that they had once achieved great things together – it was not a terribly accurate one.  

This narrative overview also glossed over the often contentious relationship that existed between Congress and the various states during the height of the war years in the 1770s. Far from receiving the recommendations of Congress “as if they had been laws,” the state government often wrangled with the national government over limited war resources like provisions, ammunition, and manpower. The results of these struggles often hit the Continental Army the hardest, leaving them ill-fed and outmanned at critical periods during the conflict with Britain. Men like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton experienced this unfortunate outcome of intergovernmental conflict firsthand during their military service, and become early supporters of strengthening the national government as a preventative measure. Jay, their ally in this endeavor, was almost certainly aware of this dimension of his fellow Federalist’s position. Nevertheless, acknowledging the flaws in the American union’s earliest incarnation would not have helped Jay make his case. Greater unity among the states was what the economic and political turmoil of the 1780s demanded, he argued – unity like that which the states had forged in opposition to British tyranny, and which had carried America to victory and independence. That fact that this unity – pristine and unassailable – hadn’t really existed was perhaps beside the point. Jay, savvy conciliator that he was, doubtless understood that he could prevail upon the nostalgia-infused memories of his audience – their rose-tinted impression of what America had been at the time of its bloody, magnificent birth – to far greater effect than if he attempted to remind them of how problematic maintaining the federal union had really been.

This exhortation for his fellow Americans to recapture their former brilliance continued into the fifth paragraph of Jay’s 1788 Address, now melded with a degree of shame-inducing mawkishness. First, however, came the rather blunt introductory sentence, “That glorious war was succeeded by an advantageous peace.” While, again, many people who had lived through the Revolution and then cast their eyes to Jay’s pro-constitutional pamphlet would likely have agree with this portrayal of its character and outcome, it nonetheless grossly oversimplified an often bloody conflict and the settlement that ended it. To describe the war as “glorious,” for one, glosses over the suffering and indignity borne by any number of those involved. There was little glory to be had, for instance, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in the winter of 1777/78, when men in service to the Continental Army were forced to eat their horses and the leather of their boots, and died in scores anyway. Nor was there much to celebrate in the fighting retreat Washington’s forces fought from Long Island, New York to Eastern Pennsylvania (August-November, 1776), or in the massacre of surrendering Continental soldiers committed by British and Loyalist forces at the Battle of Waxhaws (May, 1780). Nevertheless, because the war ultimately ended in success for the colonists, and because that success made it possible for the United States of America to sustain its independence, they were likely inclined to either overlook its darker chapters or reframe them as necessary – one might almost say character-building – sacrifices. The truth, though, is that the Revolutionary War was often a near thing and a dear thing – close and costly, it succeeded thanks to foreign aid and good diplomacy as much as the grit, determination, and martial ability of its American participants.   

            Referring to the Treaty of Paris (1783) as an “advantageous peace” represents a similarly selective perception of the post-Revolutionary War settlement, particular in the context of the late 1780s. Under the terms of the treaty, negotiated in part by then-diplomats John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, the United States was required to acknowledge the rightful owners of all properties captured or confiscated from Loyalists during the war and provide for the restitution of the aggrieved parties. Additional provisions also compelled the American federal and state governments to recognize and honor any debts owed (including to British citizens) and refrain from further confiscating any Loyalist properties subsequent to the treaty coming into force. While the American peace commissioners were able to secure a very generous territorial settlement in exchange for these stipulations, certain state governments nevertheless took to ignoring them over the course of the 1780s. Governor of New York George Clinton, for example, rooted his abiding popularity in an ardent dislike of the state’s sizable Loyalist population. By confiscating the estates of Crown-allied landlords he was able to form the basis of an entire post-war social class of small-scale tenant farmers that quickly became his most loyal supporters. Obeying the terms of the Treaty of Paris would have made such measures impossible. Besides New York, many other states refused to return property seized during the war, compensate former owners, or pay off debts to British subjects. Likely this obstinacy was the result of lingering bitterness over causalities suffered during the war, combined with the reality of having to part with property or capital during a period of economic downturn. Often suffering for a lack of hard currency and poor trade prospects, many states were understandably disinclined to give away what little they had to people who had so recently been their enemies.

Britain, meanwhile, seemed to take a similarly dim view of certain provisions of the treaty. Eager to continue trading with its former colonies in America but disinclined to compete for access to markets or customers for their shipping trade, the British Navy continued to prevent American vessels from transporting produce directly to British colonies in the Caribbean. While an economically rational decision, this desire to continuing enforcing some of the basic provisions of the Navigation Acts (1651, 1660, 1663, 1673, and 1696) called into question the sincerity of Britain’s declared recognition of American independence. In addition, though the Treaty of Paris mandated Britain’s loss of a large swath of territory in what is now the Mid-Western United States, British garrisons remained in place at military posts across the region (including at Fort Detroit, Fort Niagara, Fort Ontario, and Fork Makinac). Eager to protect what remained of their North American possessions in the Great Lakes region, Britain explained this clear contravention of the post-Revolutionary War settlement by claiming that the area was too chaotic to leave unattended (as the Americans surely would, in light of their financial difficulties), that they needed time to dispose of some of their assets before relinquishing control, and that their continued presence in the territory was punishment for Americans’ unwillingness to honor some of their own treaty obligations. In light of this seemingly calculated disregard, and the aforementioned American stubbornness, few observers in the 1780s would seem to have considered the Treaty of Paris a particularly “advantageous peace.”

Nonetheless, John Jay was doubtless inclined to characterize the Revolutionary War and the peace settlement that followed as “glorious” and “advantageous,” respectively, because those descriptors aided him in crafting a narrative of triumph, loss, and redemption. The United States, as he portrayed it, emerged from its baptism of fire a strongly united and blessed country. In spite of the forces arrayed against their success, Americans had forged an indelible bond with one another and successfully brought low the British lion. Thereafter, still infused with the spirit of unity and brotherhood, America had negotiated for itself a place in the world, recognized by Britain and ready to meet the other nations of the world as an equal partner. That this magnificent train of successes had given way in the 1780s to economic hardship, political tension, and interstate conflict was a tragedy to be deeply lamented. “The spirit of private gain expelled the spirit of public good,” Jay accordingly declared in the fifth paragraph of his 1788 Address, “And men became more intent on the means of enriching and aggrandizing themselves, than of enriching and aggrandizing their country.” The “men” and “private gain” he cast a jaundiced eye towards seemingly included the state politicians he believed were eager to keep the federal government weak in order to maintain the untrammelled authority of their own positions, as well as their merchant allies who benefited from the inability of Congress to regulate American trade. Jay evidently believed that their efforts had weakened and impoverished the nation, to the detriment of all those whom the Revolution had liberated, empowered, and given hope.

As a case in point, Jay next provided an example of the depths to which his country had sunk – an almost comically pathetic hard-luck story like something out of the Great Depression. “Hence the war-worn veteran,” he wrote,

Whose reward for toils and wounds existed in written promises, found Congress without the means, and too many of the States without the disposition, to do him justice. Hard necessity compelled him, and other under similar circumstances, to sell their honest claims on the public for a little bread.

While many men who served in the Continental Army did in fact suffer this exact fate once hostilities came to a close and they attempted to collect the salary they were owed, Jay’s depiction of the slighted veteran was likely intended to be allegorical as well as literal. As a symbolic representation of the United States, the Continental soldier had once been a hero, draped in glory and awash in the approbation of his countrymen. In short order, however, due to the indifference and selfishness of those he had served, he had been reduced to the status of derelict. If only his fellow Americans vested their faith in him again – if only they remembered the obligation they owed him, as they owed the federal union for their independence – he might reclaim the heroic mantle he so rightly deserved.

            Without naming any names – for indeed, to invoke something is to give it power – does not this narrative of greatness, loss, and restoration bear an eerie similarity to certain very common themes in contemporary American political discourse? Wasn’t Jay attempting, to some degree, to mythologize recent American history and perpetuate a sense of loss in an effort to spur change? In short, could it not be argued that he was effectively asking his countrymen to help make America great again?

As a shudder runs down your spine, I beg you please to hear me out.

Without necessarily concluding that any who utilize tactics of this kind are following in the hallowed footsteps of the Founders, of that Jay was no better than the populist, glad-handing politicians of the modern era, it once again bear remembering that many of the men who gave birth to the United States of America were, among others things, career politicians themselves. While the intelligence, prudence, and insightfulness of these men are not to be doubted or diminished, it must at once be clearly understood that they were as capable as anyone who takes it upon themselves to shape public opinion of occasionally embracing expediency over integrity. Alexander Hamilton, to cite a notable example, was brilliant man, and hardworking, and ambitious – in spite of some of his less popular ideas about the nature of government, overall a dedicated disciple of American republicanism. That being said, it may have been the case that during a threatened coup by discontented and underpaid members of the Continental Army in March, 1783, Hamilton simultaneously encouraged the leaders of the mutiny while counselling Congress to pressure the states for easier access to tax revenue. In that moment, in spite of the threat to America’s fledgling republican government ostensibly presented by a military insurrection, Hamilton determined that the greater threat lay in not taking advantage of the situation by strengthening the authority of Congress.

Jay’s rhetorical construction of the ratification debate as an opportunity to regain lost glory, while perhaps not as dire as Hamilton’s apparent willingness to undermine his government in order to strengthen it, likely sprung from the same basic impulse. Taking for granted that he understood how complicated the Revolution had actually been – how costly, and how un-glorious in its various aspects – Jay chose to tap into and promote the emerging popular mythology of the American Founding almost certainly because he believed doing so would give him the best chance of convincing his countrymen to support the proposed federal constitution. The United States was in a bad way, he knew better than most – the economy was in a slump, many states refused to cooperate with Congress, and the nation’s international reputation was virtually non-existent. Some manner of drastic solution was necessary, Jay and his cohorts believed, and in time to prevent the states from further degenerating into mutual antagonism and formal separation. Whether this position accurately reflected the facts of life in the United States remains a topic of lively debate; plain enough, however, was that men like John Jay, James Madison, and George Washington endorsed it and acted accordingly. They did not perhaps always act as valiantly as they might have wished, or as they might have pretended, but their intentions were hardly sinister. 

All the same – I don’t care how many times I repeat myself – it is extremely important to be able to recognize these less-valiant actions for what they were. By portraying the Revolution as the unassailable pinnacle of America’s glory, the years that followed as the demise of that glory, and the Constitution as a means of recapturing it, Jay was perpetuating a myth. Perhaps the great irony of this approach – Jay reacting to the strained circumstances of the post-Revolutionary era by perpetuating a false image of squandered glory – is that Jay was likely more aware than the majority of his fellow Americans that the Revolution itself was a relatively tenuous affair. Rather than having fallen from grace, the states had merely lost the common foe whose presence had proved just distracting enough to mask the anxieties that bubbled below the surface during those first shaky years of independence. In truth, the Revolutionary War was not glorious, the peace that followed was not particularly advantageous, and the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, though many had served their country with distinction, were not wholly above reproach. Those of the proposed constitution’s critics who had served in Congress, or the Army, or their state assembly during the Revolution doubtless knew this themselves, and would have eagerly castigated Jay for such emotionally manipulative tactics if given the chance. The question of whether or not to adopt a new form of government for the United States of America was about as important a decision as any American had ever, or perhaps would ever, take part in. Reason was called for, not rank sentimentality. Tweaking the pride of a people who had just succeeded in a tremendous struggle against an implacable foe betrayed no greater intellectual honesty that appealing to their fear or anxiety.

This may seem like a rather harsh judgement to place at Jay’s feet, but it is an apt one. An American politician in the 21^st century who attempted to introduce and perpetuate a similar narrative for the purpose of stirring up the emotions of the voting public would be no more guilty than the author of An Address to the People of the State of New-York of misleading people while asking for their trust. The difference between them, in terms of popular perception, is that modern politicians are expected to lie while the Founders are expected to be perfect. This, I most strongly assert, is a false contrast. Sometimes the Founders lied. Sometimes the Founders misled the public. Sometimes the Founders made a situation seem worse than it was, or better than it was, in pursuit of their professional objectives. This revelation should not diminish their significance, pollute their wisdom, or hinder the ability of subsequent generations to find inspiration in their words and deeds. It should, however, promote a degree of caution in those who do seek to draw encouragement from the Founders to read their words carefully, think about the context in which they were written, and never, ever assume that they were anything more than human.