The Art of Manliness - #419： American Honor — Creating the Nation's Ideals During the Revolution

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.400 What started the American Revolution? Well, the typical high school history answer we give

00:00:23.100 is taxation without representation and the economic and political consequences that came

00:00:27.280 with that. My guest today argues that while economic and political principles all played

00:00:31.160 roles in the American Revolution, there's one big thing underlying all the causes of the

00:00:35.200 Revolutionary War that often gets overlooked, honor. His name is Craig Bruce Smith. He's

00:00:39.500 a historian and the author of the new book, American Honor, the creation of the nation's

00:00:42.900 ideals during the Revolutionary Era. Today on the show, we talk about what honor looked

00:00:46.540 like in America during the colonial period, how that concept changed, and how this shift

00:00:50.520 precipitated the War of Independence. We then explore how personal affronts to honor experienced

00:00:54.740 by several of the founding fathers at the hands of the British, transferred into a feeling

00:00:58.820 of being slighted as a people, galvanizing a collective sense of honor in the colonies

00:01:02.820 and inspiring the fight for independence. We then discuss the role honor played in Benedict

00:01:06.780 Arnold's treason and how his treachery spurred colonial Americans to go on to win the war.

00:01:11.620 We end our conversation discussing why the sons of the Revolutionary Era turned to a more 0.67

00:01:15.400 traditional ethos of honor in the form of dueling. This show will give you fresh insights

00:01:19.300 on the founding of America. After it's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash American Honor.

00:01:25.000 Craig joins me now via clearcast.io.

00:01:37.160 Craig Bruce Smith, welcome to the show.

00:01:39.800 Thanks for having me. A big fan of all your articles and podcasts on honor.

00:01:43.980 Hey, well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Well, you got a book out called American

00:01:49.080 Honor, the creation of the nation's ideals during the Revolutionary Era. I love this book.

00:01:54.500 It talks about the transformation of the concept of honor during the Revolutionary Era. We're

00:02:00.160 going to get to what that transformation looked like, but what got you exploring this topic?

00:02:04.640 Because it is very niche and people don't really write about, or professors don't really write

00:02:09.060 about honor anymore. Oh, and that's a great point. Let me start off by saying whenever you

00:02:13.320 mentioned my book and the word love at the start, I'm really excited by that. But you're right. It is a

00:02:19.180 topic that really isn't discussed. It's certainly not in academia much anymore. I mean, a number of

00:02:25.500 your guests write on it, but it's relatively small. But I think it has been dismissed as sort of a niche

00:02:32.500 topic, but I don't think it actually is. So I've always been interested in the Revolution, and I've

00:02:37.840 been interested in ethical questions. And I'm also interested in the causes of the Revolution. And lots of

00:02:44.820 recent historians have sort of gotten away from this. They don't ask, you know, what caused the

00:02:49.620 Revolution or what resulted. In fact, some historians have concluded, well, there's nothing

00:02:54.640 left to know. And I think that's a problem. The idea is, I was always interested in ethical

00:03:00.340 questions. And the idea was there was no ethical history of the Revolution. There was no study that

00:03:05.020 really looked at honor in the Revolution. So where did I get interested in this? Probably, I had to say,

00:03:10.440 it dates back to when I was an undergraduate in college. And round about the same time,

00:03:15.400 three books came out. Joanne Freeman's Affairs of Honor, Caroline Cox's A Proper Sense of Honor,

00:03:21.000 and Judith on Buskirk's Generous Enemies. And they all talked about honor in different perspectives.

00:03:26.740 And that's what really got me interested in it as a sort of, as a topic. And then going to graduate

00:03:32.560 school is really my thinking was clarified. Bertram White-Brown wrote Southern Honor. But what I really

00:03:38.080 wanted to do is go back to this mindset of what caused the American Revolution and then

00:03:43.120 a new perspective on honor, which has been dismissed in many respects as something negative or toxic or

00:03:48.920 elitist or racist or sexist. Yes, this is, I think it's really interesting what caused the

00:03:53.620 Revolution. We often think like, well, you know, it was the Stamp Act. It was the sugar tax. It was

00:03:58.880 the, you know, all those things. But like, and it's like taxation with their representation, but

00:04:02.700 we'll get into this later. It was like, really, it wasn't those things as like,

00:04:05.660 the colonists felt like the British were just snubbing them. And they were upset about that.

00:04:10.740 No, you're absolutely right. I mean, not to say that, you know, it wasn't taxation without

00:04:14.820 representation and all these other issues. And they talk about them. They 100% do.

00:04:20.440 But if you go back to the original primary sources, before they mentioned that, they're talking about

00:04:25.080 honor. They're talking about how they feel slighted and that these were just manifestations

00:04:30.380 of the slight. So it wasn't the money. It wasn't the tax in and of itself. It's what it said. And

00:04:37.180 honor and taxation have had a long history. And the fact, if you're taxed without your say,

00:04:43.460 the idea was you were the same as a conquered people. And therefore, you were people inherently

00:04:49.840 without honor. So I think it's, this is a very valid point.

00:04:54.660 All right. Well, we'll get into that some more. So let's start with about the transformation here.

00:04:58.080 So before we get to what American honor became, what was the concept of honor like before the

00:05:04.780 revolution? So like, we're talking colonial days. What was the concept?

00:05:09.180 And the concept of honor is, as you know, from, from all your work on this is, is very old. And

00:05:16.300 colonial honor was not that different from its European counterparts. So it's an Anglo-American

00:05:23.220 concept, very much based on birth, very much the older style of honor as, as valor, bravery is

00:05:30.580 reputation, very much the public sort of component of, you know, that you, if you needed others to

00:05:36.420 recognize your honor, very much a top down as is common in all monarchical systems.

00:05:43.300 So there wasn't that much different from the American concept of honor and, and these,

00:05:49.640 the English concept, and we'll say a colonial American. What's one of the fundamental differences

00:05:55.700 though, if there, if you start to see sort of elements underlying, what's going to happen is

00:06:00.300 you don't have the, as regimented a class system in the colonies as you do in England. Obviously

00:06:06.840 there are only a few titled aristocrats. And because of that, you start to see undercurrents of this and

00:06:13.580 also lots of different religions and dissenting religious traditions that also play a role. But

00:06:18.900 by and large, before the revolution, American or colonial American honor is, is really not

00:06:24.900 different from English honor. So when did the transformation start happening? Like when you

00:06:28.380 look at the primary source documents, like when do you start seeing like, well, first off, like what

00:06:32.720 did it democratized as one thing? So like more people laid claim to honor. We can talk about some

00:06:38.420 examples of that, but I mean, besides that, what were the other, what was the other change?

00:06:41.680 You start subtly seen before the revolutionary war. Now, what's interesting is when we look at

00:06:47.680 people like specifically look at a Benjamin Franklin, we see a change very early on, as early

00:06:52.740 as the 1720s. For others like George Washington, we only see a change round about the French and

00:06:59.180 Indian war. By and large, for most Americans, you start to see a change around the French and Indian

00:07:05.020 war era. But Franklin in the 1720s starts talking about a concept he calls a

00:07:11.620 ascending honor. And the idea being in a sort of monarchical aristocratic traditional system, you

00:07:20.320 have honor based on your parents. So if your father is XYZ, then you inherit from there. Franklin 0.89

00:07:27.820 reverses that. And this is largely because he is as he'll he'll joke, he's the youngest son of the youngest

00:07:33.440 son for five generations back, he was someone that would have been completely marginalized by honor.

00:07:38.620 And he reverses this, the idea that honor is due to the person who behaves honorably, and in turn,

00:07:45.320 the person who taught them to behave that way. So parents, teachers, what have you. And he learns

00:07:52.140 this from lots of sort of literature, particularly Joseph Addison's The Spectator, which has these sort

00:07:58.100 of essays on morality and different sort of cultural aspects. And he feel, and also reading classical

00:08:04.040 works like Plutarch's Lives, the idea that if you're low born, if you behave honorably, you can advance

00:08:10.080 in society. And he uses this as a form of social mobility. Washington and others start viewing slights

00:08:17.200 that they faced by the from the British during the French and Indian war, as a real moment to see sort

00:08:22.020 of a failing on the part of the British and Americans as very much advancing on their own and being equal.

00:08:29.600 And sort of the idea of fundamentally American as being something distinctive from British.

00:08:35.260 Yeah. So it seemed like Frank, the lives of Franklin and Washington are great examples. It's like

00:08:38.700 Franklin started at the bottom and went up, you know, and then Washington, I think he had that more

00:08:44.440 aristocratic idea of honor. But then he, his transformation went from that to like, I mean,

00:08:48.960 I guess you say downward, it went down to like more democratic. So they kind of met at the middle.

00:08:53.200 You're right. They both start from very different beginnings and they end up in roughly the same place

00:08:58.620 by the end, which is, which is very interesting. So like you said, Franklin is very much coming from

00:09:03.960 this mindset of honor as a form of social mobility. He's interested in virtue. He's interested in how

00:09:09.460 this sort of behavior can help him make his way in the world. Washington does grow up in a more

00:09:15.340 aristocratic framework. I mean, he's, he's friends with the Fairfax family, who's one of the few titled

00:09:20.680 families in the Americas. And he learns very much from the English model, the reputation, glory,

00:09:30.020 duty, whereas Franklin is coming at it from more of a sort of ethical, virtuous standpoint. And they,

00:09:39.100 one has a martial tradition, one has more of an intellectual tradition. Although Washington still

00:09:44.960 has a very, very, very large intellectual side that's often dismissed. So they do, they do sort

00:09:51.500 of end up in the same place, but it's different. What actually sends them is both these sort of

00:09:57.280 personal realizations. When they start recognizing sort of personal slights they're facing from the

00:10:02.160 British are tied into larger sort of taxation policy issues. For instance, for Washington,

00:10:08.460 it's being dismissed of, of lower rank pay of having British officers feel that they outrank colonial

00:10:16.820 officers of higher, of higher rank. And Washington starts moving to the idea of advancement based on

00:10:22.160 merit during the French and the war. Whereas Franklin comes to this sort of realization a little bit

00:10:27.940 later in for becoming a patriot. And it's really when he's in front of a privy council in 1774,

00:10:35.460 and he's sort of publicly humiliated and loses all his status that he finally starts to see what the

00:10:43.280 British empire has done in the same way that, that Washington has started to come to this conclusion.

00:10:48.800 Yeah. That's another, you mentioned the idea of merit and Franklin's idea that you gain honor by acting

00:10:53.540 virtuously and ethically, because before they sort of primordial honor, traditional honor that the

00:10:59.640 British had and Europeans had, it was, you know, might made right, right? If you won, you had honor. 0.97

00:11:05.080 If you were on top, you had honor. Didn't matter if you acted unethically, it didn't matter, right?

00:11:09.480 Like if whoever won a duel, whoever won a duel, like didn't matter if they actually committed the

00:11:13.480 wrong, if they won the duel, well, they're in the right. Yeah. And then the idea with dueling,

00:11:17.180 you just showed up, you're, you proves you have honor. And, and honor is very much tied to this

00:11:21.200 idea of victory on, on the field. Franklin is, is one that really starts reversing this. And, and a lot

00:11:27.940 of it has to do with the connection of, of honor and virtue, which has always been complicated

00:11:33.720 because how do you actually define these terms? And there's always been, no, one's ever quite sure

00:11:39.560 even during their period. And there's all sorts banding back and forth. Uh, during the book, I

00:11:44.380 really, what I try to do is make the, the claim that honor and virtue by the revolutionary era are

00:11:51.900 used basically synonymously. And what do they mean? They mean what we think of today as ethics. So when we

00:11:59.380 think of behaving ethically, that's words like honor and virtue would have been used. The word

00:12:04.140 ethics, unless you were talking about Aristotle, really wasn't used in early America until the 19th

00:12:10.100 century. So what words were used, honor and virtue. Now, virtue traditionally had more of a morality

00:12:15.920 component, more closely related to religion. Further north you go, virtue would take precedence.

00:12:22.700 Further south you go, they become more synonymous. And Franklin was from originally a Puritan

00:12:27.640 background than spent most of his life in Quaker influenced Philadelphia. And he starts actually

00:12:33.900 keeping a spreadsheet of his 13 different virtues. And he says, well, you can't become a virtuous person

00:12:41.200 all at once. You have to master each one along the list. And so he'd put check marks, how he behaved

00:12:47.200 on any given day. Uh, the last one on, and he said the further down the list that were the harder they

00:12:52.240 were to master. The last one, one of the last ones on the list was chastity and his interpretation of

00:12:57.620 chastity was a little different. He said, you could have premarital sex. You could have an affair

00:13:01.980 so long as no one found out. Therefore, no one's reputation was ruined. So he had more nuanced

00:13:09.080 understanding.

00:13:10.120 But that's a very like honor, like traditional honor based idea of chastity.

00:13:13.500 Yeah, very, very much so. Um, so Franklin in, is sort of advancing in, in some ways,

00:13:19.980 but there is still a traditional element, uh, uh, there, but his was very much going against the,

00:13:25.140 the concept of a birth.

00:13:27.260 So that, I mean, I think we shouldn't understate like how big of a transformation this was because

00:13:31.180 for, I mean, basically thousands of years, honor was this thing is by birth, by a victory in the

00:13:37.100 battlefield. And then you have the Americans making it, uh, democratizing it and then making it sort

00:13:43.000 of an inner, inner virtue that you can sort of, you can, you can gain honor just by acting like a

00:13:48.640 good person.

00:13:49.300 Exactly. That is, that is a fundamental reversal. And it's, it's one that sounds very modern,

00:13:55.960 but it's, it's something that's, that's often dismissed at sort of in the, in the 18th century,

00:14:01.040 but you're absolutely right. That is exactly what's going on.

00:14:03.440 But what's interesting is, so it's a very modern idea. What they did was very radical, but as you

00:14:08.540 talk about in the book, their inspiration for this new concept of honor, you can gain it through

00:14:14.880 acting virtue. They, they, they basically look to the past, look to antiquity, ancient Rome,

00:14:20.100 ancient Greece to sort of make the case for that concept of honor.

00:14:25.500 You're, you're right. Every Britain during the period felt that they were sort of the heirs to

00:14:29.580 ancient Rome. And during the American revolution, the, the Americans in turn feel that they are

00:14:35.420 the, the better heirs to Rome than the British. And they are looking to classical scholarship,

00:14:41.040 sort of stoicism. They're looking to history of varying sorts, largely classical, but also looking

00:14:48.160 at the sort of English history of looking at the civil war and the glorious revolution.

00:14:52.760 And they're very interested in sort of new, sort of enlightened works, whether it's Locke,

00:14:59.520 Montesquieu, Adam Smith, and they're looking at this new sort of moral philosophy.

00:15:05.420 And this new sort of political philosophy that, that, that really puts a burden of a proper

00:15:11.120 conduct, even on, on Kings. And the idea, if a King doesn't behave well, that they are,

00:15:17.380 they are failed in their behavior, then bounds are broken. And Montesquieu is, is, is key here.

00:15:23.420 He refers to that honor and despotism cannot exist together. So if the King is a despot, the King is a

00:15:29.820 tyrant, therefore he cannot be honorable. Therefore you have no connection, no, no bounds, no,

00:15:35.100 no duty to him anymore.

00:15:37.680 And so besides these, these, a lot of these colonials were self-educated, but the schools 0.77

00:15:43.100 in America at the time, like, you know, high, I mean, what would be considered a high school,

00:15:48.280 but also mainly the colleges played a big role in this transformation of honor in America.

00:15:55.520 Oh yeah. Most Americans are not going to college. In fact, I think the numbers are roughly one in a

00:16:02.600 thousand could be even more than that. Most Americans are not going to having higher education.

00:16:10.760 However, if you look at sort of the signers of the declaration of independence, the signers of

00:16:15.400 the constitution, they are disproportionately college educated and schools started, colleges

00:16:22.640 started much earlier than they do today. The average age of admittance was roughly 16,

00:16:27.780 could be younger. And they really functioned as, you know, you would learn history, your philosophy,

00:16:35.720 all your, your standard texts, your Greek, your Latin, your French, but they were more than just

00:16:41.300 centers of learning. They were about really creating a collective mindset. And it was about establishing

00:16:46.940 behavior. So these sort of codes of honor, a sort of camaraderie would form within the, the students of a

00:16:54.160 certain class or cohort rules of behavior that regulated everything from, uh, where people sat

00:17:01.120 to when they could, who could, they can consort with. And there was very much a sense of self-policing.

00:17:08.140 Some schools would, would have very strict policies that they would enforce, but others were really

00:17:13.260 policed by the students. And the idea was if the behavior of one person was flawed, it reflected on the

00:17:19.820 honor of the students, which then reflected on the honor of the school. So the idea was, was instilled

00:17:26.720 prior to the revolution and people that are going to be major leaders of the revolution, that the eye,

00:17:31.820 that behavior matters. And if one person fails, that's reflective of everyone. And this is a sense

00:17:37.640 that really carries over to how the revolution is, is fought and carried out sort of that, you know,

00:17:43.820 everyone must be, do their part. Everyone must behave in a certain way or else all could fail.

00:17:47.980 And they're encountering the same sort of texts. They're, they're speaking the same sort of

00:17:52.960 language. They're, they're growing up in the same sort of environment where honor matters. And that's

00:17:57.900 why it really translates into this sort of world outside the ivory tower. Yeah. You, you highlight a

00:18:04.240 lot of professors at several of these universities in America would write these, basically their morality

00:18:08.180 texts and where they fleshed out those ideas. The, the path to honor was virtue and ethics, basically.

00:18:14.580 Exactly. So if you want to advance in the world, you have to behave well. And then that's going to

00:18:20.020 vary greatly depending on, on, on who you, who you are or your interpretation. But if you have your,

00:18:26.180 your leadership, all basically learning something comparable, they're all using the same texts

00:18:32.160 or comparable texts. So everyone's speaking the same way and then they get in positions of leadership.

00:18:39.460 And that's what, what helps to bring about the sort of really quick collective understanding where

00:18:44.260 you have people meet for the first time at, you know, at the first Continental Congress. And,

00:18:49.000 you know, within a short time, they're speaking of like mind and pledging sacred honor. It's not

00:18:53.840 something that just, that just happened overnight. It's something they had, had grown up with.

00:18:57.900 This is sort of a tangent, but one of the things I enjoyed talking about the school,

00:19:02.060 the college stuff. And I think oftentimes people are like, oh, colleges are terrible. It's just

00:19:05.220 like, you highlight some, like the riots that happened at Harvard, like pitchforks and torches.

00:19:12.080 And it was terrible. Oh, the thing is you, there were all these rules of behavior. Sure. But the,

00:19:18.580 there was all sorts of, of, of, you know, you think today of, of like, you know, pranks that they had

00:19:25.000 nothing. My, my favorite is at the college of William and Marion in Williamsburg, there was actually a

00:19:31.580 pitched battle with pistols between the students and the townies. And it was led by the professor

00:19:39.540 of moral philosophy. Oh man. Who ultimately got fired over this. But it's, what's also interesting

00:19:46.560 is Thomas does this, it's tough to, I can't pinpoint it, but this may have actually been

00:19:50.700 Thomas Jefferson's like first week at school. So I don't know if he sees it or just misses it, but he

00:19:56.340 arrives right around the time of this, this sort of pitched battle where pistols get drawn on the

00:20:01.300 future governor. And it's, it's not an uncommon occurrence. Right. Yeah. I think, I think it's

00:20:08.520 so, it's like a part of American history that, I mean, sometimes we gloss, we think it's, we sort

00:20:12.180 of nostalgize like, Oh, they were just prim and proper. It's like, no, they were pulling pistols

00:20:16.660 on each other. Right. You had to have rules and like, you should not break your teacher's windows,

00:20:22.300 you know, things like that. Well, okay. So let's get into, so they, the founders were developing

00:20:29.280 sort of this collective sense of honor in different ways, but sort of, they're speaking the same

00:20:33.120 language. Let's get into specifics about where we start seeing affronts to personal honor, leading

00:20:39.480 to different founders to like saying like, we got to separate for Britain. So you mentioned

00:20:44.060 Washington. Yes. He started feeling, he was a part of the, the British military. He was a leader

00:20:49.620 there. And you say during the French and Indian war, that's when he starts sensing like, these guys

00:20:54.780 don't really think I'm one of them and they're sliding me. Yeah, exactly. He's, he serves alongside

00:20:59.420 the British military, but he doesn't have a King's commission. He's a colonial officer. So he's

00:21:04.980 colonel and starts off as a major works up to a colonial colonel in the Virginia militia, but he's

00:21:11.900 dismissed. You have a British captain say, well, I outrank you because I'm, I have a King's commission.

00:21:18.400 You actually at one point have a, an American who held briefly held a King's commission, but actually

00:21:25.140 sold it claiming, well, I once hold the King's commission. So therefore I outrank you. And, and

00:21:30.480 often, and how it went in the British military, you bought your commission. If you wanted to be a major,

00:21:34.720 you could buy it. And then if you wanted to leave, you could sell it. So where colonials are sort of 0.61

00:21:40.140 slighted for, they don't have a formal military tradition and a formal training. Washington's doing this.

00:21:45.920 They're fighting alongside Washington becomes famed for his involvement and what becomes to be known

00:21:52.100 as Braddock's defeat. And he's saying, I'm fighting alongside, I'm risking my life. Our

00:21:57.060 Virginia regiments risking their lives. Why are we not treated the same? And he starts promoting

00:22:04.620 within his own regiment based on merit as a reflection of this. And then after the war, he, he

00:22:10.780 retires. And he had been speculating very much in Western land grants, especially that would have

00:22:16.540 been opened up after the French and Indian war. There were lands promised to, to officers. And now

00:22:22.880 you have the proclamation, which prevents Western expansion. You have taxation, but for what Washington

00:22:29.480 really opens his eyes is he is very much as many wealthy Americans had been importing many goods from,

00:22:35.840 from British merchants. And when the taxes come about, these British merchants call in their debts

00:22:42.840 and Washington is shocked by this. And he views it as a matter of honor because the idea was,

00:22:50.020 if you're asking me to pay now, you don't trust me. You don't believe that I'm going to pay.

00:22:55.440 So if you had debts, as many people did, that was actually considered a good thing. That was considered

00:22:59.940 an honorable thing because it meant people trusted you. They believed you would pay. Whereas now when these

00:23:05.160 debts are being called in, Washington is considering it that, well, we're not being treated as men of

00:23:11.840 honor, as not being trustworthy. And the same thing, he starts to link his own personal treatment by his,

00:23:19.040 his creditors with how the British parliament is treating the American colonists, sort of this lack

00:23:24.840 of honor being bestowed. So that's, that's for him. Whereas Franklin is in many ways, was very pro-British

00:23:31.760 empire leading into the Stamp Act. In fact, he's opposed to the Stamp Act, but he's trying to bring

00:23:37.380 about ways to, to facilitate a reconciliation. And where this all goes wrong, he tries to blame it

00:23:45.640 all on, on the Massachusetts governor, who's Thomas Hutchinson. And he feels that, well, if Americans have

00:23:51.280 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 1.00

00:25:45.980 are doing, but it's a affront to us as colonists. Yeah. Is that how you say it? Colonists? Yeah.

00:25:51.560 Colonists. 0.97

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. 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.91

00:29:15.560 their shoulder about it.

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

00:29:35.420 for the good of the many.

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

00:29:46.700 because, well, they shot first.

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, 0.59

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. 1.00

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 0.89

00:32:08.920 different than the British, even though it was militarily a complete nightmare? 0.93

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 0.99

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, 0.56

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 1.00

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

00:45:39.080 all the duels he did.

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

00:46:29.080 that or what happened there?

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

00:47:45.860 than honorable.

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,

00:48:53.600 feel free to shoot me an email.

00:48:55.240 Fantastic. Well, Craig Bruce Smith, thank you so much time. It's been a

00:48:57.560 pleasure.

00:48:58.480 Oh, thanks for having me.

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,

00:49:41.500 this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - July 03, 2018

#419： American Honor — Creating the Nation's Ideals During the Revolution

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