#419： American Honor — Creating the Nation's Ideals During the Revolution
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode, historian Craig Bruce Smith argues that while economic and political principles all played roles in the American Revolution, there is one big thing underlying all the causes of the war that often gets overlooked: honor. His new book, American Honor: The Creation of the Nation's Ideal During the Revolutionary Era, explores the transformation of the concept of honor in America during the colonial period.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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What started the American Revolution? Well, the typical high school history answer we give
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is taxation without representation and the economic and political consequences that came
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with that. My guest today argues that while economic and political principles all played
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roles in the American Revolution, there's one big thing underlying all the causes of the
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Revolutionary War that often gets overlooked, honor. His name is Craig Bruce Smith. He's
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a historian and the author of the new book, American Honor, the creation of the nation's
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ideals during the Revolutionary Era. Today on the show, we talk about what honor looked
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like in America during the colonial period, how that concept changed, and how this shift
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precipitated the War of Independence. We then explore how personal affronts to honor experienced
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by several of the founding fathers at the hands of the British, transferred into a feeling
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of being slighted as a people, galvanizing a collective sense of honor in the colonies
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and inspiring the fight for independence. We then discuss the role honor played in Benedict
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Arnold's treason and how his treachery spurred colonial Americans to go on to win the war.
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We end our conversation discussing why the sons of the Revolutionary Era turned to a more
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traditional ethos of honor in the form of dueling. This show will give you fresh insights
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on the founding of America. After it's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash American Honor.
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Thanks for having me. A big fan of all your articles and podcasts on honor.
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Hey, well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Well, you got a book out called American
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Honor, the creation of the nation's ideals during the Revolutionary Era. I love this book.
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It talks about the transformation of the concept of honor during the Revolutionary Era. We're
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going to get to what that transformation looked like, but what got you exploring this topic?
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Because it is very niche and people don't really write about, or professors don't really write
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about honor anymore. Oh, and that's a great point. Let me start off by saying whenever you
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mentioned my book and the word love at the start, I'm really excited by that. But you're right. It is a
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topic that really isn't discussed. It's certainly not in academia much anymore. I mean, a number of
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your guests write on it, but it's relatively small. But I think it has been dismissed as sort of a niche
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topic, but I don't think it actually is. So I've always been interested in the Revolution, and I've
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been interested in ethical questions. And I'm also interested in the causes of the Revolution. And lots of
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recent historians have sort of gotten away from this. They don't ask, you know, what caused the
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Revolution or what resulted. In fact, some historians have concluded, well, there's nothing
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left to know. And I think that's a problem. The idea is, I was always interested in ethical
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questions. And the idea was there was no ethical history of the Revolution. There was no study that
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really looked at honor in the Revolution. So where did I get interested in this? Probably, I had to say,
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it dates back to when I was an undergraduate in college. And round about the same time,
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three books came out. Joanne Freeman's Affairs of Honor, Caroline Cox's A Proper Sense of Honor,
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and Judith on Buskirk's Generous Enemies. And they all talked about honor in different perspectives.
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And that's what really got me interested in it as a sort of, as a topic. And then going to graduate
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school is really my thinking was clarified. Bertram White-Brown wrote Southern Honor. But what I really
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wanted to do is go back to this mindset of what caused the American Revolution and then
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a new perspective on honor, which has been dismissed in many respects as something negative or toxic or
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elitist or racist or sexist. Yes, this is, I think it's really interesting what caused the
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Revolution. We often think like, well, you know, it was the Stamp Act. It was the sugar tax. It was
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the, you know, all those things. But like, and it's like taxation with their representation, but
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we'll get into this later. It was like, really, it wasn't those things as like,
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the colonists felt like the British were just snubbing them. And they were upset about that.
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No, you're absolutely right. I mean, not to say that, you know, it wasn't taxation without
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representation and all these other issues. And they talk about them. They 100% do.
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But if you go back to the original primary sources, before they mentioned that, they're talking about
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honor. They're talking about how they feel slighted and that these were just manifestations
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of the slight. So it wasn't the money. It wasn't the tax in and of itself. It's what it said. And
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honor and taxation have had a long history. And the fact, if you're taxed without your say,
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the idea was you were the same as a conquered people. And therefore, you were people inherently
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without honor. So I think it's, this is a very valid point.
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All right. Well, we'll get into that some more. So let's start with about the transformation here.
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So before we get to what American honor became, what was the concept of honor like before the
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revolution? So like, we're talking colonial days. What was the concept?
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And the concept of honor is, as you know, from, from all your work on this is, is very old. And
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colonial honor was not that different from its European counterparts. So it's an Anglo-American
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concept, very much based on birth, very much the older style of honor as, as valor, bravery is
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reputation, very much the public sort of component of, you know, that you, if you needed others to
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recognize your honor, very much a top down as is common in all monarchical systems.
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So there wasn't that much different from the American concept of honor and, and these,
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the English concept, and we'll say a colonial American. What's one of the fundamental differences
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though, if there, if you start to see sort of elements underlying, what's going to happen is
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you don't have the, as regimented a class system in the colonies as you do in England. Obviously
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there are only a few titled aristocrats. And because of that, you start to see undercurrents of this and
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also lots of different religions and dissenting religious traditions that also play a role. But
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by and large, before the revolution, American or colonial American honor is, is really not
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different from English honor. So when did the transformation start happening? Like when you
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look at the primary source documents, like when do you start seeing like, well, first off, like what
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did it democratized as one thing? So like more people laid claim to honor. We can talk about some
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examples of that, but I mean, besides that, what were the other, what was the other change?
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You start subtly seen before the revolutionary war. Now, what's interesting is when we look at
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people like specifically look at a Benjamin Franklin, we see a change very early on, as early
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as the 1720s. For others like George Washington, we only see a change round about the French and
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Indian war. By and large, for most Americans, you start to see a change around the French and Indian
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war era. But Franklin in the 1720s starts talking about a concept he calls a
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ascending honor. And the idea being in a sort of monarchical aristocratic traditional system, you
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have honor based on your parents. So if your father is XYZ, then you inherit from there. Franklin
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reverses that. And this is largely because he is as he'll he'll joke, he's the youngest son of the youngest
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son for five generations back, he was someone that would have been completely marginalized by honor.
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And he reverses this, the idea that honor is due to the person who behaves honorably, and in turn,
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the person who taught them to behave that way. So parents, teachers, what have you. And he learns
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this from lots of sort of literature, particularly Joseph Addison's The Spectator, which has these sort
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of essays on morality and different sort of cultural aspects. And he feel, and also reading classical
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works like Plutarch's Lives, the idea that if you're low born, if you behave honorably, you can advance
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in society. And he uses this as a form of social mobility. Washington and others start viewing slights
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that they faced by the from the British during the French and Indian war, as a real moment to see sort
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of a failing on the part of the British and Americans as very much advancing on their own and being equal.
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And sort of the idea of fundamentally American as being something distinctive from British.
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Yeah. So it seemed like Frank, the lives of Franklin and Washington are great examples. It's like
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Franklin started at the bottom and went up, you know, and then Washington, I think he had that more
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aristocratic idea of honor. But then he, his transformation went from that to like, I mean,
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I guess you say downward, it went down to like more democratic. So they kind of met at the middle.
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You're right. They both start from very different beginnings and they end up in roughly the same place
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by the end, which is, which is very interesting. So like you said, Franklin is very much coming from
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this mindset of honor as a form of social mobility. He's interested in virtue. He's interested in how
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this sort of behavior can help him make his way in the world. Washington does grow up in a more
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aristocratic framework. I mean, he's, he's friends with the Fairfax family, who's one of the few titled
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families in the Americas. And he learns very much from the English model, the reputation, glory,
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duty, whereas Franklin is coming at it from more of a sort of ethical, virtuous standpoint. And they,
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one has a martial tradition, one has more of an intellectual tradition. Although Washington still
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has a very, very, very large intellectual side that's often dismissed. So they do, they do sort
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of end up in the same place, but it's different. What actually sends them is both these sort of
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personal realizations. When they start recognizing sort of personal slights they're facing from the
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British are tied into larger sort of taxation policy issues. For instance, for Washington,
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it's being dismissed of, of lower rank pay of having British officers feel that they outrank colonial
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officers of higher, of higher rank. And Washington starts moving to the idea of advancement based on
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merit during the French and the war. Whereas Franklin comes to this sort of realization a little bit
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later in for becoming a patriot. And it's really when he's in front of a privy council in 1774,
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and he's sort of publicly humiliated and loses all his status that he finally starts to see what the
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British empire has done in the same way that, that Washington has started to come to this conclusion.
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Yeah. That's another, you mentioned the idea of merit and Franklin's idea that you gain honor by acting
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virtuously and ethically, because before they sort of primordial honor, traditional honor that the
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British had and Europeans had, it was, you know, might made right, right? If you won, you had honor.
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If you were on top, you had honor. Didn't matter if you acted unethically, it didn't matter, right?
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Like if whoever won a duel, whoever won a duel, like didn't matter if they actually committed the
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wrong, if they won the duel, well, they're in the right. Yeah. And then the idea with dueling,
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you just showed up, you're, you proves you have honor. And, and honor is very much tied to this
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idea of victory on, on the field. Franklin is, is one that really starts reversing this. And, and a lot
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of it has to do with the connection of, of honor and virtue, which has always been complicated
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because how do you actually define these terms? And there's always been, no, one's ever quite sure
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even during their period. And there's all sorts banding back and forth. Uh, during the book, I
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really, what I try to do is make the, the claim that honor and virtue by the revolutionary era are
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used basically synonymously. And what do they mean? They mean what we think of today as ethics. So when we
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think of behaving ethically, that's words like honor and virtue would have been used. The word
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ethics, unless you were talking about Aristotle, really wasn't used in early America until the 19th
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century. So what words were used, honor and virtue. Now, virtue traditionally had more of a morality
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component, more closely related to religion. Further north you go, virtue would take precedence.
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Further south you go, they become more synonymous. And Franklin was from originally a Puritan
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background than spent most of his life in Quaker influenced Philadelphia. And he starts actually
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keeping a spreadsheet of his 13 different virtues. And he says, well, you can't become a virtuous person
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all at once. You have to master each one along the list. And so he'd put check marks, how he behaved
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on any given day. Uh, the last one on, and he said the further down the list that were the harder they
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were to master. The last one, one of the last ones on the list was chastity and his interpretation of
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chastity was a little different. He said, you could have premarital sex. You could have an affair
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so long as no one found out. Therefore, no one's reputation was ruined. So he had more nuanced
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But that's a very like honor, like traditional honor based idea of chastity.
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Yeah, very, very much so. Um, so Franklin in, is sort of advancing in, in some ways,
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but there is still a traditional element, uh, uh, there, but his was very much going against the,
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So that, I mean, I think we shouldn't understate like how big of a transformation this was because
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for, I mean, basically thousands of years, honor was this thing is by birth, by a victory in the
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battlefield. And then you have the Americans making it, uh, democratizing it and then making it sort
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of an inner, inner virtue that you can sort of, you can, you can gain honor just by acting like a
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Exactly. That is, that is a fundamental reversal. And it's, it's one that sounds very modern,
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but it's, it's something that's, that's often dismissed at sort of in the, in the 18th century,
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but you're absolutely right. That is exactly what's going on.
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But what's interesting is, so it's a very modern idea. What they did was very radical, but as you
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talk about in the book, their inspiration for this new concept of honor, you can gain it through
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acting virtue. They, they, they basically look to the past, look to antiquity, ancient Rome,
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ancient Greece to sort of make the case for that concept of honor.
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You're, you're right. Every Britain during the period felt that they were sort of the heirs to
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ancient Rome. And during the American revolution, the, the Americans in turn feel that they are
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the, the better heirs to Rome than the British. And they are looking to classical scholarship,
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sort of stoicism. They're looking to history of varying sorts, largely classical, but also looking
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at the sort of English history of looking at the civil war and the glorious revolution.
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And they're very interested in sort of new, sort of enlightened works, whether it's Locke,
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Montesquieu, Adam Smith, and they're looking at this new sort of moral philosophy.
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And this new sort of political philosophy that, that, that really puts a burden of a proper
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conduct, even on, on Kings. And the idea, if a King doesn't behave well, that they are,
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they are failed in their behavior, then bounds are broken. And Montesquieu is, is, is key here.
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He refers to that honor and despotism cannot exist together. So if the King is a despot, the King is a
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tyrant, therefore he cannot be honorable. Therefore you have no connection, no, no bounds, no,
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And so besides these, these, a lot of these colonials were self-educated, but the schools
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in America at the time, like, you know, high, I mean, what would be considered a high school,
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but also mainly the colleges played a big role in this transformation of honor in America.
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Oh yeah. Most Americans are not going to college. In fact, I think the numbers are roughly one in a
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thousand could be even more than that. Most Americans are not going to having higher education.
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However, if you look at sort of the signers of the declaration of independence, the signers of
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the constitution, they are disproportionately college educated and schools started, colleges
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started much earlier than they do today. The average age of admittance was roughly 16,
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could be younger. And they really functioned as, you know, you would learn history, your philosophy,
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all your, your standard texts, your Greek, your Latin, your French, but they were more than just
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centers of learning. They were about really creating a collective mindset. And it was about establishing
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behavior. So these sort of codes of honor, a sort of camaraderie would form within the, the students of a
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certain class or cohort rules of behavior that regulated everything from, uh, where people sat
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to when they could, who could, they can consort with. And there was very much a sense of self-policing.
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Some schools would, would have very strict policies that they would enforce, but others were really
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policed by the students. And the idea was if the behavior of one person was flawed, it reflected on the
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honor of the students, which then reflected on the honor of the school. So the idea was, was instilled
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prior to the revolution and people that are going to be major leaders of the revolution, that the eye,
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that behavior matters. And if one person fails, that's reflective of everyone. And this is a sense
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that really carries over to how the revolution is, is fought and carried out sort of that, you know,
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everyone must be, do their part. Everyone must behave in a certain way or else all could fail.
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And they're encountering the same sort of texts. They're, they're speaking the same sort of
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language. They're, they're growing up in the same sort of environment where honor matters. And that's
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why it really translates into this sort of world outside the ivory tower. Yeah. You, you highlight a
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lot of professors at several of these universities in America would write these, basically their morality
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texts and where they fleshed out those ideas. The, the path to honor was virtue and ethics, basically.
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Exactly. So if you want to advance in the world, you have to behave well. And then that's going to
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vary greatly depending on, on, on who you, who you are or your interpretation. But if you have your,
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your leadership, all basically learning something comparable, they're all using the same texts
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or comparable texts. So everyone's speaking the same way and then they get in positions of leadership.
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And that's what, what helps to bring about the sort of really quick collective understanding where
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you have people meet for the first time at, you know, at the first Continental Congress. And,
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you know, within a short time, they're speaking of like mind and pledging sacred honor. It's not
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something that just, that just happened overnight. It's something they had, had grown up with.
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This is sort of a tangent, but one of the things I enjoyed talking about the school,
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the college stuff. And I think oftentimes people are like, oh, colleges are terrible. It's just
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like, you highlight some, like the riots that happened at Harvard, like pitchforks and torches.
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And it was terrible. Oh, the thing is you, there were all these rules of behavior. Sure. But the,
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there was all sorts of, of, of, you know, you think today of, of like, you know, pranks that they had
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nothing. My, my favorite is at the college of William and Marion in Williamsburg, there was actually a
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pitched battle with pistols between the students and the townies. And it was led by the professor
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of moral philosophy. Oh man. Who ultimately got fired over this. But it's, what's also interesting
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is Thomas does this, it's tough to, I can't pinpoint it, but this may have actually been
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Thomas Jefferson's like first week at school. So I don't know if he sees it or just misses it, but he
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arrives right around the time of this, this sort of pitched battle where pistols get drawn on the
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future governor. And it's, it's not an uncommon occurrence. Right. Yeah. I think, I think it's
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so, it's like a part of American history that, I mean, sometimes we gloss, we think it's, we sort
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of nostalgize like, Oh, they were just prim and proper. It's like, no, they were pulling pistols
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on each other. Right. You had to have rules and like, you should not break your teacher's windows,
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you know, things like that. Well, okay. So let's get into, so they, the founders were developing
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sort of this collective sense of honor in different ways, but sort of, they're speaking the same
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language. Let's get into specifics about where we start seeing affronts to personal honor, leading
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to different founders to like saying like, we got to separate for Britain. So you mentioned
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Washington. Yes. He started feeling, he was a part of the, the British military. He was a leader
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there. And you say during the French and Indian war, that's when he starts sensing like, these guys
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don't really think I'm one of them and they're sliding me. Yeah, exactly. He's, he serves alongside
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the British military, but he doesn't have a King's commission. He's a colonial officer. So he's
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colonel and starts off as a major works up to a colonial colonel in the Virginia militia, but he's
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dismissed. You have a British captain say, well, I outrank you because I'm, I have a King's commission.
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You actually at one point have a, an American who held briefly held a King's commission, but actually
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sold it claiming, well, I once hold the King's commission. So therefore I outrank you. And, and
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often, and how it went in the British military, you bought your commission. If you wanted to be a major,
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you could buy it. And then if you wanted to leave, you could sell it. So where colonials are sort of
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slighted for, they don't have a formal military tradition and a formal training. Washington's doing this.
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They're fighting alongside Washington becomes famed for his involvement and what becomes to be known
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as Braddock's defeat. And he's saying, I'm fighting alongside, I'm risking my life. Our
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Virginia regiments risking their lives. Why are we not treated the same? And he starts promoting
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within his own regiment based on merit as a reflection of this. And then after the war, he, he
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retires. And he had been speculating very much in Western land grants, especially that would have
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been opened up after the French and Indian war. There were lands promised to, to officers. And now
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you have the proclamation, which prevents Western expansion. You have taxation, but for what Washington
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really opens his eyes is he is very much as many wealthy Americans had been importing many goods from,
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from British merchants. And when the taxes come about, these British merchants call in their debts
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and Washington is shocked by this. And he views it as a matter of honor because the idea was,
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if you're asking me to pay now, you don't trust me. You don't believe that I'm going to pay.
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So if you had debts, as many people did, that was actually considered a good thing. That was considered
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an honorable thing because it meant people trusted you. They believed you would pay. Whereas now when these
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debts are being called in, Washington is considering it that, well, we're not being treated as men of
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honor, as not being trustworthy. And the same thing, he starts to link his own personal treatment by his,
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his creditors with how the British parliament is treating the American colonists, sort of this lack
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of honor being bestowed. So that's, that's for him. Whereas Franklin is in many ways, was very pro-British
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empire leading into the Stamp Act. In fact, he's opposed to the Stamp Act, but he's trying to bring
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about ways to, to facilitate a reconciliation. And where this all goes wrong, he tries to blame it
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all on, on the Massachusetts governor, who's Thomas Hutchinson. And he feels that, well, if Americans have
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a villain, they'll forgive British parliament. So he manages to acquire some letters involving
00:23:57.160
Hutchinson and his brother-in-law, who's the Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver. And he publishes
00:24:02.460
select pieces, sort of out of context that make Hutchinson look really bad. And he sends it to
00:24:11.660
select leaders like the Adamses and says, don't publish it. They publish it. And before long, he's
00:24:17.500
brought up in front of this Privy Council. And there are duels fought over where this information
00:24:23.720
came from. And Franklin's forced to admit, yes, I did reveal this. And the idea is breaking the
00:24:29.100
bonds of private correspondence between gentlemen. And Franklin says, well, I did it to preserve the
00:24:34.900
empire, but he is sort of, he's publicly shamed. He loses his sort of postmaster title and he really
00:24:44.020
loses his way in the empire. There's no place for advancement for him anymore. And he says, I did this
00:24:49.640
all for the sort of greater good. I did this to help the colonies reunite with the empire. And this
00:24:56.140
is how I'm treated. And then he starts to come to this sense of, of how his personal wrong is tied
00:25:02.280
into the greater wrong of being committed by Britain. And that's an interesting connection
00:25:06.140
because, you know, they could have just stated, well, this is a personal affront, has nothing to do
00:25:11.320
with the colonies, but they made that connection somehow. Right. And this is what happens in many
00:25:18.800
places. The idea that it's a pot, the policy is put in place and then these have implications on
00:25:24.840
the individuals. And as all these individuals are feeling this in this personal way, they start to
00:25:30.760
collectively identify with each other in a way that they hadn't before, because the colonies really
00:25:35.640
functioned in many ways as separate countries unto themselves. So at what point, so these guys had
00:25:41.740
this sense of collective honor. Like this, not only is this an affront to me personally, what the British
00:25:45.980
are doing, but it's a affront to us as colonists. Yeah. Is that how you say it? Colonists? Yeah.
00:25:52.120
Colonists, sorry. As colonists. But when did everyone else in America start feeling that sense
00:25:58.040
of national honor too? When did you start seeing that?
00:26:00.820
Okay. So there's, I don't want to say it's straight national honor, but sort of a proto-nationalism,
00:26:05.260
which maybe is too academic because there's not a nation yet, but they're speaking sort of the honor of
00:26:09.900
our country. And at first it could be, you know, the individual colony or what have you,
00:26:14.860
but they start thinking collectively when we get to the boycotts of sort of British goods,
00:26:20.880
whether it's from the Stamp Act or the T-Act sort of uniting to resist British imports,
00:26:27.840
to not purchase goods that are taxed. And that's when you really start getting this collective idea.
00:26:34.180
And that's also where you start really expanding the idea of honor and women become crucial here.
00:26:39.400
And women's involvement in boycotts also has them labeled as having honor. And as women become
00:26:46.720
sort of political, there's a share of honor to go around. They're part of this discussion.
00:26:54.360
There's also women are very much sort of enforcers of honor and sort of keeping men in line. And in
00:27:00.420
fact, you have women that are refused to be courted or marry men that do not comply with this.
00:27:06.760
But we start seeing, I mean, it starts building, but by 1774, there's very much a collective sense is
00:27:13.680
sort of a country of the country's honor. And that's really exhibited at the first Continental
00:27:19.100
Congress in 1774, where they do pledge their sacred honor two years before the Declaration of
00:27:25.580
Independence is going to, you know, pledge our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. And there's a sense
00:27:31.980
of this by 1774. It's not necessarily as a nation, but it's certainly a unified element of thinking.
00:27:39.620
And it's based on this ethical concept of Americans are acting a certain way. Britain is not.
00:27:46.900
Right. And I loved how you described what some of the manifestations of that sense of collective
00:27:51.160
honor. This is kind of where we get the idea of Republican virtue. So in response to the different
00:27:57.020
acts and, and I guess you'd call them terror. I mean, they were just basically, it made it costly
00:28:01.520
for Americans to import British goods. Like Americans took pride in like their simple, plain and simple
00:28:07.140
clothing. Like, yeah, it was the, it was the first time in history where labels didn't matter.
00:28:11.700
So you were right. It's not, it wasn't even really about the money. And they're very clear about that,
00:28:16.300
that the, you know, the duties on tea negligible, the cost of tea was actually made cheaper,
00:28:21.940
involved things with monopolies and it's long and complicated, but it was wearing homespun clothing,
00:28:28.960
using local products made in America. That was a sign of honor. That was a sign of, look, we are
00:28:36.180
embracing that we are equal to Britain. We, at first it's, you know, we are all true born Britons,
00:28:44.660
but then it, it becomes more about a sort of early sort of identity as America is something distinct
00:28:50.640
and something in many ways superior by that point to the British.
00:28:55.460
Right. I mean, I remember you, you, I've, I've read things about some of the founding fathers
00:28:58.860
talking about how the, the Britons were a fet because of their fine clothing and their silks
00:29:04.260
and all this stuff. And like, we are like the, the, the, the heirs of Sparta and Rome where we
00:29:09.200
really embrace Roman virtue and, and temperance and frugality. And they, they kind of had a chip on
00:29:16.460
Yeah, exactly. Britain became sort of the den of decadence, you know, the sort of there,
00:29:21.840
they were, you know, the Nero-esque Rome, whereas Americans sort of embraced the sort of the idea
00:29:28.060
of Cincinnatus of, you know, or, or Cato, the idea of the greater good of civic virtue of sacrificing
00:29:37.100
And so the start of the revolutionary war had a, had a, I mean, honor played a role in
00:29:42.300
there too, when the American, the Americans thought, well, yeah, we can now fight Britain
00:29:48.960
Exactly. And that's a big, still to this day, we don't know who shot first. I mean, there's,
00:29:53.440
there's each side blames the other, but the idea, if you're thinking of, of philosophical ideas
00:29:59.160
at that time, you have the tell, the idea of like a sort of a, what becomes sort of just war,
00:30:03.100
a defensive war is honorable. So if the British fired first, as Jefferson's going to say,
00:30:08.320
they're, they're murderers. We have a duty to, to defend ourselves. They're killing their own people.
00:30:13.200
And it's, it's very much cast in this way. And that's how, also how the Continental Army is formed.
00:30:19.080
And Washington's going to say he wants gentlemen, men of character with a proper sense of honor.
00:30:23.680
So the idea that if you're a man of honor, it will translate into the military, that you will
00:30:29.660
abide by certain roles. You will have a certain standing. You will know how to command. And
00:30:36.380
there, there are rules put in place governing the conduct of the army. And what's really interesting,
00:30:41.320
we know the British army on paper is, is by far superior. And we know Americans suffer very
00:30:49.120
tremendous losses, particularly, you know, in, in New York, but there starts to be an understanding.
00:30:53.820
And they, they actually look at sort of 18th century military texts about the idea that honor
00:30:59.200
can be found not in victory, but in just behaving well. So if you lose, that's okay. As long as you
00:31:06.300
did your, your duty and Washington starts adopting a sort of war post, a defensive style, not risking the
00:31:12.480
army. And he's comes to the conclusion of that it's dishonorable to needlessly risk your men pursuing
00:31:18.680
sort of glory or victory that is not likely. And he views honor in the preservation of the army of the
00:31:26.840
continuing of the revolution, rather than in trying to grasp victory on every field.
00:31:32.360
That was a big transformation too, because the beginning of the war, like those costly victories
00:31:36.820
that Washington faced at the beginning, like he had, he was using that traditional sense of honor where
00:31:41.440
you, you charge in and you just put it all on the line and you go for the big victory,
00:31:46.800
but they just got slaughtered because the British were, they were better.
00:31:51.780
And New York was, was actually Washington's very apprehensive about fighting there. It's actually
00:31:56.700
the Congress that sort of demanding based on national honor, it has to be defended because if
00:32:03.020
the Continental Army doesn't defend Americans, doesn't defend their own people, how are they any
00:32:08.920
different than the British, even though it was militarily a complete nightmare?
00:32:13.600
So this sense of this growing sense of call it proto national honor really fueled the Americans
00:32:21.160
during the war in the first few years. But then like it kind of hit the slog where like there was
00:32:24.920
a point where the Americans were on the precipice of losing, but then another guy felt a big slight
00:32:34.120
of honor by Americans this time. And he decided to do something terrible, which sort of galvanized
00:32:41.120
the Americans. Let's talk about Benedict Arnold.
00:32:43.140
Ah, Benedict Arnold, America's greatest hero during the early years and the greatest villain
00:32:48.680
ever since. So Arnold is a very interesting character. And he, as you know, he features
00:32:55.860
prominently in the book because he's just so different in a lot of ways. Arnold has a, in my sense,
00:33:04.000
an older understanding of honor. I define him as, you know, sort of more of a viewing himself as a
00:33:10.080
knight of old, you know, he's off at tournament. He has this older sense of, of victory as honor,
00:33:17.900
of reputation as honor. And he starts off the war, well, he first comes on the scene actually
00:33:24.840
during the boycotts and resistance to British goods in the 1760s. He's actually smuggling and he's
00:33:32.360
turned in by smuggling. And he, the person who turns him in was one of the members of his shipping
00:33:36.880
crew. He publicly whips him to exact some revenge. Anyway, so he advances in, in the military and he's
00:33:46.620
proclaimed for, for victories and even defeats in sort of the Northern theater. And you'd be hard
00:33:54.020
pressed to find a better battlefield commander than Arnold, but he starts to get passed over
00:33:59.600
for promotions, particularly by, by Congress. And, and Washington's always been adamant that
00:34:04.840
there's a civilian control, civilian supremacy. His power comes from Congress, which deprives its
00:34:10.580
power from the people. And Arnold isn't a good politician. He's brash, he's arrogant. He thinks he's
00:34:19.480
the greatest general in the army and he tells everyone so. And he started, he gets passed over. At the
00:34:25.800
one moment, his great moment is the battle of Saratoga, where he's actually dismissed from the
00:34:32.100
field by General Horatio Gates, sort of this rivalry. But Arnold defies orders, rushes into battle. And
00:34:38.920
according to him, single-handedly writes a potential defeat into, into a victory. And he's wounded on the
00:34:46.220
battlefield. He's shot in the leg, horse falls on top of him. And he actually recalls being carried
00:34:51.800
off by, by soldiers from the field. And he actually says, I wish the shot had been through my heart,
00:34:56.900
sort of this glorious end. But he keeps getting passed over by the middle part of the war. His
00:35:04.640
disputes with Congress are growing to such a point that they make him take an oath of loyalty before
00:35:09.340
he becomes a sort of military governor in Philadelphia. And things get really bad. He throws himself a party
00:35:16.280
to celebrate his new appointment. And he manages not to invite any Continental Army officers, invites a
00:35:22.260
bunch of loyalist ladies, marries into a loyalist family. He's charged with all sorts of misappropriations
00:35:29.800
of funds and equipment. And ultimately, he is, Washington's forced to give him a rather minor
00:35:37.860
reprimand. Just, it's very light when you, when you see it, sort of, well, we, we wish that Arnold
00:35:45.280
had not engaged in such and such behavior. And there are rumblings about Arnold. People keep
00:35:50.880
dismissing them. They're saying, well, look what Arnold's given us. How could we, how could we
00:35:55.420
question him? But it's that moment, this reprimand from Washington, who he viewed as sort of the one
00:36:01.240
who is always on his side, that really sends him over. And he starts a correspondence with the
00:36:07.500
British through Major John Andre, that where he's ultimately comes to turn over West Point in
00:36:13.120
exchange for money and a British commission. And to the modern year, you would say, well,
00:36:20.000
this is selling out. And, and, but Arnold didn't view it that way. He viewed it as Americans had
00:36:25.560
betrayed him, had not allowed him to advance, had treated him with dishonor. And it wasn't about the
00:36:31.900
money. In fact, he takes a lower rank in the British army. Well, to show, well, this isn't about
00:36:38.020
rank. It's not about status. It's about honor. Ultimately, the plan comes to nothing, but it's a
00:36:45.540
great moment in that there's lots of infighting by this point between the Continental Army and the
00:36:51.140
civilians over who is, is, why is this war not being won? The military says it's because civilians are
00:36:57.460
profiteering. The civilians say, well, the army's just not winning, but this is the moment.
00:37:02.800
Arnold's treason sort of snaps everyone back into this idea, this collective sense of we have to do
00:37:08.000
what's best for the nation. And Washington uses it as such. And, and he says, look how, look how
00:37:14.360
honorable we are, that this has only happened once and how lost, how unethical are the British that
00:37:21.040
they have to resort to such tactics. Yeah. I guess thanks to Arnold, we won the revolutionary war
00:37:25.880
in a way. At least in part. Well, so Americans win, they, they get, and that was a big deal. They,
00:37:33.840
and the way they, they claimed their victory too, had a lot to do with honor as well. Like they wanted,
00:37:39.160
what was it? Peace without, peace with honor. Or what was the phrase? Yeah, exactly. That's a phrase
00:37:43.400
that comes up time and time again, no, you know, or other versions, no peace without honor, peace with
00:37:48.760
honor that it wasn't enough to just end the war. It had to be done while recognizing American
00:37:55.600
independence. It wasn't, peace itself was not an appropriate end if it didn't come with the freedom
00:38:04.140
that was necessary to guarantee a lasting peace. So after the war, we, there was this, the founders
00:38:11.040
had this, we had this sort of collective sense of honor. You talk about a group of veterans who's
00:38:15.840
formed a group. It's basically a veterans group called the Society of Cincinnati, but there's a
00:38:19.900
lot of controversy around this group and it had again, had to do again with honor. Can you tell
00:38:23.820
a little bit about that? Sure. The Society of Cincinnati is still around today. It was, and still
00:38:29.940
is a ancestral group of officers from the Continental Army and the French Army. So it was sort of a
00:38:37.800
veterans association slash veterans benevolent association allowed to sort of care for the, the sort of
00:38:45.760
each other brotherhood, sort of widows and children, sort of a charitable fund in some ways. But the,
00:38:54.100
the ways to advance in it, you either had to fight as an officer in the French or continental armies,
00:38:59.760
or you had to be the firstborn son of one who did. And that's the point that unnerved many in American
00:39:08.240
society that saw this as a new sort of aristocracy or the rumblings of a new aristocracy. So
00:39:14.760
Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, they all dismiss this as, I think it was Franklin refers to them as an
00:39:22.640
order of hereditary knights. Washington has made the initial president general. Hamilton's involved,
00:39:28.780
Henry Knox. They don't see a problem with it. In fact, the Cincinnati pledges to defend and support
00:39:36.820
national honor. They, they view this as, well, we, haven't we proved ourselves? We've, we've,
00:39:43.880
Washington literally surrendered his commission. He could have been a king. The Continental Army
00:39:48.340
peacefully disbands. There was a moment of tension during the, the Newburgh conspiracy where there's a,
00:39:53.660
a fear of a potential mutiny against Congress, but Washington put it down, largely appealing to
00:39:59.940
sense of honor of sort of what, look what we've accomplished and it will be all ruined if we fail
00:40:04.980
in not upholding the nation. So the Cincinnati comes into being and their state and their,
00:40:12.020
their are national organizations. And it's attacked for being aristocratic of trying to instill a new
00:40:18.320
aristocracy, potentially a new monarchy even in America. And the Cincinnati defends itself saying,
00:40:26.240
you know, who would be this Caesar? Who would be this, this malevolent king? Washington,
00:40:32.920
the man who retired, gave up power. They said it's not, there's no special status in, in the nation.
00:40:42.480
They're not, it is not like a house of lords. They're not given special privileges. And there's a real
00:40:47.820
debate back and forth. And this is what really gets Franklin thinking about his idea of ascending honor
00:40:53.460
again. And he hasn't really talked about it since the 1720s, but he does in relation to the Cincinnati.
00:40:59.340
And he starts referring again to this idea of ascending honor, that honor is due to the person
00:41:04.440
who behaves well and the people who taught them. And it gets tied into sort of raising this new
00:41:09.040
Republican generation. Roughly the same time, Thomas Jefferson also starts coming up with his own
00:41:17.080
definition of honor. And he, his is more internal and it's not about the perceptions of others. It's
00:41:23.420
about what you think. And, but he puts it in the terms of imagine the whole world we're watching.
00:41:29.240
So using this public component that's, that's key in traditional honor, but not being concerned with
00:41:35.640
that, but act as if, so only do what you feel is, is right. So the, the tension with the Cincinnati
00:41:42.120
dies down largely because they, they prove themselves to be loyal during the, the upcoming
00:41:47.920
Shays' rebellion. But this was a really glaring moment of, of differences of what exactly it meant
00:41:55.200
to be honorable. And both sides were saying, well, we're advancing what's best for the nation. And you
00:42:00.460
see these elements in sort of modern politics today. So let's talk about the role of dueling.
00:42:05.360
Because dueling is like the most stereotypical honor thing is, right? A duel is an affair of honor.
00:42:09.860
You highlight in the book that before the 19th century, there were actually very few
00:42:14.140
duels in America, but then after the war, there's like dueling became this craze.
00:42:20.020
So what was going on there? Why did dueling certainly had this uptick right after the
00:42:24.980
revolutionary war? Okay. Right. And you're right. Dueling is, is the stereotype. You ask anyone about
00:42:29.860
honor, that's it's gentlemen at 10 paces and dueling is very uncommon. In fact, prior to the
00:42:37.320
revolution, my numbers may be, may be off. So don't quote me. I think there are roughly 75 duels
00:42:43.680
total in American history before the revolution. And after that recorded duels, I think there's
00:42:50.980
roughly 700 plus, but that's recorded. So it's, it's who knows. Dueling picks up a little bit during
00:42:56.920
the, the revolution, during the sort of middle years when American officers come in contact with
00:43:02.320
European officers. And it's very much a way for people try to, you have a many in the continental
00:43:08.820
army, they're trying to out gentlemen, the gentlemen to prove there was a certain status.
00:43:13.540
So it does happen a little bit among the officers in the revolution, but it's something that's
00:43:18.140
vehemently denounced in sort of orders of military conduct for the continental army. Washington is
00:43:24.280
inherently opposed to it. Most people in American society view dueling as dishonorable. It's really,
00:43:31.460
there's, there's actually a newspaper from early 19th century that, that says that really there's
00:43:37.720
only a hundred people or so that support dueling. They're just really vocal about it. So dueling is
00:43:44.260
really not something that's embraced by the revolutionary generation. Obviously the Hamilton-Burr
00:43:48.960
duel is famed, but that actually starts a real moment of a reaction sort of, of anti-dueling of,
00:43:56.560
look at these two men. What else could they have given to their country but the, the death of
00:44:02.660
Hamilton, the, the ruin of, of Burr? This is a tragedy for the nation that they could have served,
00:44:09.480
they could have done more. And what if they cost not just themselves, but, but us? So the idea of,
00:44:14.740
of dueling as murderers, dueling as suicide as sort of inherently unethical.
00:44:20.180
So why does it pick up? And it absolutely does pick up in the 19th century, but it doesn't pick
00:44:26.600
up with the revolutionary generation. It picks up with their children and their grandchildren.
00:44:33.120
Generations that have to sort of live up to the revolutionary fathers that don't have the same
00:44:39.080
way to make their, to advance in the world. And they start going back to an older sense of honor,
00:44:44.560
this idea of reputation of valor, of proving their bravery. So they start to move away from sort of
00:44:50.840
this ethical definition that exists during the revolution. And we see this really highlighted
00:44:55.440
in, in the war of 1812, the idea of we have to defend national honor as defend personal honor.
00:45:01.840
And the best representation of this is Andrew Jackson. And he's coming at it from this sort of older
00:45:07.780
Scots-Irish clan based honor tradition where his, his mother has taught him that you never go to court
00:45:15.540
for matters of assault. You handle that personally. And it's this new sense of honor, which is really
00:45:22.140
an old sense of honor that starts to, to, to really change what we think of as the sort of stereotype
00:45:27.860
of the antebellum Southern honor that builds into the civil war.
00:45:35.120
Yeah. Jackson, he was a character. He had like, I don't know how many bullets he had in him from
00:45:40.720
It's, it's reported that he, he's, he owned, it's re again, there's no way to prove this. And the
00:45:46.020
number's probably off. It's, it's alleged he fought a hundred duels in his life. That's probably not
00:45:51.140
true, but he's, you know, he's used rocks. He's used fists. He's used pistols. He allegedly kept
00:45:58.020
over 30 pistols at the ready in case he was challenged and needed to fight. So it was this,
00:46:05.460
he really became a new sort of symbol of, you know, masculinity of democracy. And it's really
00:46:11.540
playing on this older notion of honor, not the new revolutionary one.
00:46:17.080
So I know you're, you specialize in the revolutionary war, but when did we start seeing
00:46:21.780
like a backlash against the, this sort of return to dueling? Was it the civil war that kind of helped
00:46:30.320
Oh yeah. The civil, the civil war is, is, is crucial in sort of ending the traditional sort of honor
00:46:36.060
culture. It's, and it's also why it's also plays into the idea that, that honor was just sort of a
00:46:42.060
Southern component. And, and it's your, your former guest, Laurie and foot talks about it. That's
00:46:46.900
not true. There's, it's very much a, it's an American concept that exists in the North and
00:46:51.320
the South, but the breakdown of sort of the plantation system is going to sort of reshape
00:46:57.120
hierarchy where you have like the South sort of creating a sort of pseudo aristocracy, but
00:47:02.460
it doesn't mean honor completely goes away. You see remnants of honor and sort of the American
00:47:06.800
imperial moment. What's interesting is when, when, so when do we stop talking about honor? It's
00:47:11.860
roughly the early 20th century roundabout world war one, give or take. And I've actually charted
00:47:17.820
this using Google Ngrams where you can literally chart, you know, uses of words. And in the early
00:47:23.260
20th century, the word honorable goes down and there's a moment where literally honorable and
00:47:29.180
ethical cross. And the word honorable dies, but the word ethical grows. And there's really,
00:47:36.140
in my interpretation, it's that we're not changing these ideas. These ideas haven't
00:47:42.420
gone away. We're just using new words for them. We're saying things are ethical rather
00:47:47.300
Yeah. And I think, yeah, world war one probably, I mean, that was like the first real mechanized
00:47:51.540
war at this, you know, that the whole disillusionment that happened after world war one. I mean,
00:47:56.600
I think Hemingway has that quote that he says like glory and honor and courage are just abstract
00:48:01.340
words. They don't mean anything. Cause I mean, he saw firsthand that world war one, at least
00:48:07.320
was not glorious or honorable. It was just death and carnage.
00:48:11.360
It's a fundamental change in sort of a, you know, a moment of modernity in, in, in, in some
00:48:18.000
respects, but that's, that's why I think the, the language really changes, but I don't think
00:48:22.320
the customs or the concepts go away. I mean, you recently had Tamla Summers on and he was
00:48:27.580
talking about this idea of, you know, uh, why honor still matters. And I don't think
00:48:31.700
it vanished. I just think we, we speak of it differently and that's why it gets forgotten.
00:48:37.900
Well, Craig, this has been a great conversation. There's so much more we can talk about, but
00:48:40.660
where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?
00:48:43.340
Oh, well, thanks so much for having me. They can go to my website, craigbrucesmith.com
00:48:47.600
and the book's available at Amazon and, and other places. And if anyone has questions,
00:48:55.240
Fantastic. Well, Craig Bruce Smith, thank you so much time. It's been a
00:48:59.580
My guest today was Craig Bruce Smith. He's the author of the book American Honor. It's
00:49:02.840
available on amazon.com. You can also find out more information about his work at craigbrucesmith.com.
00:49:07.760
Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash American Honor, where you can find links to
00:49:12.220
resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:49:14.180
Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and
00:49:29.960
advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy the
00:49:34.740
podcast and gotten something out of it, I'd appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes
00:49:37.700
or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. As always, thank you for your continued support. And until next time,