American Heroes (26 page)

Before deciding that Beecher was right in general if wrong in particular, one should consider the fact that Beecher, like the authors of the contemporary letters, formed his impressions as a student. Fifty years later he remembered how he felt as a student, and there can be no doubt that the students at Yale gave Dwight an enthusiastic reception. Historians, most of whom teach in colleges and universities, know something at first hand of student fashions and student enthusiasms. Students as a class are surely fickle. Few historians, I believe, would be ready to turn over the choice of a college president, or even of a faculty member, to their students.

Unhappily when historians read the letters of an eighteenth-century student, they do not always employ the same perspective. The expiring condition of the college church and a debate on the divinity of the Scriptures assume a different significance when placed in the context of what came before and what came after. By examining a larger number of student letters, we may gain a similar perspective on them. It is not even necessary to read very far in order to observe the rapidity with which student feeling vibrated from enthusiasm to discontent and back again.

The most enthusiastic letter about the improved morale of the college under Timothy Dwight was written by Timothy Bishop to Thomas Robbins on January 11, 1796. Within three months Bishop had begun to cool off. When he wrote to Robbins again on April 14, 1796, he said that things were still, on the whole, going well, “but there are some individuals in the class who are very negligent in their studies and likewise in their attendance upon the exercises of College more so I believe than they ever have hitherto been. Day after day and week after week will pass away when these persons will scarcely look into a book or attend once upon the exercises of college.” Benjamin Silliman, who had written his mother so happily in December 1795, had a different story on July 4, 1796:

Similar alternations of sentiment could be cited from almost any student correspondence. Mills Day on July 12, 1802, writes his brother Jeremiah of the great religious revival at Yale and of his own thoughts of joining the church; but by December 24, 1802, he says,

By this time both the students and the faculty seem to have lost the zeal for study that prevailed in the first months under Dwight. In the same letter Mills Day writes, “We recite lessons but four or five times in a week. The rest of our time is spent in writing, attending the other collegiate exercises, or in such other employment as we chose to be engaged in. Altho' we have no less than five professors appointed to instruct us in the various branches of science we enjoy the benefit of none of them at present.”

Twenty years earlier or twenty years later, student correspondence tells much the same story. Jedidiah Morse wrote his parents from Yale on August 21, 1781, “since I have been a member of College prospects were never more promising, pleasant, and agreeable; a laudable ambition prevails; Virtue and Piety flourish; and Literature is in its Meridian splendor.” On January 6, 1782, however, “Religion in this otherwise flourishing society is at a low ebb—I wish it was in my power to inform you otherwise….” By the following August 1782, college had been disturbed by the revelation of student debauchery too shocking for Morse to describe, but on June 20, 1783, a “Seriousness considerable prevails in College—one we hope is happily converted. God only knows how far it may spread.” This was the beginning of the religious revival of that year.

College authorities learned to take these sudden shifts in their stride. Ezra Stiles was not unaware in 1795 of the low student morale that Beecher remembered, nor was he complacent about it. But Stiles knew what Beecher did not, that this kind of thing was part of any college president's life. On February 12, 1795, three months before his death, Stiles wrote to Professor Eliphalet Pearson of Harvard in saner words than Beecher or any other student could have used: “Our college has been in a Tumult, nor is yet calm, altho' I hope we are quieting. The abolition of the Winter vacation by the Corporation last fall, has occasioned it. But we shall get along. I hope matters are tranquil at Harvard.”

The fact is that neither student recollections nor student letters can furnish an accurate guide to the condition of a college. Lyman Beecher remembered that student morale was bad at the time that Stiles died and that it improved when Dwight took over. His memory played tricks on him in providing details to substantiate the impression, but the impression itself was correct. What Beecher could not have understood was that morale would probably have picked up under the continued ministrations of Ezra Stiles as readily as it did under those of Dwight.

There remains the testimony of Matthew Dutton and Gardiner Spring, but these men may be quickly dismissed. Both were writing eulogies of Dwight after his death in 1817, and though they knew Dwight in his later years, they did not know Stiles. Dutton had been only twelve years old and a resident of Watertown, Connecticut, at the time when Stiles died and Dwight became president in 1795. Dutton did not enter Yale until he was twenty-three, in 1806. Gardiner Spring was ten years old in 1795 and a resident of Newburyport, Massachusetts. He did not enter Yale until 1800. Both Spring and Dutton therefore spoke from hearsay. Neither knew at first hand what he was talking about.

But is it not remarkable that two men speaking from hearsay (Dutton and Spring) and one (Beecher) speaking from memory, perhaps overlaid with hearsay, should have recorded the same impression, that Ezra Stiles was incompetent, especially as an opponent of infidelity, and that Dwight was competent and inspiring? Where did this unanimous impression come from? Could it have arisen entirely from the faulty perspective of students?

No final answer is possible here. But having seen more substantial evidence dissolve under scrutiny, we may perhaps be permitted to speculate about this. We know that there was no love lost between Stiles and Dwight. The details of the feud are hard to get at because the crucial documents have been lost or destroyed, but we know that they disliked each other. We know also that a change took place in the religious atmosphere of New England during the years when Dwight was president of Yale. Whether or not Dwight had anything to do with it, there was a great revival of religion about the turn of the century. We know that Dwight fancied himself as a crusader against infidelity. He would hardly have been averse to taking credit for the awakening.

We know also that from an early date Dwight opposed the French Revolution, while Stiles went to his grave in 1795 still confident that the French had ushered in a new era of freedom. We know that Dwight, like most of the New England clergy, became an ardent Federalist, while Stiles gave every sign of gravitating toward the Jeffersonians. We know that Dwight looked on all supporters of Jefferson and all supporters of the French Revolution as infidels; he even propagated the rumor, which was utterly false, that a secret society of deists, linked with the French Jacobins, was seeking the overthrow of government in the United States.

Under these circumstances is it not likely that Dwight thought Stiles was soft on deism, indeed soft in every way? Is it not likely that in discussing Stiles with friends and protégés Dwight conveyed precisely the impression that prevailed with Dutton, Spring, and Beecher? Even if he did not, would it be surprising if these men remembered the change that took place in New England around 1800 and associated it with the change from Stiles to Dwight? Memory has played stranger tricks.

What, then, have we proved? Not that Ezra Stiles was a great man and a great Christian, or that Timothy Dwight was not—merely that the most positive evidence will sometimes take on a different meaning when placed in its proper context. We may also have shown that a man who values his historical reputation had better outlive his enemies. It is time, I think, to reopen the case of Stiles vs. Dwight and to judge the two men, not by what students thought of them at a particular time, not by what they thought of each other, and not by what old men remembered of them, but by their actual achievements. We may in the end decide that Dwight was the bigger man, but if so it will not be because Stiles plunged Yale into a chaos of infidelity from which Dwight rescued it. Whatever Timothy Dwight's achievements—and they were many—no good evidence has yet been offered to show that this was one of them.

—1958

F
OR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS,
while reading the papers of Benjamin Franklin, I have found myself continually comparing him to George Washington. Superficially the two did not resemble each other at all. We remember Washington as a commanding presence, massively dignified, preoccupied with his awesome responsibilities, not given to small talk, with agreeable manners but formal in his graciousness, not someone you would feel quite comfortable to spend an evening with at home. Nor, you sense, would
he
have felt quite comfortable with you. Franklin, on the other hand, we picture as a bit casual in appearance, easygoing, always ready with a joke, clubbable, someone you
would
feel comfortable with, making small talk and serious talk as well, over a convivial bottle or punch bowl.

There is no record that the two of them ever spent a social evening together, and it is unlikely that they did, though they did meet on more than one occasion. But without much personal contact they maintained an extraordinary admiration and respect for each other, evident in their correspondence, which was mostly official, occasioned by the offices they held. One of the few examples of a purely personal letter was Washington's last letter to Franklin, the year before Franklin died. “If,” Washington wrote, “to be venerated for benevolence: If to be admired for talents: If to be esteemed for patriotism: if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain” (September 23, 1789). At the time Franklin received this letter, he had just written in his will, “My fine crab-tree walking stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of a cap of liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a Sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it.”

But a scepter, even with a liberty cap on it, was not what either man would have wanted for himself or his country. Despite their different personalities, they were united in their dedication to keeping scepters out of the hands of power. How Franklin arrived at his rejection of monarchy is easier to understand than Washington's. Franklin spent sixteen years in London, trying in vain to make a monarchical government recognize its own best interests in its dealings with its colonies. By the time he returned to America in 1775, he had lost all patience with monarchy. Washington in Virginia had not had such intimate contact with the ways of kings. Nor can we say that he was guided like Thomas Jefferson by reading books. He was not much influenced by abstract thinkers about political philosophy, nor was he much given to egalitarian sentiments about the lower classes, whether slave or free. His personal opposition to British rule, by his own account written in 1774, began from “an innate spirit of freedom” that rejected British measures toward America as “repugnant to every principle of natural justice.” How the mind of this Virginia aristocrat traveled from outrage over British policies toward the American colonies to a positive belief in independent republican government is not plain from his surviving writings. But travel it did.

For him as for Franklin, the American Revolution became more than a matter of righteous resistance against violations of natural justice. That was how it began. Then it became a war for independence. And the war for independence itself became much more than that. For both men independence came to mean a demonstration that a people could govern itself without submission to a king, a demonstration that republican government could prosper in a world that scorned it. Hitherto republics had been thought suitable only for small countries, not worth the trouble of annexation by a monarchy, but ineffectual in government because the people could never agree on anything important, least of all on waging war. For some Americans independence meant simply the creation of thirteen small republics, improbably associated for the purpose of defeating their former monarch. But for Washington and Franklin, as for many other leaders of the Revolution, the people who joined in declaring independence were one people. They were creating something new in the world: a great republic, a republic on a continental scale. Washington led an American army, a continental army. He took his orders from a Continental Congress. Franklin led an American diplomatic mission and took his orders from the same Continental Congress. While Washington remained a Virginian and Franklin a Pennsylvanian, both were first of all Americans, engaged in establishing an American republic. In a phrase later used by Alexander Hamilton, both men “thought continentally.”

Unfortunately they were both a little ahead of their time. Not all Americans could think continentally, except in short intervals. Many retained a greater allegiance to their miniature republics than to the great republic. Washington and Franklin in their respective positions had to marshal the forces of a continental republic against the powers of their former monarch. In doing so, however, they had to contend at the same time with people who thought provincially, the petty politicians ensconced in the governments of thirteen republics, and with the tunnel vision of the representatives whom those little republics too often sent to a supposedly Continental Congress. Washington had to win the war with men who were ill fed, ill clothed, ill armed, and ill housed because the states barred Congress from levying taxes and then failed to levy enough themselves. These state governments wanted to wage war on the cheap. They did not have the nerve to ask their people to pay as you go for the war they were conducting. To feed, clothe, and arm Washington's army, Franklin had to borrow from the French in amounts far in excess of what he and Washington believed that their countrymen could have paid from their own pockets. On top of that, the states borrowed for themselves, sending envoys to Europe to compete for the loans that Franklin was seeking for the United States. “I cannot but observe,” Franklin complained from Paris, “that the Agents from our different States running all over Europe begging to borrow Money at high Interest, has given such an Idea of our Poverty and Distress, as has excedingly hurt the general Credit, and made the Loan for the United States almost impracticable.”

Washington faced a similar competition from the separate states in recruiting for the Continental army. Just as the states offered higher interest for loans than they would authorize the Continental Congress to pay, many of them offered higher bounties for enlistment in their militias than they would authorize Congress to grant for the Continental army. In 1776, as the terms of enlistment ran out, Washington, desperately trying to hold his army together, was faced with persuading men to reenlist who knew, he acknowledged, “that their Townsmen and Companions are receiving 20, 30, and more Dollars, for a few months Service” in their state militias. Remaining loyal to Washington meant longer service for less pay. And while Franklin was bargaining to buy ships for a United States navy, South Carolina elevated a sleazy politician to the office of state commodore and sent him to France to outbid Franklin for an autonomous South Carolina fleet. Washington and Franklin had reason to say with a later American president, “I can deal with my enemies, but my friends, my goddamn friends!”

The two men nevertheless succeeded. If it can be said that any two men made the American republic, they conspicuously did. Not so conspicuous is a talent that these two very different men shared, a talent that enabled them to accomplish what they did where others might have failed.

It was the talent for getting things done by not doing the obvious, a talent for recognizing when
not
doing something was better than doing it, even when doing it was what everyone else wanted. It was a talent easily mistaken for laziness, indecision, irresponsibility, or even cowardice. Franklin's exercise of it struck John Adams as mere laziness and irresponsibility. When Adams belatedly joined the legation in Paris, Franklin's easygoing ways had already won formal recognition of American independence in a treaty of amity and commerce, while he was talking the French into loan after loan and gift after gift of money and supplies. Adams took a quick look and saw only chaos. “I found,” he wrote, “that the Business of our Commission would never be done unless I did it. The life of Dr. Franklin was a Scene of continual Discipation.” And Adams proceeded to
do
things that antagonized the French, nearly spoiling Franklin's carefully crafted inactivity. At home Washington's similar inactivity called forth charges of incompetence and timidity as a general because he did not start battles he could not win, while waiting and watching for those he could. An impatient Congress was full of detractors who wanted him replaced, as there were also proposals that Franklin be recalled in favor of more energetic men.

Both men knew the risks they took in not doing what others wanted them to do. It was not that they did not care what others thought of them. Quite the opposite. Both men cared enormously about their reputations, about their honor. Their deliberate refusals to do things, employed to great advantage in serving their country, originated in a personal ambition to gain honor and reputation of a higher order than most people aspired to. Several historians in studies of Washington have emphasized his eagerness to project the best possible image of himself. One book, by Paul Longmore, is entitled
The Invention of George Washington
, the inventor being Washington himself. Washington was highly conscious of how his actions and inactions would color his reputation.

The same was true of Franklin. As a young man in Philadelphia, he found it easier to get things done by seeming not to do them. Whenever he wanted to propose some civic scheme, like a public library, he contrived to keep himself in the background, giving credit to a number of anonymous friends. His
Autobiography
advised others to adopt the same self-effacing method. “The present little Sacrifice of your Vanity will afterwards be amply repaid,” he counseled. “If it remains a while uncertain to whom the Merit belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be encourag'd to claim it, & then even Envy will be dispos'd to do you Justice, by plucking those assum'd Feathers, & restoring them to their right Owner.” By the same reasoning Franklin never issued a public defense of his theories of electricity derived from his experiments. When would-be scientists challenged them, he was content to let his discoveries make their own way, as they quickly did. He became a world-famous scientist, in part at least, because he would
not
defend his breakthroughs as the personal achievements that they actually were.

What Franklin and Washington understood was the distinction between fame and vanity. They both wanted fame but knew that they would not get it by doing things that showed how much they craved it. They counted instead on really deserving it, and that meant
not
taking attractive shortcuts to it. On one level it was simply a matter of personal style. Franklin did not cut a good figure at the podium and never made a single significant or memorable public speech. He did
not
have a commanding presence and had a positive genius for working behind the scenes.

Washington shared Franklin's aversion to ostentation and officiousness, but Washington did have an aura of command and could not avoid commanding, either as a general of the army or as president of the United States. Nor did he underestimate the importance of looks. Franklin could afford to dress negligently (how the French doted on his “Quaker” garb and coonskin cap) and keep in the background. Washington had to remain in the foreground and had to look the part of a born commander. His uniforms were gorgeous, and he was always splendidly mounted. I believe he was sincere in his often expressed wish to live as a private gentleman at Mount Vernon. But that was not an option for him. He had continually to be in public and in command. The position of command in a republic, and particularly in a republic as large as the United States, required a keen sensitivity to what needed doing and what must not be done.

It was much more difficult for Washington than for Franklin. Franklin in France was a beggar, albeit a well-connected one. Washington in America was in charge, surrounded by supplicants. If he had held a scepter, if he had been a monarch or a tyrant, the decision whether or not to do things would have been simpler, but in a republic the people were the ultimate source of law and power as well as reputation. A commander had to decide what was in the people's best interests, and weigh the demands that were not. At the same time, when the demands were made by their formally elected representatives, he was bound by them, even when the government was as weak, hapless, and shortsighted as the Continental Congress.

Washington had to face the problem most painfully in the war for independence. The army Washington was up against not only had superiority in soldiers and guns; it also had generals who could make strategic and tactical decisions in the field without having to worry about the popularity of what they did. The people who might criticize them were three thousand miles away. Washington had to make strategic and tactical decisions that would outwit the enemy but at the same time satisfy popular demand and popular expectations. To ignore what the people expected of him would have been to give up the whole enterprise to which he had committed himself. He had to walk a thin line between doing what was necessary to win the war and doing what the people's representatives kept asking him to do. When he could comply without seriously jeopardizing his plans, he did, but the ultimate success of the republic depended on his knowing when to say no. He knew what the country needed: an army enlisted for long enough to turn out soldiers and have them ready to strike against the enemy when opportunities arose. Instead, he had for the first years of the war to command a half-formed soldiery that was always disappearing as the terms of enlistment expired. He could ask Congress for what he wanted, but he could not demand it.