tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/benjamin-franklin-21536/articlesBenjamin Franklin – The Conversation2024-03-04T18:49:30Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247182024-03-04T18:49:30Z2024-03-04T18:49:30ZThe Constitution sets some limits on the people’s choices for president - but the Supreme Court rules it’s unconstitutional for state governments to decide on Trump’s qualifications<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579002/original/file-20240229-24-47x21c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=174%2C174%2C2495%2C1526&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 1935 painting depicts the 1787 meeting that adopted the U.S. Constitution.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27The_Adoption_of_the_U.S._Constitution_in_Congress_at_Independence_Hall,_Philadelphia,_Sept._17,_1787%27_(1935),_by_John_H._Froehlich.jpg">John H. Froehlich via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Supreme Court ruled on March 4, 2024, that former President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf">could appear on state presidential ballots</a> for the 2024 election, it did not address an idea that seemed simple and compelling when Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised it during the Feb. 8, 2024, oral arguments in the case:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2023/23-719_5he6.pdf">What about the idea that we should think about democracy</a>, think about the right of the people to elect candidates of their choice, of letting the people decide?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In essence, he was asking whether it would be better to let the people, rather than a court or a state official, decide whether a controversial candidate should return to the White House.</p>
<p>Kavanaugh had a point. Under the Constitution, the people can be – and are – trusted to make a great many important decisions.</p>
<p>But Kavanaugh also missed a key point that I learned in years of <a href="https://my.wlu.edu/directory/profile?ID=x1345">teaching about the presidency, the Constitution and impeachment</a>. Right from the very beginning of the nation, and persisting until today, there have been rules that limit the ability of the people to choose their leaders.</p>
<h2>The Constitutional Convention of 1787</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579003/original/file-20240229-18-i9mxdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in formal 18th century dress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579003/original/file-20240229-18-i9mxdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579003/original/file-20240229-18-i9mxdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579003/original/file-20240229-18-i9mxdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579003/original/file-20240229-18-i9mxdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579003/original/file-20240229-18-i9mxdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579003/original/file-20240229-18-i9mxdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579003/original/file-20240229-18-i9mxdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gouverneur Morris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Gouverneur_Morris_(1752-1816),_1817.jpg">Ezra Ames via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The drafters of the Constitution already had the discussion Kavanaugh was trying to start during the oral arguments.</p>
<p>In July 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, where the Constitution was written, were discussing impeachment. Gouverneur Morris – a Pennsylvania delegate who <a href="https://www.neh.gov/article/confessions-gouverneur-morris">wrote the preamble to the Constitution</a>, including its opening phrase, “<a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/preamble">We the People of the United States</a>” – made an argument Kavanaugh’s question would echo 237 years later.</p>
<p>When discussing <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-founding-fathers-debate-over-what-constituted-impeachable-offense-180965083/">whether it should be possible for Congress to remove the president</a>, Morris said no.</p>
<p>The people could decide for themselves, he said. Making the president subject to impeachment, Morris said, “<a href="https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_5s7.html">will hold him in such dependence</a> that he will be no check on the Legislature, (nor) a firm guardian of the people and of the public interest.” With regular national elections, Morris said, a flawed chief executive could be removed from office by the voters. Morris added, “<a href="https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_5s7.html">In case he should be reelected</a>, that will be sufficient proof of his innocence.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579005/original/file-20240229-16-zek6xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in formal 18th century dress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579005/original/file-20240229-16-zek6xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579005/original/file-20240229-16-zek6xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579005/original/file-20240229-16-zek6xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579005/original/file-20240229-16-zek6xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579005/original/file-20240229-16-zek6xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579005/original/file-20240229-16-zek6xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579005/original/file-20240229-16-zek6xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Mason.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Mason.jpg">Dominic W. Boudet after John Hesselius via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But George Mason, a Virginia delegate and slaveholder who <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/george-mason-forgotten-founder-he-conceived-the-bill-of-rights-64408583/">championed the idea for the Bill of Rights</a>, was ready with a response. Pointing out that true and fair elections were key to the new nation’s success, Mason noted that if criminal conduct by some future president involved corruption of the election process, the people might have trouble deciding the culprit’s fate in a subsequent election:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_5s7.html">Shall any man be above Justice?</a> Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice? … Shall the man who has practised corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment, by repeating his guilt?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_5s7.html">Others chimed in with similar replies</a>: Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania; James Madison of Virginia, a future president; Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, a future vice president; and Edmund Randolph of Virginia, a future U.S. attorney general and secretary of state.</p>
<p>The records of the Constitutional Convention say this at the conclusion of that section of debate: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Mr. Gouverneur Morris’s opinion had been changed by the arguments used in the discussion. … Our Executive was not like a Magistrate having a life interest, much less like one having an hereditary interest in his office. He may be bribed by a greater interest to betray his trust … The Executive ought therefore to be impeachable for treachery; Corrupting his electors, and incapacity.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The outcome of that discussion resulted in the first of several rules that prevent the American people from choosing just anyone as the president.</p>
<h2>Key restrictions</h2>
<p><a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#article-1-section-3-clause-6">Section 3 of Article 1 of the Constitution</a> is the most direct result of the debate between Morris and Mason. It says that people, including the president, who are impeached and convicted can be barred from office.</p>
<p><a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/#article-2-section-1-clause-5">Section 1 of Article 2 of the Constitution</a> imposes more limits. It declares that some people <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/#article-2-section-1-clause-5">simply can’t be president</a> – those not born U.S. citizens, those under age 35 and those who have lived less than 14 years of their lives in the U.S.</p>
<p>Eight decades later, Congress and the states agreed to add a new restriction: <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/#amendment-14-section-3">Section 3 of the 14th Amendment</a>, ratified in 1868, says those seeking to hold federal and state offices who have previously taken an oath to support the Constitution <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-14th-amendment-bars-trump-from-office-a-constitutional-law-scholar-explains-principle-behind-colorado-supreme-court-ruling-219763">may not have attemped to subvert or overthrow the Constitution</a>.</p>
<p>And in 1951, the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-22/">22nd Amendment to the Constitution</a> was ratified, declaring that nobody who had been president for two terms could become president again.</p>
<p>All of these rules stand in the way of simply “letting the people decide,” as Kavanaugh suggested. Strictly speaking, those rules are not democratic. But they are intended to protect democracy itself.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579006/original/file-20240229-18-uxjqr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large room with chairs and desks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579006/original/file-20240229-18-uxjqr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579006/original/file-20240229-18-uxjqr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579006/original/file-20240229-18-uxjqr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579006/original/file-20240229-18-uxjqr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579006/original/file-20240229-18-uxjqr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579006/original/file-20240229-18-uxjqr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579006/original/file-20240229-18-uxjqr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The U.S. Senate is one of the less democratic elements of the federal government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Senate_Floor.jpg">U.S. Senate via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Democracy isn’t always democratic</h2>
<p>There are plenty of provisions in the Constitution that run counter to simple democracy. </p>
<p>The Senate and the Electoral College give <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-the-electoral-college-exist-and-how-does-it-work-5-essential-reads-149502">extra power to states with relatively small populations</a>.</p>
<p>No Congress – even one whose members were each elected by huge majorities – can pass a law abridging freedom of religion or freedom of speech. If a Congress were to pass such a law, the Supreme Court, which has been called <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/democracy/history.html">the nation’s least democratic branch</a>, could declare it unconstitutional.</p>
<p>Democratic majorities in America are both empowered and constrained by the Constitution. The founders wanted the will of the people to be heard and respected but never given absolute power. Absolute power of any kind was to be checked by a complicated set of prohibitions and procedures.</p>
<p>Kavanaugh was wise to call attention to the fact that in a democracy, the preferences of the people get a high level of deference. Voters certainly can <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/21/little-change-in-americans-views-of-trump-over-the-past-year/">judge the conduct and character of Donald Trump</a> – and many have done so, both favorably and unfavorably.</p>
<p>But George Mason was also right. When politicians corrupt the electoral process, or try to do so, it makes little sense to use elections as the mechanism to fix the problem. </p>
<p>The constitutional provisions for impeachment and the 14th Amendment make clear that people who are found guilty of serious wrongdoing while in office, or violate an oath to support the Constitution, are ineligible to hold high office thereafter. In short, the people can’t choose a Senate-convicted official or an oath-breaking insurrectionist, even if they want to. </p>
<p>America’s Constitution has long acknowledged that the preservation of the republic may, in some cases, require the disqualification of candidates and officeholders who commit crimes while in positions of power or participate in insurrection against the very government they have sworn to serve. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court has sidestepped the question of whether Trump’s actions disqualify him from office and declared instead that Congress must make that determination, under the various constitutional restrictions that continue to exist about who is allowed to serve as president. The practical effect of its decision will be to let the people decide this vital question in the coming presidential election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert A. Strong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Right from the very beginning of the nation, there have been rules that limit the ability of the people to choose their leaders.Robert A. Strong, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Washington and Lee University; Senior Fellow, Miller Center, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2206102024-01-05T16:14:57Z2024-01-05T16:14:57ZTom Wilkinson: an actor of great humanity who seldom played the lead but dominated the screen<p>It is rare that the news of the death of an actor brings with it a pang of loss for something more than their craft, something perhaps more profound. But such was the public regard and affection for <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65823240">Tom Wilkinson</a> that his death on December 30 at the age of 75 prompted much remembering of something greater than his brilliant acting: his unerring ability to convey a sense of humanity.</p>
<p>Wilkinson seldom played the leading man, and yet he often dominated the screen. That was perhaps most apparent in his appearance in the 2008 HBO series <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/jul/26/john-adams-next-box-set">John Adams</a>, where he played one of America’s founding fathers <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Franklin/Legacy">Benjamin Franklin</a> alongside the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/john-adams/#:%7E:text=John%20Adams%2C%20a%20remarkable%20political,philosopher%20than%20as%20a%20politician.">titular second president</a> (Paul Giamatti), a role that won him a Golden Globe.</p>
<p>In one scene, when Adams and Franklin meet the French king, Wilkinson stays in the background, but his subtle facial expressions provide a constant commentary on the ridiculousness of the French court which Adams/Giamatti takes in with wonder.</p>
<p>Wilkinson’s Benjamin Franklin is a clever, witty, cantankerous extrovert, often dominating scenes because he has the most dialogue. In many ways, that was unusual in the characters Wilkinson portrayed (with the exception perhaps of Arthur Edens in 2007’s <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/michael-clayton-2007">Michael Clayton</a>). Instead, his characters were often marked by a quiet but confident presence.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5OnBHdp-j2I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>It is this quiet, watchful presence that many of his colleagues <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/03/tom-wilkinson-bill-nighy-rachel-weisz-david-hare-richard-eyre-jonathan-pryce">commented on after his death</a>, and which some even found intimidating. Wilkinson, originally from Yorkshire, and educated at the University of Kent and then Rada, seemed to inhabit and even become his characters. Actors and directors who worked with him <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/03/tom-wilkinson-bill-nighy-rachel-weisz-david-hare-richard-eyre-jonathan-pryce">have described</a> his naturalness and gentleness, his lack of ego and vanity, and his innate ability to get to the emotional truth of a character.</p>
<h2>Low-key roles that shine</h2>
<p>He was often cast in roles where he played outsiders whose marginalised status is either masked or played down: in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/1997/aug/29/1">The Full Monty</a> (1997) he plays Gerald, the middle-class one-time foreman among a group of redundant working-class steel workers.</p>
<p>His qualifications land him a job interview when the others remain without luck, and his wife’s credit cards point to a level of affluence that the others can only dream of. But while he is clearly different, he manages to become part of the group, best demonstrated in the hilarious scene in the dole office where Gerald sways in perfect harmony with the others when Hot Stuff plays on the radio.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JKcx_spiE78?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/feb/23/best-exotic-marigold-hotel-review">The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel</a> (2012) Wilkinson portrays Graham Dashwood, a man who returns to India – where he grew up – to make amends to the young Indian man he was unable to love in his youth. His homosexuality isn’t commented on by the other characters, and Wilkinson carries it with the confidence of full acceptance.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/2003/03/16/looking-for-normal-finding-the-extraordinary/60f28ad4-2f0b-4437-bc0d-7271d6a930e4/">Normal</a> (2003) he plays a transgender woman who after years of hiding her truth, opens up to her family and gradually transitions to a female body. Again, the quiet confidence in the conviction of having been born in the wrong body shines through Wilkinson’s performance.</p>
<p>This conviction – of knowing who the character is and, with that, how they should be played – is central to all of Wilkinson’s performances. For me, the film that made this most apparent is <a href="https://variety.com/1994/film/reviews/priest-2-1200438515/">Priest</a> (1994) where he plays a social-activist cleric in a poor Liverpool neighbourhood alongside a naive novice (Linus Roach). Of Wilkinson’s Father Matthew, the local bishop says: “Colonel Gaddafi would be a wee bit more orthodox than you.”</p>
<p>As a Catholic priest he has an illicit affair with his housekeeper, and regularly flaunts the rules of propriety. But in the end, it is clear that his moral compass is functioning better than that of his fellow clerics. It is because Father Matthew recognises his own fallibility and the shared humanity of those he is meant to guide, that he is able to act out of compassion rather than censure. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9JVlqff_6Uc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>This compassion and emphasis on a shared humanity is what made Wilkinson’s performances so quietly powerful. It was there in Arthur Edens’ breakdown, in foreman Gerald’s sense of failure, in Graham Dashwood’s struggle with guilt and sadness, and Father Matthew’s acceptance of his own vulnerabilities.</p>
<p>This focus on humanity gave Wilkinson a reputation for seriousness and as someone who had no time for frivolity, even though many who acted alongside him have spoken of his dry wit and gentle humour.</p>
<p>But it is this sense of deep compassion and knowledge of what is morally right that many, including myself, felt so worthy of celebration. His impeccable performances will be long remembered, and will serve to remind us of what we have lost in Tom Wilkinson.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elke Weissmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The much-loved Yorkshire actor was held in high regard for his low-key but affecting performances.Elke Weissmann, Reader in Film & Television, Department of English & Creative Arts, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191852023-12-13T19:22:00Z2023-12-13T19:22:00ZHow the Boston Tea Party’s ‘destruction of the tea’ changed American history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564919/original/file-20231211-22-w3nplf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C23%2C5275%2C3400&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Under cover of night, Colonists boarded the ships, dumped the tea chests and sparked a revolution.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/boston-tea-party-the-boston-boys-throwing-the-taxed-tea-news-photo/73216815">Hulton Fine Art Collection/Art Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the evening of Dec. 16, 1773, a crowd of armed men, some allegedly wearing costumes meant to disguise them as Native American warriors, boarded three ships docked at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston. In the vessels’ holds were <a href="https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-destruction-of-the-tea">340 chests containing 92,000 pounds of tea</a>, the most popular drink in America. With support from the patriot group known as the <a href="https://www.constitutionfacts.com/us-declaration-of-independence/sons-of-liberty/">Sons of Liberty</a>, the intruders methodically searched the ships and dumped their tea into Boston Harbor. </p>
<p>According to the British East India Company, whose proprietors owned the destroyed cargo, losses totaled <a href="https://www.jyfmuseums.org/learn/research-and-collections/essays/the-tea-act-and-the-boston-tea-party">more than a million dollars in today’s currency</a>.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/40200615">destruction of the tea</a>” – as the Boston Tea Party was originally called – was the pivotal event in the coming of the American Revolution. Before Dec. 16, a peaceful resolution to <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/parliamentary-taxation">American objections to Parliament’s repeated attempts to tax the Colonies</a> without their consent seemed possible. Afterward, both British and American Colonial positions hardened. Within a year, Britain and America were at war.</p>
<h2>An attack on private property</h2>
<p>Because it was an attack on private property, the Tea Party offended many patriots in America. When George Washington learned what had happened, he made clear he disapproved of “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0067#GEWN-02-10-02-0067-fn-0013-ptr">destroying the tea</a>.” </p>
<p>Benjamin Franklin so disliked the action that he offered to <a href="https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/boston-tea-party-facts">pay for the East India Company’s losses himself</a>. Samuel Adams, assumed by both his peers and modern historians to be one of the Tea Party’s organizers, <a href="http://www.boston-tea-party.org/adams-orchestrated.html">never admitted to being involved</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564925/original/file-20231211-27-nw86va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People dressed as colonists stand at a ship's rail and throw boxes overboard and empty tea into the water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564925/original/file-20231211-27-nw86va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564925/original/file-20231211-27-nw86va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564925/original/file-20231211-27-nw86va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564925/original/file-20231211-27-nw86va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564925/original/file-20231211-27-nw86va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564925/original/file-20231211-27-nw86va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564925/original/file-20231211-27-nw86va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reenactors, here in 2017, dump tea into Boston Harbor from a ship at the Boston Tea Party Museum during annual celebrations and commemorations of the event.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/re-enactors-dump-tea-in-the-boston-harbor-at-tea-party-news-photo/1731050601">Nicolaus Czarnecki, MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The original multinational conglomerate</h2>
<p>Given the importance that Americans attached to property rights, why were Boston patriots willing to take such a calculated risk? The answer was the corrupt bargain that Lord North, the British prime minister, struck with the East India Company during the spring of 1773.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/5-fast-facts-about-the-east-india-company">East India Company</a> was Britain’s wealthiest, most powerful corporation. The company had its own <a href="https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/armies-east-india-company">army, which was more than twice</a> the size of the king’s regular forces. Political economist Adam Smith described the administration of its territorial empire in South Asia as “<a href="https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/119/0206-02_Bk.pdf">military and despotical</a>.” Yet the company was on the verge of bankruptcy – a victim of a <a href="https://yourstory.com/2014/08/bengal-famine-genocide">devastating famine in Bengal and its own corrupt administration</a>.</p>
<p>North’s solution was the <a href="https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-tea-act">Tea Act</a>. Hoping to fix Britain’s problems in both India and America, Parliament gave the East India Company a monopoly to sell 17 million pounds of tea in America at a reduced price – while keeping in place the Colonial tax on tea that Parliament had levied in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Townshend-Acts">Townshend Acts</a> of 1767. Even with the added cost of the tax, the company’s tea promised to be cheaper than tea sold by anyone else, including untaxed Dutch tea <a href="http://www.boston-tea-party.org/smuggling/organized-smuggling.html">smuggled by merchants like John Hancock</a>.</p>
<p>Parliament’s attempts to tax the Colonies since the <a href="https://www.ouramericanrevolution.org/index.cfm/page/view/p0032">Stamp Act</a> of 1765 had largely failed. American patriots feared that the Tea Act would be a victory for British politicians who believed Parliament had the right to raise a revenue in the Colonies without the consent of Colonial representatives.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564927/original/file-20231211-26-msxpy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person empties an envelope of dark powder into a plastic box holding even more of the same powder." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564927/original/file-20231211-26-msxpy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564927/original/file-20231211-26-msxpy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564927/original/file-20231211-26-msxpy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564927/original/file-20231211-26-msxpy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564927/original/file-20231211-26-msxpy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564927/original/file-20231211-26-msxpy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564927/original/file-20231211-26-msxpy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Every year, Americans send tea to the Boston Tea Party Museum to be dumped into the harbor during commemorative events. Here, Kristin Harris, research coordinator at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, blends many packages of mailed tea into a container for dumping.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/boston-ma-kristin-harris-the-research-co-ordinator-at-the-news-photo/1821046068">Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A national response</h2>
<p>Although the most violent resistance to the new measure occurred in Massachusetts, Boston was not alone. As opposition to the Tea Act spread, <a href="https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-boston-tea-party">New York and Philadelphia</a> patriots refused to allow ships with company tea to unload, forcing them to return to Britain.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, tea was unloaded and <a href="https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-tea-act">left on the docks to rot</a>. After merchants in Charleston, South Carolina, paid for a shipment of tea, they were forced by local patriots to empty it into the harbor.</p>
<p>In Edenton, North Carolina, the resistance came from women, 51 of whom signed a petition pledging not to drink tea until the laws “<a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/0125/Beyond-Boston-9-tea-parties-you-probably-haven-t-heard-about/The-Edenton-Tea-Party">to enslave this our Native Country</a>” were repealed. Women in the port of <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/0125/Beyond-Boston-9-tea-parties-you-probably-haven-t-heard-about/The-Wilmington-Tea-Party">Wilmington</a> burned tea on the town green.</p>
<h2>Parliamentary anger</h2>
<p>When news of the destroyed tea reached London, even Britons who sympathized with the American cause were appalled, in part for the same reason many Colonists objected: It was an attack on private property.</p>
<p>Parliament responded with three <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/intolerable-acts">punitive laws</a>, limiting Massachusetts’ self-government, interfering with the Colony’s courts and stopping all trade through the port of Boston until its people compensated the East India Company for the losses. Historians today remember the statutes as the <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/the-coercive-intolerable-acts-of-1774/">Coercive Acts</a>. Colonists called them the “Intolerable Acts.” Both descriptions were accurate.</p>
<p>If Parliament had responded less harshly, Americans would have had to weigh their objections to paying Parliament’s tax on tea against the discomfort that many of them felt over the destruction of private property in Boston. Eventually, the men who boarded the ships on Griffin’s Wharf might have been brought to justice.</p>
<p>As it happened, though, Lord North claimed Parliament had no choice. “Whatever may be the consequence,” <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/colonial-responses-intolerable-acts">he told the House of Commons on April 22, 1774</a>, “we must risk something: if we do not, all is over.”</p>
<p>Almost exactly a year later, the government’s coercive measures, which North hoped would settle the dispute on Britain’s terms, tipped 13 of George III’s Colonies into open rebellion. Whatever Americans thought of the events on Dec. 16, the punishment imposed on Massachusetts terrified them even more, raising fears that a similar fate awaited Colonists elsewhere.</p>
<p>If coercion was Britain’s only choice, then the Colonists began to see that perhaps they, too, had just one choice: armed resistance, followed on July 4, 1776, by a declaration of independence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eliga Gould is a member of New Hampshire's Sestercentennial Commission for commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. </span></em></p>An attack on private property angered Colonial leaders as much as the British public – but a strong reaction from Parliament hardened the positions of the opposing sides, making compromise impossible.Eliga Gould, Professor of History, University of New HampshireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138522023-12-05T13:18:28Z2023-12-05T13:18:28ZWhy Franklin, Washington and Lincoln considered American democracy an ‘experiment’ – and were unsure if it would survive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562824/original/file-20231130-19-e8zx58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4089%2C3108&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters in a county election, 1854.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.110694.html">Etching by John Sartain after painting by George Caleb Bingham; National Gallery of Art</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the time of the founding era to the present day, one of the more common things said about American democracy is that <a href="https://www.citizen-times.com/story/opinion/2023/05/14/american-experiment-in-democracy-tested-by-those-who-want-control/70180548007/">it is an “experiment</a>.” </p>
<p>Most people can readily intuit what the term is meant to convey, but it is still a phrase that is bandied about more often than it is explained or analyzed. </p>
<p>Is American democracy an “experiment” in the bubbling-beakers-in-a-laboratory sense of the word? If so, what is the experiment attempting to prove, and how will we know if and when it has succeeded?</p>
<h2>Establishing, then keeping, the republic</h2>
<p>To the extent you can generalize about such a <a href="https://www.loa.org/books/black-writers-of-the-founding-era/">diverse</a> <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807847862/the-other-founders/">group</a>, the founders meant two things, I would argue, by calling self-government an “experiment.”</p>
<p>First, they saw their work as an experimental attempt to apply principles derived from science and the study of history to the management of political relations. As the founder John Jay <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Principles_and_Acts_of_the_Revolution_in/ZWw2AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22first+people+whom+heaven+has+favored+with+an+opportunity+of+deliberating+upon%27%22+intitle:principles&pg=PA181&printsec=frontcover">explained to a New York grand jury in 1777</a>, Americans, acting under “the guidance of reason and experience,” were among “the first people whom heaven has favored with an opportunity of deliberating upon, and choosing the forms of government under which they should live.”</p>
<p>Alongside this optimistic, Enlightenment-inspired understanding of the democratic experiment, however, was another that was decidedly more pessimistic. </p>
<p>Their work, the founders believed, was also an experiment because, as everyone who had read their Aristotle and Cicero and studied ancient history knew, republics – in which <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/republic-government">political power rests with the people and their representatives</a> – and democracies were historically rare and acutely susceptible to subversion. That subversion came both from within – from decadence, the sapping of public virtue and demagoguery – as well as from monarchies and other enemies abroad. </p>
<p>When asked whether the federal constitution of 1787 established a monarchy or a republic, Benjamin Franklin is famously said to have answered: “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/12/18/republic-if-you-can-keep-it-did-ben-franklin-really-say-impeachment-days-favorite-quote/">A republic, if you can keep it</a>.” His point was that establishing a republic on paper was easy and preserving it the hard part.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562828/original/file-20231130-27-qsdx64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five men sitting and standing around a table, with the title 'The Declaration Committee' below the image." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562828/original/file-20231130-27-qsdx64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562828/original/file-20231130-27-qsdx64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562828/original/file-20231130-27-qsdx64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562828/original/file-20231130-27-qsdx64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562828/original/file-20231130-27-qsdx64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562828/original/file-20231130-27-qsdx64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562828/original/file-20231130-27-qsdx64.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, from left: Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and John Adams.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-committee-which-drafted-the-declaration-of-independence-news-photo/3092203?adppopup=true">Printed by Currier & Ives; photo by MPI/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Optimism and pessimism</h2>
<p>The term “experiment” does not appear in any of the nation’s founding documents, but it has nevertheless enjoyed a privileged place in public political rhetoric. </p>
<p>George Washington, in <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw2.025/?sp=28&st=text">his first inaugural address</a>, described the “republican model of government” as an “experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” </p>
<p>Gradually, presidents began to talk less of a democratic experiment whose success was still in doubt than about one whose viability had been proven by the passage of time. </p>
<p>Andrew Jackson, for one, in <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Compilation_of_the_Messages_and_Papers/kD0PAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Our+Constitution+is+no+longer+a+doubtful+experiment%22+inauthor:richardson&pg=PA293&printsec=frontcover">his 1837 farewell address</a> felt justified in proclaiming, “Our Constitution is no longer a doubtful experiment, and at the end of nearly half a century we find that it has preserved unimpaired the liberties of the people.”</p>
<p>Such statements of guarded optimism about the American experiment’s accomplishments, however, existed alongside persistent expressions of concern about its health and prospects. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Rise-of-American-Democracy">period before the Civil War</a>, despite participating in what in hindsight was a healthy, two-party system, politicians were forever proclaiming the end of the republic and casting opponents as threats to democracy. Most of those fears can be written off as hyperbole or attempts to demonize rivals. Some, of course, were sparked by genuine challenges to democratic institutions.</p>
<p>The attempt of Southern states to dissolve the Union represented one such occasion. In a July 4, 1861, address to Congress, Abraham Lincoln quite rightly saw the crisis as <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.1057200/?sp=1&st=text">a grave trial for the democratic experiment to survive</a>.</p>
<p>“Our popular Government has often been called an experiment,” Lincoln observed. “Two points in it our people have already settled – the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains – its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it.” </p>
<h2>Vigilance required</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562830/original/file-20231130-27-kzydzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An white haired man from the 18th century in a black coat and white shirt with high collar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562830/original/file-20231130-27-kzydzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562830/original/file-20231130-27-kzydzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562830/original/file-20231130-27-kzydzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562830/original/file-20231130-27-kzydzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562830/original/file-20231130-27-kzydzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562830/original/file-20231130-27-kzydzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562830/original/file-20231130-27-kzydzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Washington, in his first inaugural address, described the ‘republican model of government’ as an ‘experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nga.gov/global-site-search-page.html?searchterm=George+Washington">National Gallery, Corcoran collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you tried to quantify references to the democratic “experiment” throughout American history, you would find, I suspect, more pessimistic than optimistic invocations, more fears that the experiment is at imminent risk of failing than standpat complacency that it has succeeded. </p>
<p>Consider, for example, the popularity of such recent tomes as “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562246/how-democracies-die-by-steven-levitsky-and-daniel-ziblatt/">How Democracies Die</a>,” by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, and “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/621076/twilight-of-democracy-by-anne-applebaum/">Twilight of Democracy</a>,” by journalist and historian Anne Applebaum. Why this persistence of pessimism? Historians of the United States have long noted the popularity since the time of the Puritans of <a href="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/4948.htm">so-called “Jeremiads”</a> and “declension narratives” – or, to put it more colloquially, nostalgia for the good old days and the belief that society is going to hell in a handbasket.</p>
<p>The human-made nature of our institutions has always been a source of both hope and anxiety. Hope that America could break the shackles of old-world oppression and make the world anew; anxiety that the improvisational nature of democracy leaves it vulnerable to anarchy and subversion. </p>
<p>American democracy has faced genuine, sometimes existential threats. Though its attribution to Thomas Jefferson is apparently apocryphal, the adage that <a href="https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/eternal-vigilance-price-liberty-spurious-quotation/">the price of liberty is eternal vigilance</a> is justly celebrated.</p>
<p>The hard truth is that the “experiment” of American democracy will never be finished so long as the promise of equality and liberty for all remains anywhere unfulfilled. </p>
<p>The temptation to give in to despair or paranoia in the face of the experiment’s open-endedness is understandable. But fears about its fragility should be tempered with a recognition that democracy’s essential and demonstrated malleability – its capacity for adaptation, improvement and expanding inclusivity – can be and has historically been a source of strength and resilience as well as vulnerability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213852/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Coens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Is American democracy an ‘experiment’ in the bubbling-beakers-in-a-laboratory sense of the word? If so, what is the experiment attempting to prove, and how will we know if and when it has succeeded?Thomas Coens, Research Associate Professor of History, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1997232023-02-17T14:48:51Z2023-02-17T14:48:51ZDo we need political parties? In theory, they’re the sort of organization that could bring Americans together in larger purpose<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510700/original/file-20230216-26-x493yz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5973%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">During President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech, many Congressional Democrats stood and clapped, but the GOP did not.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/StateoftheUnion/25a1f757fb5c4ebbac967772a8e2aea1/photo?Query=state%20of%20the%20union&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=10744&currentItemNo=84">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 27 million people who watched President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/heres-how-many-watched-bidens-state-union-major-tv-networks-2023-02-08/">on Feb. 7, 2023</a>, witnessed <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1155495296/the-state-of-the-union-and-a-house-narrowly-divided">the spectacle of a family divided</a>, with boos and cheers perfectly arranged along party lines. </p>
<p>Are political parties <a href="https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/party-competition-linked-to-public-investment-503262/">getting in the way of the nation’s well-being</a>? For the approximately 40% of those polled in January 2023 by the Gallup Organization <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx">who say they are neither Democrats nor Republicans, but independent</a>, as well as any viewers of the State of the Union speech, the answer is likely “yes.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An antique portrait of a partly bald man wearing a dark coat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510705/original/file-20230216-24-1tdw7u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin wrote that, in public affairs, very few ‘act with a View to the Good of Mankind.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://loc.getarchive.net/download-image?src=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn4.picryl.com%2Fphoto%2F1900%2F01%2F01%2Fbenjamin-franklin-head-and-shoulders-portrait-d2c2d2-1600.jpg&name=benjamin-franklin-head-and-shoulders-portrait-d2c2d2&ext=.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a historian who has spent years studying <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12786/first-among-men">America’s early political leaders</a>, I can say with confidence that today’s Americans are not the first to fret over the potential harm that parties can inflict. And yet, facts indicate that it wouldn’t be wise <a href="https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2021/role-of-political-parties-democracy">to turn away from traditional political organizations</a>.</p>
<h2>‘The greatest political evil’</h2>
<p>Distrust of parties has a long history. </p>
<p>“The great Affairs of the World, the Wars, Revolutions,” a young Benjamin Franklin wrote, “are <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22the%20Wars%2C%20Revolutions%2C%20%26c.%20are%20carried%20on%20and%20effected%20by%20Parties%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">carried on and effected by Parties</a>.” In 1731, when Franklin wrote that sentence, the American nation hadn’t even been born and the young printer was styling himself as a proud member of an expanding British empire.</p>
<p>But he feared that parties’ particular agendas would eventually thwart the general interest. In public affairs, Franklin sadly concluded, very few “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22the%20Wars%2C%20Revolutions%2C%20%26c.%20are%20carried%20on%20and%20effected%20by%20Parties%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">act with a View to the Good of Mankind</a>.”</p>
<p>During the 18th century, the term “party” simply meant “faction.” It automatically conjured the specter of inner division, fragmentation and social chaos.</p>
<p>In his 1796 Farewell Address, President George Washington, for example, warned against “the baneful effects of <a href="http://www.liberty1.org/farewell.htm">the spirit of party generally</a>.” Parties, for him, were like a “fire.” While a fire can be useful, when unquenched it will burst “into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.” Finding ways to moderate “the fury of party spirit” was for Washington pivotal to the survival of the entire nation.</p>
<p>In 1780, the Articles of Confederation, the feeble <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation">first American constitution</a>, was about to be enforced. John Adams had already made a strong case against the excesses of parties.</p>
<p>“There is nothing I dread so much, as a division of the Republick into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension is to be dreaded as <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%22dreaded%20as%20the%20greatest%20political%20evil%20under%20our%20Constitution%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=">the greatest political evil</a>,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Adams, apparently, was an oracle of sorts.</p>
<h2>‘Mischiefs of faction’</h2>
<p>Americans have always had the sense that parties, by and large, can grow to be a tumor on society.</p>
<p>In order to convince the states to switch to a proper constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay authored the <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1404/1404-h/1404-h.htm">Federalist Papers</a>, to date one of the most influential collections of essays in political theory.</p>
<p>They gave their full attention to parties. The Constitution, they argued, should be ratified precisely to curtail the “<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp">mischiefs of faction</a>,” as Madison said in Federalist #10. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gray-haired man in a frilly blouse and brown jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510708/original/file-20230216-16-2flslp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Adams wrote, ‘There is nothing I dread so much, as a division of the Republick into two great parties.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.75.52">Painting by John Trumbull from National Portrait Gallery.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And in Federalist #15, Hamilton stressed the same argument: The Constitution would be the best answer to the spirit of faction, “which is <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed15.asp">apt to mingle its poison</a> in the deliberations of all bodies of men.”</p>
<p>But poisons, as it happens, can be remedies as well. The authors of the Federalist Papers never suggested that Americans should get rid of parties entirely.</p>
<p>While parties often are local groups attempting to advance their narrow agendas, Madison, Hamilton and Jay insisted that those forces could be harnessed to promote the common interest.</p>
<p>Their recipe was to enlarge the nation. In a big nation, they claimed, many competing interests would naturally appear, and it would be much harder for any given “factious leader” to rise to power. </p>
<p>Any group, or lobby, would have to build on general principles and shared values, not on a narrow agenda. Any faction would thus morph into a political party in a positive sense.</p>
<p>Let the nation expand: “The influence of factious leaders,” Madison wrote in Federalist #10, “may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp">through the other States</a>.”</p>
<h2>Democracy ‘unthinkable’ without parties</h2>
<p>Modern political science acknowledges <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.polisci.2.1.243">the value of political parties</a>. Some scholars have also said that parties are the “makers” of democratic governments: “Modern democracy is <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/504857">unthinkable save in terms of the parties</a>,” wrote American political scientist Elmer Schattschneider in 1942. Not everyone agrees on this, of course, but parties today can be a bulwark against the pettiness of <a href="http://books.imprint.co.uk/book/?gcoi=71157100106600">identity politics and tribalism</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, parties can still provide culture. As the authors of the Federalist Papers assumed, they can be a good substitute for family, clan, club, team. And just like a team or a family, they can move people’s hearts, not just their brains.</p>
<p>In Federalist #17, again, Hamilton recognized the issue. </p>
<p>“It is a known fact in human nature, that its affections are commonly weak in proportion to the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed17.asp">distance or diffusiveness of the object</a>.” A person, Hamilton explained, “is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large.”</p>
<p>Parties can be the solution to this very problem. They can be the cement of society. People wave their party flags, or sip their coffee in their party mug, because they are passionate. But the passion that their party elicits can overlap with the general interests of the nation, or the world.</p>
<p>Parties can be at once the source of personal identity and the wings that take citizens to the sky. </p>
<p>Parties have repeatedly let people down. They have stifled the “cords of affection” while fomenting division – and they keep doing this. But they can also act to promote the common interest. </p>
<p>Nothing is decided yet. As Madison stated in Federalist #14, “Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed14.asp">no longer live together as members of the same family</a>.”</p>
<p>They still can. And political parties can help them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Americans are not the first to fret over the potential harm that parties can inflict. But parties can also promote the common interest.Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di TorinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1972032023-01-10T17:15:46Z2023-01-10T17:15:46ZRichard Price: how one of the 18th century’s most influential thinkers was forgotten<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503384/original/file-20230106-23-db9yxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1914%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Price reading a letter dated 1784 from his friend, Benjamin Franklin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benjamin West, National Library of Wales & Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to the eulogies and <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_gentlemans-magazine_1791-04_61_4/page/388/mode/2up?q=price">obituaries</a> written at the time of his death in 1791, <a href="https://richardpricesociety.org.uk/">Richard Price’s</a> name would be remembered alongside figures such as Benjamin Franklin, John Locke, George Washington and Thomas Paine. </p>
<p>Three hundred years on from his birth in the village of Llangeinor, near Bridgend in south Wales, why has he therefore been lost from our popular memory? </p>
<p>After all, here was a polymath whose lasting contributions ranged across a number of disciplines, including moral philosophy, <a href="https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2013.00638.x">mathematics</a> and theology. Moreover, Price’s contribution as a public intellectual made a huge impact, not least in international politics. </p>
<p>A useful starting point are the parallels with his friend <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/oct/05/original-suffragette-mary-wollstonecraft?CMP=share_btn_link">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>. She was a philosopher, a women’s rights advocate and the mother of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/mary-shelley">Mary Shelley</a>. </p>
<p>Wollstonecraft was both inspired by Price and indebted to him. Indeed, her most influential texts are directly linked to Price and the pamphlet war known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_Controversy">Revolution controversy</a>. </p>
<p>In these texts, influential thinkers discussed the political issues arising from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/French-Revolution">French Revolution</a>. It has subsequently been recognised as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26213839">formative debate in terms of modern political ideas. </a></p>
<p>It was Price who sparked the controversy with a sermon in 1789 entitled <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Discourse_on_the_Love_of_Our_Country/92QNAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">A Discourse on the Love of Our Country</a>, in which he supported the opening events of the revolution in France. </p>
<p>He declared it to be a continuation of the spreading of enlightened values and ideas introduced by the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/revolution/">Glorious Revolution of 1688</a> in England. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XHjtIO0ZFs4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Price’s sermon to the Revolution Society in 1789.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This provoked a response from the philosopher and Anglo-Irish Whig MP <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edmund-Burke-British-philosopher-and-statesman">Edmund Burke</a>, with his famous text, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-france-by-edmund-burke">Reflections on the Revolution in France</a>. </p>
<p>This is regarded as a formative text of modern conservative thought. It defended the importance of the traditional institutions of state and society while warning of the excesses of revolution. </p>
<p>In response, Wollstonecraft published <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-men">A Vindication of the Rights of Men</a> in 1790. It was both a critique of Burke and a defence of Price, who died a year later. </p>
<p>Then in 1792, she wrote her profoundly influential <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/mary-wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman">A Vindication of the Rights of Woman</a>, explicitly extending dissenting ideals to women, with a searing social critique. </p>
<p>Both Price and Wollstonecraft would subsequently be written out of history. </p>
<p>Price’s biographer, <a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/author/Paul-Frame-663/">Paul Frame</a>, suggests this can be partly accounted for by events in France and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Reign-of-Terror">violent turn to terror during the French Revolution</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, <a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/libertys-apostle-richard-price-his-life-and-times/">Frame suggests</a> Burke was “the man who had accurately predicted the direction of the Revolution”. This “undermined the more optimistic faith in rationalism and natural rights” of Price and others. </p>
<p>They both also suffered in terms of their personal reputation. Price became a caricature of the picture painted by Burke, captured in the cartoons of the day. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Satirical cartoon of Richard Price at his writing desk overlooked by a large nose and eyes surrounded by haze representing Edmund Burke, carrying a crown, a cross and a copy of his pamphlet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A caricature of Richard Price with a vision of Edmund Burke looking over his shoulder, by James Gillray.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wollstonecraft was posthumously <a href="https://lithub.com/how-a-husbands-loving-biography-ruined-his-wifes-reputation/">undone by the candid biography of her widower</a>, its contents deployed maliciously by those who sought to undermine her. Thankfully, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-a-provocative-tribute-for-a-radical-woman-149888">her works and good name were recovered by the feminist movement</a>. </p>
<p>As Frame suggests however, there were deeper, structural factors at play. </p>
<p>Price was the embodiment of a reformism the British establishment had a material interest in thwarting. He represented a dissenting community whose <a href="https://welshchapels.wales/nonconformity/">nonconformist Christian denominations</a> were in opposition to the established church and discriminated against. </p>
<p>Price spoke out against the crown, slavery and chauvinistic nationalism. He advocated equality, democratic principles and civic nationalism. </p>
<p>The hostility towards the progressive forces he embodied was symbolised by the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100452318;jsessionid=7677A3EB1D19321A218678801F2EDCD1">Seditious Meetings Act</a> introduced in 1795 to stifle the reform movement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An illustration from 1790 showing three men speaking from a church pulpit to a group of others reading and tearing up documents." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Price, Joseph Priestley and Theophilus Lindsay in a 1790 engraving satirising the campaign to have the Test Act repealed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Sayers</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There would have been very real consequences had it been Price and his ilk – and not Burke – who were lionised as the spirit of Britain (a state less than a century old at the time). Arguably, we still live with the ramifications today. </p>
<p>Price’s politics eventually had their day as the social tumult of the 19th century meant the tide of reform could not be stemmed. </p>
<p>Burke’s conservatism, however, conceivably still symbolises where the balance of power sits in terms of the UK’s political culture. The Tory party is often <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA271975015&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=15555623&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E26847d25">still regarded as the natural party of power</a>, and deference towards the ruling classes remains. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A memorial stone dedicated to Richard Price in Newington Green Unitarian Church" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Memorial to Richard Price in Newington Green Unitarian Church in North London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Cardy</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given the collective amnesia towards him within Britain, it is perhaps apt that celebrations of Price’s life and works should begin this month with a talk at <a href="https://www.amphilsoc.org/events/electrifying-thinkers">the American Philosophical Association</a> in Philadelphia. </p>
<p>There will, however, be <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089200358334">a programme of events at home</a> to reflect on his contribution and contemporary relevance. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1599865290761785344"}"></div></p>
<p>This will include a birthday celebration in Llangeinor, an academic conference, and <a href="https://contemporancient.org/">a play</a>. </p>
<p>If he has not been celebrated by a British culture, for which he had such high hopes, then it is high time it happened in Wales, at the very least.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huw L Williams works for Cardiff University who are a lead partner in the 'Price 300' project celebrating Richard Price's tercentenary in 2023. His work as a philosopher is part-funded by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, a government-funded body responsible for promoting academic activity and teaching through the medium of Welsh. He is the President of the Adran Athroniaeth Cymdeithas Cynfyfyrwyr Prifysgol Cymru that promotes philosophy through the medium of Welsh and Welsh-language philosophy.</span></em></p>He was an important philosopher, mathematician and social reformer of his time. But Richard Price was subsequently written out of history.Huw L Williams, Reader in Political Philosophy, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1951702022-12-05T13:25:56Z2022-12-05T13:25:56ZHow fake foreign news fed political fervor and led to the American Revolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498563/original/file-20221201-20-3xspsw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C25%2C5683%2C3714&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 1877 print called 'Concord - The First Blow For Liberty,' showing American patriots going off to fight the British on April 19, 1775.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/concord-the-first-blow-for-liberty-american-patriots-going-news-photo/1151166237?phrase=American%20Revolution%20Patriots&adppopup=true">Print Collector/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Misinformation is often at the root of political extremism. During the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/09/us/politics/election-misinformation-midterms-results.html">2022 United States midterm election, some</a> of the most radical politicians in the Republican Party were fueled by the unfounded belief that the previous presidential election in 2020 was stolen.</p>
<p>Misinformation as motivation for political action is nothing new. As I explain in my new book, “<a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12848/misinformation-nation">Misinformation Nation</a>,” during the American Revolution, the self-declared “Patriot” faction that led the colonies through a bloody fight to independence was guided by a profoundly mistaken belief. </p>
<p>These Patriots thought that the British government aimed to control the colonies and extract their wealth, but that a supermajority of people in Britain nevertheless sympathized with colonists’ desire for autonomy. They imagined that this pro-American public was being silenced and suppressed by the leadership of the unpopular British government. </p>
<p>The notion that their protests would be supported by a receptive British public became central to American Patriots’ strategies for organizing against the British government. They boycotted, petitioned and even fought the British Empire in hopes that doing so would contribute to a turnover in government. The Patriot colonists believed that millions of disempowered Britons would soon overturn the empire’s illegitimate government.</p>
<p>Yet as many Britons understood, this notion that the Parliamentary leadership was unpopular and illegitimate was far from the truth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498567/original/file-20221201-20-c5uz5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three men in colonial dress, one holding a newspaper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498567/original/file-20221201-20-c5uz5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498567/original/file-20221201-20-c5uz5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498567/original/file-20221201-20-c5uz5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498567/original/file-20221201-20-c5uz5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498567/original/file-20221201-20-c5uz5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498567/original/file-20221201-20-c5uz5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498567/original/file-20221201-20-c5uz5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin, center, insisted in 1775 that ‘I am persuaded the body of the British people are our friends.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/benjamin-franklin-and-associates-at-franklins-printing-news-photo/525372985?phrase=Ben%20Franklin&adppopup=true">GraphicaArtis /Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bad sources</h2>
<p>In October 1774, three different reports published in Connecticut Patriot newspapers provided three different estimates of the British public’s favor for them, all of them degrees of overwhelming. While one report suggested that “two out of three” British people favored the colonists against the British government, the others indicated that “three quarters” and “ninety-nine in an hundred” supported the Patriot cause. </p>
<p>A couple of years later, a Massachusetts paper similarly insisted that seven-eighths of the “common people of England … are in favour” of the colonists’ protests against the British leadership.</p>
<p>The Patriots were taking these accounts from newspapers published by the English Whig party, which was out of power. This political opposition published newspapers and sent letters to America insisting that they were the true voice of the people. </p>
<p>Patriot newspapers recycled much of their material from the London opposition press, which provided exactly what they wanted to hear, while ignoring news sources associated with the British government.</p>
<p>Many leading American figures accepted this rumor. Benjamin Franklin <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0136">insisted</a> in 1775 that “I am persuaded the body of the British people are our friends.” </p>
<h2>British support their leaders</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/strahan-william-1715-85">A politically prominent London printer named William Strahan</a> often found himself perplexed by American newspapers’ reporting about British politics. </p>
<p>As he explained in letter after letter written to his friend <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG218925">David Hall, who printed the Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia</a>, these accounts of the unpopularity of the British leadership – and the popularity of the colonists’ cause – were figments of the opposition’s imagination.</p>
<p>The British government members, he wrote in 1772, not only “stand their Ground,” but “gather strength every day.” The next month, he wrote to Hall that the opposition had “melted away.” He insisted that if the colonists declared independence, “this Country will oppose [the colonists] to the last Extremity.” Because his newspaper was aligned with the Patriot cause, Hall did not republish the letters he received from Strahan and continued to share, instead, sources from the British opposition. </p>
<p>Strahan was correct: The people of Britain broadly supported their leaders in Parliament against the upstart colonists. When voters had a chance to register their dissent against <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frederick-North-Lord-North-of-Kirtling">Prime Minister Frederick North in an election in 1774</a>, they instead strengthened his hand with a larger majority. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man with a white wig and dressed in an 18th century light green suit, sitting with a piece of paper in his hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498569/original/file-20221201-24-pqpuge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498569/original/file-20221201-24-pqpuge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498569/original/file-20221201-24-pqpuge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498569/original/file-20221201-24-pqpuge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498569/original/file-20221201-24-pqpuge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498569/original/file-20221201-24-pqpuge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498569/original/file-20221201-24-pqpuge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British printer and politician William Strahan, who corresponded with Ben Franklin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Strahan_%28publisher%29#/media/File:A_Man_Called_William_Strahan_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Wicked factions’</h2>
<p>Yet despite this evidence, up until the moment that they declared independence, the Patriot coalition that drove the American Revolution insisted that it had earned the hearts and minds of the British people. They asserted that Prime Minister North’s unpopular leadership would soon collapse like a sandcastle in a hurricane.</p>
<p>Strahan did his best to correct his American contacts. In 1775, he <a href="https://franklinpapers.org/yale?vol=22&page=143a">explained to his friend Benjamin Franklin</a>, “your Countrymen may have in many Instances mistaken the Voice of Faction for the real Sense of the Nation at large.” </p>
<p>On another occasion, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0053">Strahan wrote to Franklin</a>, “All our Murmerings and Opposition to Government appear only in our Newspapers.” </p>
<p>Seeking political advantage, the British opposition party attempted to portray the government as illegitimate. But the American Patriots mistook these electioneering tactics for the facts. </p>
<p>This disagreement seems to have driven the two friends apart. By late 1775, with the beginnings of war underway, Strahan broached the subject a final time. With great care, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0140">he wrote to Franklin</a>, “I shall not trouble you farther upon the Subject than just to tell you once more” that “this unnatural Civil War has been chiefly, if not wholly, occasioned by our wicked Factions” in Britain spreading lies. </p>
<p>Surrounded with news and people who agreed with them, Patriots found it impossible to believe that the sentiments of the British people ran against them. Unchecked by polling or other deliberate efforts to measure public opinion – which did not exist in early America – it was impossible for the Patriots to believe that they were a minority.</p>
<h2>Denial paid dividends</h2>
<p>Today’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/05/1109538056/election-deniers-are-spreading-misinformation-nationwide-here-are-4-things-to-kn">election deniers similarly surround themselves with like-minded people</a> and either use polling selectively or dismiss it as illegitimate. They <a href="https://www.american.edu/spa/news/matter-of-fact-measuring-how-much-people-care-about-the-truth-in-politics.cfm">ignore fact-checks from authoritative sources</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-responses-highlight-how-humans-are-hardwired-to-dismiss-facts-that-dont-fit-their-worldview-141335">trust only congenial sources</a>. Rejecting election results is undoubtedly dangerous, and the American public’s repudiation of election-deniers in the midterms is a victory for American democracy. </p>
<p>But American democracy has long faced such movements. Indeed, in the late 18th century, denying the legitimacy of an elected government was how American democracy came into being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fuel for the American Revolution came from a source familiar today: distorted news reports used to drum up enthusiasm for overthrowing an illegitimate government.Jordan Taylor, Adjunct Instructor in History, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1787092022-03-11T13:20:35Z2022-03-11T13:20:35ZThe American founders could teach Putin a lesson: Provoking an unnecessary war is not how to prove your masculinity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451355/original/file-20220310-27-stamzr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C7%2C4700%2C3136&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are lots of official photos of Russian President Vladimir Putin shirtless, including this one from August 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-sunbathes-during-his-news-photo/826469180?adppopup=true">Alexey Nikolsky/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Vladimir Putin of Russia loves shows of machismo. He constantly pumps up his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/dec/16/the-gunslinger-gait-of-vladimir-putin-walk-video">swagger</a>. He is wont to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vladimir-putin-cnbc-sexist-pipeline-b1938528.html">disparage women</a>. And he has repeatedly appeared on the public stage <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-defends-shirtless-photos-i-see-no-need-to-hide-2018-6">bare-chested</a> or as a formidable judo athlete. </p>
<p>Putin likely carries out such performances for a series of reasons: to reassure himself that he belongs to a group of famous <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/strongmen">strongmen</a>; to demonstrate his theory that a good leader is one who thrives on flamboyant, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/lawless-masculinity-gop/620732/">unchecked virility</a>; and to show his constituents – <a href="https://krytyka.com/sites/krytyka/files/sperling_0.pdf">including many international acolytes</a> – that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504220920189">male authority isn’t really under threat</a>.</p>
<p>You might laugh at such childish and cartoonish convictions and attitudes. But attitudes sometimes are not just a matter of personal style or political opportunism; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/03/09/putin-ukraine-invasion-militarized-masculinity-psychology/9426237002/">they can lead to dramatic global consequences</a>, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>Looking at Putin, you could make the case that <a href="https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/leaders-toxic-hyper-masculinity-results-in-war/">machismo results in war</a>: For these types of men and leaders, a war seems to offer the ultimate test in masculinity.</p>
<p>As a historian who has spent years writing a book on <a href="https://press.prod.jhu.mindgrb.io/books/title/12786/first-among-men">George Washington’s leadership and masculinity</a>, I have no qualms about stating that, for that long-gone generation that created an independent country, wars didn’t feed their egos.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in white judo costumes with one man throwing the other onto the floor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451354/original/file-20220310-21-1myuszr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vladimir Putin (top), then Russia’s prime minister, takes part in a judo training session during a visit to St Petersburg on Dec. 18, 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-prime-minister-vladimir-putin-takes-part-in-a-judo-news-photo/1223813355?adppopup=true">Alexey Druzhinin/RIA NOVOSTI/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>On the battlefield</h2>
<p>The American founders were often misogynists and racists. They could be reckless and brutal. But they didn’t crave wars just to prove that they were real men.</p>
<p>It’s true that Alexander Hamilton once made a shocking confession to a friend, “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-0002">I wish there was a War</a>.” But that’s precisely the point: He was a 12-year-old boy when he wrote that, not yet a man. </p>
<p>None of the founders were <a href="https://archive.org/details/halfwaypacifistt0000stua">pacifists</a>. Together they built a navy and an army. They studied the art of war by reading <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Caesar-Roman-ruler">Julius Caesar</a> or <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Treatise_of_Military_Discipline.html?id=xHtUAAAAYAAJ">Humphrey Bland</a>, author of a popular “Treatise of Military Discipline.” They all accepted wars as a necessity, especially when every other option was impractical.</p>
<p>Moreover, they saw war as inevitable because they didn’t trust human nature: “This pugnacious humor of Mankind,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “<a href="https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-print-04-02-02-2840">seems to be the law of his nature</a>.” </p>
<p>“So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities,” James Madison had already declared, that “the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp">their most violent conflicts</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dead body lying under a bloody white cloth, with a suitcase next to it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451362/original/file-20220310-15-1tbl6tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A local volunteer lies dead after the the Russian army shelled an evacuation point in Irpin, Ukraine, on March 6, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/local-volunteer-lies-dead-on-the-ground-after-the-shelling-news-photo/1381188012?adppopup=true">Diego Herrera/Europa Press via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The majority of the founders also didn’t shelter in their palaces, as Putin has done, seated at an <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vladimir-putin-ukraine-russia-crisis-long-table-kremlin-memes-rcna16670">impossibly long table</a>. “I had 4 Bullets through my Coat, and two Horses shot under me,” George Washington wrote after the <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/battle-of-the-monongahela/">battle of the Monongahela River</a> in 1755. “Death was levelling my companions on <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-01-02-0169">every side of me</a>.”</p>
<p>Washington, Hamilton and others could be easily found on actual battlefields where <a href="http://holgerhoock.com/books/scars-of-independence/">countless horrors took place</a>.</p>
<p>On May 31, 1777, William Martin, lieutenant of Oliver Spencer’s Additional Continental Regiment, for instance, was ambushed by a British-Hessian unit near Bound Brook, New Jersey. Wounded, he asked for clemency, but to no avail. He was “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0588">butchered with the greatest cruelty</a>,” wrote one observer. He was bayoneted about 20 times. His nose was cut off and his eyes yanked out.</p>
<p>Washington ordered some soldiers to bring Martin’s body to his headquarters. He had the body washed and shown as proof of the enemy’s inhumanity and lack of virility. Eventually, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0588">he sent the body to the British commander, General Cornwallis</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An antique letter in flowery handwriting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451358/original/file-20220310-17-1ps3d89.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘It is with infinite regret, I am again compelled, to remonstrate against that spirit of wanton cruelty, that … influenced the conduct of your soldiery,’ Gen. George Washington wrote to British Lieutenant General Cornwallis on June 2, 1777.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw4.042_0079_0080/?sp=1">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Never crave wars’</h2>
<p>In the 18th century, the soldier was a good example of a truly virile man, but only provided he kept acting soldierly.</p>
<p>Look at our enemies, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-18-02-0029">Washington exclaimed</a> in a letter to Patrick Henry; look at the spectacle of recklessness they offer. They only bring “devastation,” whether upon “defenceless towns,” or “helpless Women & Children.” His conclusion was clear: “Resentment & unsoldiery practices” have “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-18-02-0029">taken place of all the Manly virtues</a>.”</p>
<p>Walking the razor-thin line between real and pretended masculinity isn’t easy. But 18th-century leaders knew what had to be avoided at all costs. Only “Unmanly Men,” <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-11-02-0012">Benjamin Franklin realized</a>, would “come with Weapons against the Unarmed.” They would “use the Sword against Women, and the Bayonet against young Children.”</p>
<p>Manly men, in fact, put up with wars; but they never crave wars, let alone provoke wars, according to the American founders. A virile man, especially a soldier, must be propelled by the vision of an intellectual, cultural and moral refinement: “I must study Politicks and War,” John Adams once wrote, so that “my sons may have liberty to study <a href="https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17800512jasecond">Mathematicks and Philosophy</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine">Thomas Paine</a>, the author of influential political pamphlets, would articulate the same idea: “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm">that my child may have peace</a>.”</p>
<p>That inspiring image of children reaping the fruits of peace — definitely at odds with Putin’s shows of bravado through the years — is taken from the Bible. But the image has a political bent and doesn’t belong to any specific religion: People shall “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah%202%3A4">shall they learn war any more</a>.”</p>
<p>Washington, a man and a leader graced with a hefty dose of masculinity, agreed completely: “That the swords might be turned into plough-shares, the spears into pruning hooks — and, as the Scripture expresses it, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-06-02-0202">the nations learn war no more</a>.”</p>
<p>[<em>More than 150,000 readers get one of The Conversation’s informative newsletters.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Join the list today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178709/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A leader’s machismo can lead to war, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has long displayed his version of hyper-masculinity. A historian says that for America’s founders, wars never fed their egos.Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di TorinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1737252021-12-21T13:11:44Z2021-12-21T13:11:44ZThe best way to follow through on your New Year’s resolution? Make an ‘old year’s resolution’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438516/original/file-20211220-15-zf40ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C14%2C4815%2C3188&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More often than not, the best-laid plans for the new year go awry.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/this-year-i-will-text-on-a-vintage-typewriter-royalty-free-image/958919128?adppopup=true">Nora Carol Photography/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/la-mejor-manera-de-cumplir-un-proposito-de-ano-nuevo-haga-un-proposito-de-ano-viejo-219873"><em>Leer en español.</em></a> </p>
<p>If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution, your plot for self-improvement probably kicks into gear sometime on Jan. 1, when the hangover wears off and the quest for the “new you” begins in earnest.</p>
<p>But if research on habit change is any indication, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234097">only about half</a> of New Year’s resolutions are likely to make it out of January, much less last a lifetime. </p>
<p>As experts in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yrmBP5AAAAAJ&hl=en">positive psychology</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QrpiSzEAAAAJ&hl=en">literature</a>, we recommend an unconventional but more promising approach. </p>
<p>We call it the “old year’s resolution.” </p>
<p>It combines insights from psychologists and America’s first self-improvement guru, Benjamin Franklin, who pioneered a habit-change model that was way ahead of its time.</p>
<p>With the “old year” approach, perhaps you can sidestep the inevitable challenges that come with traditional New Year’s resolutions and achieve lasting, positive changes.</p>
<h2>A period to practice – and fail</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1159/000324861">Research has highlighted</a> two potential pitfalls with New Year’s resolutions. </p>
<p>First, if you lack the confidence to invest in a full-fledged effort, failure to achieve the goal may become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Furthermore, if you maintain the change but perceive progress as unacceptably slow or inadequate, you may abandon the effort.</p>
<p>The old year’s resolution is different. Instead of waiting until January to start trying to change your life, you do a dry run before the New Year begins. </p>
<p>How does that work?</p>
<p>First, identify a change you want to make in your life. Do you want to eat better? Move more? Sock away more savings? Now, with Jan. 1 days away, start living according to your commitment. Track your progress. You might stumble now and then, but here’s the thing: You’re just practicing. </p>
<p>If you’ve ever rehearsed for a play or played scrimmages, you’ve used this kind of low-stakes practice to prepare for the real thing. Such experiences give us permission to fail.</p>
<p>Psychologist <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/44330/mindset-by-carol-s-dweck-phd/">Carol Dweck</a> and her colleagues <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2012.722805">have shown</a> that when people see failure as the natural result of striving to achieve something challenging, they are more likely to persist to the goal. </p>
<p>However, if people perceive failure as a definitive sign that they are not capable – or even deserving – of success, failure can lead to surrender. </p>
<p>If you become convinced that you cannot achieve a goal, something called “<a href="https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/lhtheoryevidence.pdf">learned helplessness</a>” can result, which means you’re likely to abandon the endeavor altogether.</p>
<p>Many of us unintentionally set ourselves up for failure with our New Year’s resolutions. On Jan. 1, we jump right into a new lifestyle and, unsurprisingly, slip, fall, slip again – and eventually never get up. </p>
<p>The old year’s resolution takes the pressure off. It gives you permission to fail and even learn from failure. You can slowly build confidence, while failures become less of a big deal, since they’re all happening before the official “start date” of the resolution.</p>
<h2>A gardener weeding one bed at a time</h2>
<p>Long before he became one of America’s greatest success stories, Franklin devised a method that helped him overcome life’s inevitable failures – and could help you master your old year’s resolutions.</p>
<p>When he was still a young man, Franklin came up with what he called his “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” With charming confidence, he set out to master 13 virtues, including temperance, frugality, chastity, industry, order and humility.</p>
<p>In a typically Franklinian move, he applied a little strategy to his efforts, concentrating on one virtue at a time. He likened this approach to that of a gardener who “does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a time.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm">In his autobiography</a>, where he described this project in detail, Franklin did not say that he tied his project to a new year. He also did not give up when he slipped once – or more than once.</p>
<p>“I was surpris’d to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish,” Franklin wrote.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438272/original/file-20211217-21-1qce054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Open page of old book." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438272/original/file-20211217-21-1qce054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438272/original/file-20211217-21-1qce054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438272/original/file-20211217-21-1qce054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438272/original/file-20211217-21-1qce054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438272/original/file-20211217-21-1qce054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438272/original/file-20211217-21-1qce054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438272/original/file-20211217-21-1qce054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin recorded his slip-ups over the course of a week.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll7/id/107">The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He made his progress visible in a book, where he recorded his slip-ups. <a href="https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll7/id/107">One page</a> – perhaps only a hypothetical example – shows 16 of them tied to “temperance” in a single week. (Instead of marking faults, we recommend recording successes in line with <a href="https://time.com/5756833/better-control-emotions-better-habits/">the work of habit expert B.J. Fogg</a>, whose research suggests that celebrating victories helps to drive habit change.)</p>
<p>Repeated failures might discourage someone enough to abandon the endeavor altogether. But Franklin kept at it – for years. To Franklin, it was all about perspective: This effort to make himself better was a “project,” and projects take time. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=weekly&source=inline-weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>‘A better and a happier man’</h2>
<p>Many years later, Franklin <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm">admitted that he never was perfect</a>, despite his best efforts. His final assessment, however, is worth remembering: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“But, on the whole, tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Treating self-improvement as a project with no rigid time frame worked for Franklin. In fact, his scheme probably helped him <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/benjamin-franklin">succeed wildly in business, science and politics</a>. Importantly, he also found immense personal satisfaction in the endeavor: “This little artifice, with the blessing of God,” <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm">he wrote</a>, was the key to “the constant felicity of his life, down to his 79th year, in which this is written.”</p>
<p>You can enjoy the same success Franklin did if you start on your own schedule – now, during the old year – and treat self-improvement not as a goal with a starting date but as an ongoing “project.”</p>
<p>It might also help to remember Franklin’s note to himself on a virtue he called, coincidentally, “Resolution”: “Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Canada has written an Audible Original called "Ben Franklin's Lessons in Life."</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Downey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An ‘old year’ approach takes into account findings from psychological research and the wisdom of habit guru Benjamin Franklin.Mark Canada, Chancellor and Professor of English, Indiana University Kokomo, Indiana University KokomoChristina Downey, Professor of Psychology, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1615692021-07-01T12:15:51Z2021-07-01T12:15:51ZBenjamin Franklin’s fight against a deadly virus: Colonial America was divided over smallpox inoculation, but he championed science to skeptics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409191/original/file-20210630-21-sgosjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C551%2C4653%2C3592&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As a printer's apprentice in 1721, Franklin had a front-row seat to the controversy around a new prevention technique.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/1700s-1721-benjamin-franklin-age-15-in-his-brothers-news-photo/658540811">ClassicStock/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Exactly 300 years ago, in 1721, Benjamin Franklin and his fellow American colonists <a href="https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/special-edition-on-infectious-disease/2014/the-fight-over-inoculation-during-the-1721-boston-smallpox-epidemic/">faced a deadly smallpox outbreak</a>. Their varying responses constitute an eerily prescient object lesson for today’s world, similarly devastated by a virus and divided over vaccination three centuries later.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Xy_EasYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">a microbiologist</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QrpiSzEAAAAJ&hl=en">a Franklin scholar</a>, we see some parallels between then and now that could help governments, journalists and the rest of us cope with the coronavirus pandemic and future threats.</p>
<h2>Smallpox strikes Boston</h2>
<p>Smallpox was nothing new in 1721. Known to have affected people for <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html">at least 3,000 years</a>, it ran rampant in Boston, eventually striking <a href="https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/special-edition-on-infectious-disease/2014/the-fight-over-inoculation-during-the-1721-boston-smallpox-epidemic/">more than half the city’s population</a>. The virus killed about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM192108251850802">1 in 13 residents</a> – but the death toll was probably more, since the lack of sophisticated epidemiology made it impossible to identify the cause of all deaths.</p>
<p>What was new, at least to Boston, was a simple procedure that could protect people from the disease. It was known as “variolation” or “inoculation,” and involved deliberately exposing someone to the smallpox “matter” from a victim’s scabs or pus, injecting the material into the skin using a needle. This approach typically caused a mild disease and induced a state of “immunity” against smallpox.</p>
<p>Even today, the exact mechanism is <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/39485">poorly understood</a> and not much research on variolation has been done. Inoculation through the skin seems to activate an immune response that leads to milder symptoms and less transmission, possibly because of the route of infection and the lower dose. Since it relies on activating the immune response with live smallpox variola virus, inoculation is different from the modern vaccination that <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-massive-public-health-effort-eradicated-smallpox-but-scientists-are-still-studying-the-deadly-virus-139468">eradicated smallpox</a> using the much less harmful but related vaccinia virus.</p>
<p>The inoculation treatment, which originated in Asia and Africa, came to be known in Boston <a href="https://doi.org/10.1258/jrsm.2012.12k044">thanks to a man named Onesimus</a>. By 1721, <a href="https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/48057585.pdf">Onesimus was enslaved</a>, owned by the most influential man in all of Boston, the Rev. Cotton Mather.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409192/original/file-20210630-21-ix8xvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="etching of an 18th century man in white wig" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409192/original/file-20210630-21-ix8xvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409192/original/file-20210630-21-ix8xvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409192/original/file-20210630-21-ix8xvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409192/original/file-20210630-21-ix8xvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409192/original/file-20210630-21-ix8xvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409192/original/file-20210630-21-ix8xvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409192/original/file-20210630-21-ix8xvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cotton Mather heard about variolation from an enslaved West African man in his household named Onesimus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-engraved-portrait-of-cotton-mather-a-boston-news-photo/517387846?adppopup=true">Bettman via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Known primarily as a Congregational minister, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cotton-Mather">Mather was also a scientist</a> with a special interest in biology. He paid attention when <a href="https://doi.org/10.1258/jrsm.2012.12k044">Onesimus told him</a> “he had undergone an operation, which had given him something of the smallpox and would forever preserve him from it; adding that it was often used” in West Africa, where he was from.</p>
<p>Inspired by this information from Onesimus, Mather teamed up with a Boston physician, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zabdiel-Boylston">Zabdiel Boylston</a>, to conduct a scientific study of inoculation’s effectiveness worthy of 21st-century praise. They found that of the approximately 300 people Boylston had inoculated, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/qshc.2003.008797">2% had died</a>, compared with almost 15% of those who contracted smallpox from nature.</p>
<p>The findings seemed clear: Inoculation could help in the fight against smallpox. Science won out in this clergyman’s mind. But others were not convinced.</p>
<h2>Stirring up controversy</h2>
<p>A local newspaper editor named James Franklin had his own affliction – namely an insatiable hunger for controversy. Franklin, who was no fan of Mather, set about attacking inoculation in his newspaper, The New-England Courant.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409174/original/file-20210630-21151-1xbbyj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="frontpage of a 1721 newspaper" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409174/original/file-20210630-21151-1xbbyj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409174/original/file-20210630-21151-1xbbyj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409174/original/file-20210630-21151-1xbbyj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409174/original/file-20210630-21151-1xbbyj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409174/original/file-20210630-21151-1xbbyj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409174/original/file-20210630-21151-1xbbyj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409174/original/file-20210630-21151-1xbbyj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From its first edition, The New-England Courant covered inoculation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NewEnglandCourant_00001.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One article from August 1721 tried to guilt readers into resisting inoculation. If someone gets inoculated and then spreads the disease to someone else, who in turn dies of it, <a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/ideas/text7/smallpoxinoculation.pdf">the article asked</a>, “at whose hands shall their Blood be required?” The same article went on to say that “Epidemeal Distempers” such as smallpox come “as Judgments from an angry and displeased God.”</p>
<p>In contrast to Mather and Boylston’s research, the Courant’s articles were designed not to discover, but to sow doubt and distrust. The argument that inoculation might help to spread the disease posits something that was theoretically possible – at least if simple precautions were not taken – but it seems beside the point. If inoculation worked, wouldn’t it be worth this small risk, especially since widespread inoculations would dramatically decrease the likelihood that one person would infect another?</p>
<p>Franklin, the Courant’s editor, had a kid brother apprenticed to him at the time – a teenager by the name of Benjamin.</p>
<p>Historians don’t know which side the younger Franklin took in 1721 – or whether he took a side at all – but his subsequent approach to inoculation years later has lessons for the world’s current encounter with a deadly virus and a divided response to a vaccine.</p>
<h2>Independent thought</h2>
<p>You might expect that James’ little brother would have been inclined to oppose inoculation as well. After all, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280701592070">thinking like family members and others you identify with</a> is a common human tendency.</p>
<p>That he was capable of overcoming this inclination shows <a href="https://theconversation.com/talking-politics-in-2021-lessons-on-humility-and-truth-seeking-from-benjamin-franklin-153924">Benjamin Franklin’s capacity for independent thought</a>, an asset that would serve him well throughout his life as a writer, scientist and statesman. While sticking with social expectations confers certain advantages in certain settings, being able to shake off these norms when they are dangerous is also valuable. We believe the most successful people are the ones who, like Franklin, have the intellectual flexibility to choose between adherence and independence.</p>
<h2>Truth, not victory</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409194/original/file-20210630-20925-1fg34y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="etching of Franklin standing at a table in a lab" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409194/original/file-20210630-20925-1fg34y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409194/original/file-20210630-20925-1fg34y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409194/original/file-20210630-20925-1fg34y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409194/original/file-20210630-20925-1fg34y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409194/original/file-20210630-20925-1fg34y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409194/original/file-20210630-20925-1fg34y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409194/original/file-20210630-20925-1fg34y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin matured into a well-known scientist and statesman, with many successes aided by his open mind.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-engraving-depicting-benjamin-franklin-in-his-laboratory-news-photo/1130664685?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What happened next shows that Franklin, unlike his brother – and plenty of pundits and politicians in the 21st century – was <a href="https://theconversation.com/talking-politics-in-2021-lessons-on-humility-and-truth-seeking-from-benjamin-franklin-153924">more interested in discovering the truth</a> than in <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shift-mind/201103/why-is-it-so-important-be-right">proving he was right</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps the inoculation controversy of 1721 had helped him to understand an unfortunate phenomenon that continues to plague the U.S. in 2021: When people take sides, progress suffers. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1197754">Tribes</a>, whether long-standing or newly formed around an issue, can devote their energies to <a href="https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/openfordebate/2019/05/30/what-polarization-does-to-us/">demonizing the other side</a> and rallying their own. Instead of attacking the problem, they attack each other.</p>
<p>Franklin, in fact, became convinced that inoculation was a sound approach to preventing smallpox. Years later he intended to have his son Francis inoculated after recovering from a case of diarrhea. But before inoculation took place, the 4-year-old boy contracted smallpox and died in 1736. Citing a rumor that Francis had died because of inoculation and noting that such a rumor might deter parents from exposing their children to this procedure, Franklin made a point of setting the record straight, explaining that the child had “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0025">receiv’d the Distemper in the common Way of Infection</a>.”</p>
<p>Writing his autobiography in 1771, Franklin reflected on the tragedy and used it to advocate for inoculation. He explained that he “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm">regretted bitterly and still regret</a>” not inoculating the boy, adding, “This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”</p>
<h2>A scientific perspective</h2>
<p>A final lesson from 1721 has to do with the importance of a truly scientific perspective, one that embraces science, facts and objectivity.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409195/original/file-20210630-21327-fftq4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="19th-century photo of a smallpox patient" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409195/original/file-20210630-21327-fftq4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409195/original/file-20210630-21327-fftq4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409195/original/file-20210630-21327-fftq4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409195/original/file-20210630-21327-fftq4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409195/original/file-20210630-21327-fftq4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409195/original/file-20210630-21327-fftq4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409195/original/file-20210630-21327-fftq4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smallpox was characterized by fever and aches and pustules all over the body. Before eradication, the virus killed about 30% of those it infected, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/smallpox-1898-middle-east-news-photo/1139698133">Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Inoculation was a relatively new procedure for Bostonians in 1721, and this lifesaving method was not without deadly risks. To address this paradox, several physicians meticulously collected data and compared the number of those who died because of natural smallpox with deaths after smallpox inoculation. Boylston essentially carried out what today’s researchers would call a clinical study on the efficacy of inoculation. Knowing he needed to demonstrate the usefulness of inoculation in a diverse population, he <a href="http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2544007R">reported in a short book</a> how he inoculated nearly 300 individuals and carefully noted their symptoms and conditions over days and weeks.</p>
<p>The recent emergency-use authorization of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mRNA.html">mRNA-based</a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/viralvector.html">viral-vector vaccines</a> for COVID-19 has produced a vast array of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/facts.html">hoaxes, false claims and conspiracy theories</a>, especially in various social media. Like 18th-century inoculations, these vaccines represent new scientific approaches to vaccination, but ones that are based on decades of scientific research and clinical studies. </p>
<p>We suspect that if he were alive today, Benjamin Franklin would want his example to guide modern scientists, politicians, journalists and everyone else making personal health decisions. Like Mather and Boylston, Franklin was a scientist with a respect for evidence and ultimately for truth. </p>
<p>When it comes to a deadly virus and a divided response to a preventive treatment, Franklin was clear what he would do. It doesn’t take a visionary like Franklin to accept the evidence of medical science today.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have written and recorded an Audible Original about Benjamin Franklin (due to be released on July 20, 2021).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Chauret does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Bostonians in 1721 faced a deadly smallpox outbreak, a new procedure called inoculation was found to help fend off the disease. Not everyone was won over, and newspapers fed the controversy.Mark Canada, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Indiana University KokomoChristian Chauret, Dean of School of Sciences, Professor of Microbiology, Indiana University KokomoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1539242021-02-08T13:54:07Z2021-02-08T13:54:07ZTalking politics in 2021: Lessons on humility and truth-seeking from Benjamin Franklin<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382770/original/file-20210205-18-1o9iml3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C7%2C2437%2C2330&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin learned over his lifetime how to be humble and open when he talked to and with people.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Franklin_at_the_Morgan_Library_and_Museum.jpg">Rozbike/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The previous <a href="https://www.wsj.com/news/collection/year-in-review-417cb3d9">year in the United States was a turbulent one</a>, filled with political strife, protests over racism and a devastating pandemic. Underlying all three has been <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/13/america-is-exceptional-in-the-nature-of-its-political-divide/">a pervasive political polarization</a>, made worse by a breakdown in civic – and civil – discourse, not only on Capitol Hill, but around the nation.</p>
<p>In a new year, with a new president and a new Congress, there appears to be opportunity. Americans, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/01/20/bidens-inaugural-address-unity-and-truth/">starting with the president</a>, are talking about <a href="https://www.bridgealliance.us/our_members_bridging_ideological_divides">turning away from the division of the recent past</a> and choosing a different direction: talking civilly and productively about the problems the country faces. </p>
<p>But how to do that? <a href="http://markcanada.info/">As a literary scholar</a>, I appreciate the power of carefully crafted language, and I believe that Americans – from those in government to those around the dinner table – could take a lesson from one of this nation’s founders and greatest communicators: Benjamin Franklin.</p>
<h2>From ‘positive Argumentation’ to ‘modest Diffidence’</h2>
<p>Before he achieved fame as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Franklin">a statesman, scientist and diplomat, Franklin, who was born in 1706 and died in 1790</a>, made his living in Philadelphia from words – as a printer, journalist and essayist. </p>
<p>Having worked early in his life in Boston for his <a href="https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=55&pid=15">brother James</a>, a fiery journalist, he knew the kind of war that could be waged with words and had even made a hobby of debating with a young friend. </p>
<p>“We sometimes disputed,” Franklin recalled in his <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm">autobiography</a>, “and very fond we were of Argument, & very desirous of confuting one another.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382774/original/file-20210205-24-1jwa5vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men at a protest about COVID-19 restrictions in California arguing with each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382774/original/file-20210205-24-1jwa5vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382774/original/file-20210205-24-1jwa5vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382774/original/file-20210205-24-1jwa5vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382774/original/file-20210205-24-1jwa5vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382774/original/file-20210205-24-1jwa5vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382774/original/file-20210205-24-1jwa5vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382774/original/file-20210205-24-1jwa5vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men arguing about COVID-19 restrictions at a protest in Woodland Hills, Calif. on May 16, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-argue-as-supporters-of-president-donald-trump-rally-to-news-photo/1213387781?adppopup=true">David McNew/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Everything changed for Franklin, however, after he came across some examples of <a href="https://www.law.uchicago.edu/socratic-method">Socratic dialogue, in which questions figure prominently</a>. “I was charm’d with it,” Franklin wrote, “adopted it, dropt my abrupt Contradiction, and positive Argumentation, and put on the humble Enquirer & Doubter.” </p>
<p>The inspired Franklin eventually changed his entire manner of discourse, communicating “in terms of modest Diffidence” instead of positive assertion, dropping words such as “certainly” and “undoubtedly” and substituting “I should think it so or so” and “it is so, if I am not mistaken.” </p>
<p>After all, Franklin wrote, “a positive, assuming manner” tends to turn off an audience and thus undermines one’s own intentions. </p>
<p>Such positive assertion can interfere with the exchange of valuable information. “If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others,” Franklin wrote, “and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix’d in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.”</p>
<p>In 2021, replacing positive assertions in conversations with some “terms of modest Diffidence” just might lead to exchanges that are not only more civil, but also more productive. </p>
<h2>Pursuing truth, not victory</h2>
<p>More important than modest expression is actual intellectual humility, and here again Franklin’s example is instructive. Even before he turned his inquiring mind to groundbreaking discoveries in electricity, he showed a scientist’s dedication to open, objective investigation with only truth as its object. </p>
<p>In 1727, when he was still in his early 20s, he founded a group called the <a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/ideas/text4/juntolibrary.pdf">Junto</a>. Members, including a number of tradesmen like Franklin, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0089">took up political, philosophical and other questions</a> such as “Does the Importation of Servants increase or advance the Wealth of our Country?” and “Wherein consists the Happiness of a rational Creature?” </p>
<p>The goal of these discussions, as Franklin explained, was not victory – as it apparently had been for Franklin and his friend years earlier – but something far more valuable for all concerned. Franklin explained that the discussions were to take place “in the sincere Spirit of Enquiry after Truth, without fondness for Dispute, or Desire of Victory.” Anyone who spoke too confidently or contentiously had to pay a small fine.</p>
<p>This preference for pursuing truth over seeking victory found expression in a question that initiates were required to answer: “Do you love and pursue truth for its own sake?” Franklin did, and the results speak for themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382776/original/file-20210205-19-wncuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A statue of Franklin at his press, in the central part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382776/original/file-20210205-19-wncuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382776/original/file-20210205-19-wncuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382776/original/file-20210205-19-wncuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382776/original/file-20210205-19-wncuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382776/original/file-20210205-19-wncuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382776/original/file-20210205-19-wncuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382776/original/file-20210205-19-wncuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statue of Benjamin Franklin at his press, Philadelphia, Pa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/statue-of-benjamin-franklin-at-his-press-philadelphia-news-photo/629443279?adppopup=true">Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Franklin also had a prescient understanding of biases that color humans’ understanding of reality. </p>
<p>Today, scientists have shown that people are susceptible to <a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/mere-exposure-effect">mere exposure effect, a preference for information we have encountered multiple times</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/confirmation-bias">confirmation bias, an inclination toward information that aligns with a person’s current beliefs</a>. In an essay he published in the 1730s, Franklin wrote of the effect of “<a href="http://infomotions.com/etexts/literature/american/1700-1799/franklin-philadelphia-248.htm">Prevailing Opinions”</a> on the individual mind and observed, “A Man can hardly forbear wishing those Things to be true and right, which he apprehends would be for his Conveniency to find so.” He added, “That Man only, who is ready to change his Mind upon proper Conviction, is in the Way to come at the Knowledge of Truth.” </p>
<p>Franklin lived up to this principle. In 1751, he published an <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-0080">essay expressing reprehensible, racist views</a> that were all too common in his era. Years later, however, he helped found schools to educate black children and, after visiting one, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-10-02-0214">saw that the students were equal to white children in their ability to learn</a>.</p>
<p>He wound up changing not only his mind but also his essay when he <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Benjamin-Franklin/Walter-Isaacson/9780743258074">reprinted it almost two decades later</a>, changing the passage that said that most slaves were thieves “by Nature” to say that they were thieves because of slavery.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Near the end of his life, Franklin became president of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/franklin">Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery</a> and submitted to Congress a petition to abolish slavery and end the slave trade. </p>
<h2>‘Obliged by better information … to change opinions’</h2>
<p>At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_917.asp">Franklin expressed his belief in intellectual humility</a>. As James Madison recorded his words, Franklin said, “For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.” </p>
<p>“It is therefore that the older I grow,” he added, “the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.” </p>
<p>Near the end of the speech, he implored others to adopt this same humility: “On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.”</p>
<p>As these words and experience testify, political polarization and dispute are nothing new. But Franklin managed to rise above the discord, biases and close-mindedness that are common in any era. </p>
<p>He spoke and wrote in ways that, if taken up now, could begin to erode the polarization of the current era: with modesty, diffidence, sincere consideration of others’ positions, doubt in his own infallibility and love of truth for its own sake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Canada does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Benjamin Franklin spoke and wrote in ways that, if taken up now, could begin to erode the polarization of the current era.Mark Canada, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1483062020-11-06T20:14:44Z2020-11-06T20:14:44ZIs democracy sacred?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368024/original/file-20201106-23-ydi0iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C5%2C3600%2C2387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters mark their ballots at a church in Stamford, Conn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXElection2020ConnecticutVoting/66f3350d9c874e70be7eb67878d27993/photo?Query=church%20AND%20vote&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1582&currentItemNo=29">AP Photo/Jessica Hill</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With millions of votes yet to be counted and the election far from being decided, President Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/politics/election-trump-biden-recap.html">falsely claimed victory</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-calls-vote-counting-stop-but-hed-lose-if-happened-2020-11">called for a halt to vote-counting</a>. His rival, Joe Biden, meanwhile, vowed that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/biden-the-election-aint-over-until-every-vote-is-counted-433996">every ballot would be counted</a>.</p>
<p>Such moments of political drama could have some of us grasping for religious imagery and language. Indeed, one protester at a post-election rally in Missouri was <a href="https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/04/downtown-demonstration-aims-defend-democracy/6168025002/">quoted putting the fight over votes in explicitly sacred</a> terms: “Votes are the host, they are a holy item right.”</p>
<p>It echoes the language of politicians themselves. A month before the Nov. 4 election, a Democratic congressman <a href="https://doggett.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/statement-president-trump-refusing-assure-peaceful-transition-power">called Trump “a threat to our sacred democracy</a>.” And Vice President Mike Pence used explicitly religious language in his speech at the Republican National Convention in August. </p>
<p>This election is “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/politics/mike-pence-rnc-speech.html">a time of testing</a>,” he said. Blending images of the flag over Fort Henry with a biblical passage from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, Pence continued: “So let’s run the race marked out for us. Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents… And let’s fix our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith and our freedom.”</p>
<p>At one level, the use of such religious language makes sense. Nations are, like religions, institutions. Also like religions, they are <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Cultural-Politics-of-Nationalism-and-Nation-Building-Ritual-and/Tsang-Woods/p/book/9780415870658">held together by rituals</a>. A nation coming together to vote may feel a bit like a faith community gathering for worship, especially given that many places of worship <a href="https://theconversation.com/voting-while-god-is-watching-does-having-churches-as-polling-stations-sway-the-ballot-144709">double as voting stations</a>. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334041801/diagonal-advance">in my research in Christian theology</a>, I have found that the analogy between political and religious activity has important limits. </p>
<p>To understand why, it is worth looking to one of the most <a href="http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/justice-and-charity/401171">influential Christian thinkers</a> on the boundary between the political and the sacred, the 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas. </p>
<h2>Political virtues</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A stained glass window of Thomas Aquinas in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Central City, Kentucky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Joseph%27s_Catholic_Church_(Central_City,_Kentucky)_-_stained_glass,_St._Thomas_Aquinas,_detail.jpg">Nheyob via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Politics, in Aquinas’ reading, is defined as the way humans organize their common pursuit of a good life, a life formed by virtues like courage. If we could all be courageous together, we would be well on our way to being good citizens.</p>
<p>Putting these virtues into practice is challenging, though, and Aquinas <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/">says it will involve</a> “some kind of training.” Eventually, individuals might live courageously because they want to live in a society where courage is a commonly held to be good. </p>
<p>In the meantime, though, a society needs “training” through laws, proper enforcement and appropriate judicial intervention, so that it can regulate at least a minimal measure of virtue. </p>
<p>Aquinas suspected that some blend of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy was the best path to this common good: Such a state could have a unified voice, a counsel of trusted sages and the voice of the people to hold both accountable. </p>
<p>However, political virtue will always involve the possibility of coercion for those who fail to practice it. Most recently, we see this in <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/524252-heres-where-the-national-guard-is-activated-on-election-day">the activation of the National Guard</a> to help ensure safe and fair voting procedures throughout the states. </p>
<p>This is appropriate, on Aquinas’ terms. When the common good is under threat, “civic virtue comes armed,” as American theologian <a href="https://divinity.duke.edu/faculty/stanley-hauerwas">Stanley Hauerwas</a> <a href="https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268008192/christians-among-the-virtues/">puts it</a> in his interpretation of Aquinas. </p>
<h2>Religious virtues</h2>
<p>Though politics relies on virtue, this does not make it religious. </p>
<p>To be religious is, according to an ancient definition Aquinas first finds in the Roman Statesman Cicero, to give special attention, or to “<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3081.htm">read again</a>”: re-legere in Latin. This suggests to Aquinas that religious understanding is acquired through rereading the world, taking in how situations exist “in relation to God.”</p>
<p>The virtues and teachings that surround this reorientation are ones that Aquinas calls “sacred teaching.” They are “learned through revelation” and “accepted by faith.” This does not mean that religion should reject reason, since for Aquinas religious thought uses reason to explore sacred revelations.</p>
<p>The religious learner needs some distance from what theologian Stanley Hauerwas calls the “armed” practices of the political institutions, so that they turn to the world again to see it in sacred ways.</p>
<p>In other words, a state needs a police force so it can protect vulnerable people from failures of virtue. But sacred practices like worship and prayer require the opposite: a freedom from state coercion, so that people can practice religion without that religion being legally enforced. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Shakespeare-Theology-and-the-Unstaged-God/Baker/p/book/9780367189457">My research into Reformation-era England</a> offers an example of this. An edict by the queen gave her the authority to prosecute people for not attending Sunday worship. Many found this coercive measure to cast a shadow over the authenticity of that worship itself.</p>
<p>This is not to suggest that the religious and the political ought to be completely isolated realms of life. Aquinas argues that a just society, ordered by laws which ensure that everyone can be given what is due to them, will also allow for the “special honor” that “<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3081.htm">is due to God as the first principle of all things</a>.”</p>
<p>Aquinas thinks then that this second reading – religion – is a necessary component of the common good. A good government will allow for people to pursue the sacred. It it will not, though, confuse its own potentially coercive virtues with those sacred practices.</p>
<h2>Sacred truths</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Thomas Jefferson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_Presidential_portrait_of_Thomas_Jefferson_(by_Rembrandt_Peale,_1800)(cropped).jpg">Rembrandt Peale via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When seeking his own high-stakes language to describe the rights that the American colonies were willing to fight for, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson wrote, “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” It was <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Benjamin-Franklin/Walter-Isaacson/9780743258074">Benjamin Franklin’s pen</a> that gave the phrase its more economic and agnostic tilt: not sacred, but “self-evident.”</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Franklin, Aquinas would have said, hit closer to home, though perhaps for reasons outside the founder’s purview. Neither political rituals nor the values they instill are sacred, even if they can hold the space for practices that are. </p>
<p>The counting of votes is a cornerstone of modern democracy and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/overview-trump-calls-vote-counting-stop-path-victory/story?id=74038071">hearing a president call for a halt to the count</a> is a disorienting moment that could leave many scrambling for the right adjective. According to Aquinas, however, “sacred” is not the right one.</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338598/original/file-20200529-78871-1g5gse5.jpg?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header></header>
<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Seminary of the Southwest is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.</a></p>
<footer>The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony D. Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A theologian argues, based on the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, that a political institution has its limits when it comes to being called ‘sacred.’Anthony D. Baker, Professor of Systematic Theology, Seminary of the SouthwestLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1446442020-08-17T19:35:16Z2020-08-17T19:35:16ZAmid partisan fight over Postal Service’s future, its past reveals a common bond that helped stamp an identity on America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353225/original/file-20200817-16-1hgvdkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4992%2C3323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">USPS mailbox in downtown Danville, Pennsylvania. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-united-states-postal-service-mailbox-is-in-downtown-news-photo/1228064191?adppopup=true">Paul Weaver/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>House representatives are set to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/16/pelosi-calls-house-back-washington-block-postal-service-changes/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_pelosi-749pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans">be recalled to Washington, D.C.</a>, amid an ongoing pandemic and fiercely-contested election season. The impetus for this emergency session is a foundational element of American life: the United States Postal Service.</p>
<p>Reports suggest that Trump appointees <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-08/u-s-post-office-restructures-with-democrats-crying-sabotage">are trying to sabotage</a> the service to limit its capacity to process mail-in ballots before the coming November election. This has led to an outcry on behalf of the nation’s <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/05/14/the-state-of-the-u-s-postal-service-in-8-charts/">most popular</a> government agency.</p>
<p>Veterans who <a href="https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/veterans-see-delays-in-medication-deliveries-from-usps/527-f5028064-3070-42d5-86c5-95c126a3b8ef">receive prescription drugs at home</a>, rural residents with limited local services and citizens <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/24/americans-want-vote-they-want-be-able-do-it-by-mail/">afraid to vote in-person</a> during a public health crisis all understand the enduring value of the USPS. Equally important, the Postal Service delivers a common bond that has helped shape American society for more than 250 years. </p>
<p>Research for my <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/lust-on-trial/9780231175227">recent book</a> on the postal inspector Anthony Comstock introduced me to the prominent role the Postal Service played in enabling Americans to conceive of themselves as a singular nation.</p>
<p>Sending a letter from Virginia to New England in 1640 was no easy task. Settlers in Southern Colonies mostly relied on the open seas to deliver their mail, and more than three times as many <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1724425/pdf">vessels</a> followed trading routes to Europe than to the Northern Colonies.</p>
<p>In the fall months, when crops sailed from Charleston and Virginia to New Amsterdam and Boston, letters traveled in a ship captain’s mailbag. Chance determined whether these letters reached their destination. </p>
<p>Beyond these insecure routes, settlers in early North American Colonies enjoyed precious little ability to <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14599.html">communicate</a> among themselves, which did not bode well for our nation’s future. </p>
<h2>Mail delivery takes off</h2>
<p>The ability to send overland letters evolved significantly by the end of the 18th century thanks to the expansion of “post roads,” especially between <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Kings-Best-Highway/Eric-Jaffe/9781416586159">Boston and New York</a>. But mail delivery remained infrequent and unreliable.</p>
<p>It was not until Benjamin Franklin was appointed deputy postmaster for the Colonies, in 1753, that mail delivery modernization truly took off. During his tenure, Franklin instituted numerous <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b61050&view=1up&seq=7">innovations</a> unique to America.</p>
<p>Until 1753 postmasters were not paid. Printers, nonetheless, had jockeyed for these positions to expand the circulation of their own publications and deny mail service to competitors. But in 1754 Franklin established a <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015033569834&view=1up&seq=62">subscription model</a> that assured pay to printers and post riders. And in 1758 he insisted that all news sheets be delivered because they <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015033569834&view=1up&seq=62">“are on many Occasions useful to Government, and advantageous to Commerce, and to the Publick.”</a></p>
<p>In doing so, Franklin contributed to an early American culture of free speech, which recognized the benefits of competing ideas and shared knowledge.</p>
<p>Together with postmaster William Hunter of Virginia, Franklin also instituted <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b61050&view=1up&seq=12">changes</a> that vastly extended the flow of information among the Colonies. These included <a href="https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/pmg-franklin.pdf">improved accounting methods and home delivery for the price of a penny</a>. </p>
<p>In 1763, the two men rode 1,600 miles on horseback from Virginia through New England to improve the service. They laid the groundwork for improvements in routes and timetables that led to an explosion of low-cost communications throughout the Northern Colonies. </p>
<p>In the years leading up to the American Revolution, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-9?mediaType=Article#acrefore-9780199329175-e-9-note-6">newspapers and pamphlets</a> flooded the Colonies, facilitating a shared outrage over British tyranny and condescension, and solidarity among the citizens of the fledgling nation.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wood engraving depicts a U.S. Mail wagon pulled by horses along Broadway during a snowstorm, New York, New York, circa 1886.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/wood-engraving-depicts-a-us-mail-wagon-pulled-by-horses-news-photo/158817036?adppopup=true">Stock Montage/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Continental Congress appointed Franklin as the nation’s first postmaster general in May 1775. Franklin, in turn, oversaw the rapid transition of the Colonial network he had helped create into the first post office of the United States. </p>
<p>After the Revolutionary War, George Washington declared that a democratic republic required an unprecedented diffusion of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311582/how-the-post-office-created-america-by-winifred-gallagher/">“knowledge of the laws and proceedings of Government.”</a> He convinced Congress to support a sweeping expansion of postal routes that circulated mail and news with greater scope and reliability. </p>
<p>By 1800, nearly 21,000 miles of postal routes connected Americans living in disparate climates and economies – from <a href="https://bangordailynews.com/2011/11/21/news/state/four-rural-post-offices-to-be-spared-from-closure/">Sandy Point, Maine</a> to <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Postal_Record/zOOcAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=united+states+postal+routes+1800&pg=PA65&printsec=frontcover">Natchez, Mississippi</a>. Just a generation later, French statesman Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the reach of the post service, writing that there was <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674833425">“no French province in which the inhabitants knew each other as well as did the thirteen million men spread over the extent of the United States.”</a> </p>
<h2>United in ‘fellow feeling’</h2>
<p>Today there are few elements of American life that unite us. We have no national health service, which during the COVID-19 pandemic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/world/europe/coronavirus-nhs-uk.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">united</a> the United Kingdom in “fellow feeling,” as Queen Elizabeth II <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE4Cmr1j0tA">described recently</a>.</p>
<p>What America does have is the USPS, a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/can-america-survive-without-the-united-states-post-office">constitutionally acknowledged</a> resource that still connects us all. Today it operates <a href="https://facts.usps.com/size-and-scope/">31,322</a> post offices, as far-flung as Pago Pago in American Samoa and Hinsdale, New Hampshire, the nation’s oldest <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/postmaster/494498/">continuously operating</a> post office. With mail circulation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/politics/postal-service-trump-coronavirus.html">down by a third</a> since the COVID-19 outbreak and continued attacks on the service by Republicans eager to privatize, the U.S. Postal Service faces grave danger.</p>
<p>Unlike its private sector competitors, the USPS does not depend on profitability and keeps its promise to reach all Americans, no matter the cost. Half a million postal workers continue to make this equitable service possible, providing binding threads that draw us together in our American version of “fellow feeling.”</p>
<p>When congressional leaders meet to consider proposals to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/16/us/politics/coronavirus-postal-service-stimulus-bill.html">protect the USPS</a>, they should weigh the value of this cherished and historic service in uniting our country.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a previous article that was <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-postal-service-helped-stamp-identity-on-america-and-continues-to-deliver-a-common-bond-today-137875">published by The Conversation</a> on June 2, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Werbel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The United States Postal Service plays a vital role in US civic life, one that helped shape American society more than 250 years ago and continues to characterize it today.Amy Werbel, Professor of the History of Art, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409012020-06-22T12:17:38Z2020-06-22T12:17:38ZJournalists believe news and opinion are separate, but readers can’t tell the difference<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342803/original/file-20200618-41238-19j01o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Readers don't always know how to distinguish fact from opinion.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gatehouse-media-owned-palm-beach-post-and-the-gannett-co-news-photo/1166289246?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The New York Times opinion editor James Bennet resigned recently after the paper published <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html">a controversial opinion essay</a> by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton that advocated using the military to put down protests. </p>
<p>The essay sparked outrage among the public as well as among younger reporters at the paper. Many of those staffers participated in <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/this-puts-black-people-in-danger-new-york-times-staffers-band-together-to-protest-tom-cottons-anti-protest-editorial/">a social media campaign</a> aimed at the paper’s leadership, asking for factual corrections and an editor’s note explaining what was wrong with the essay.</p>
<p>Eventually, the staff uprising forced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/james-bennet-resigns-nytimes-op-ed.html">Bennet’s departure</a>. </p>
<p>Cotton’s column was published on the opinion pages – not the news pages. But that’s a distinction often lost on the public, whose criticisms during the recent incident were often directed <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonFarmer15/status/1269729759946330113?s=20">at the paper as a whole</a>, including its news coverage. All of which raises a longstanding question: What’s the difference between the news and opinion side of a news organization? </p>
<p>It is a tenet of American journalism that reporters working for the news sections of newspapers remain entirely independent of the opinion sections. But the <a href="https://newslit.org/get-smart/did-you-know-news-opinion/">divide between news and opinion is not as clear to many readers</a> as journalists believe that it is. </p>
<p>And because American news consumers have become accustomed to the ideal of objectivity in news, the idea that opinions bleed into the news report potentially leads readers to suspect that reporters have a political agenda, which damages their credibility, and that of their news organizations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The op-ed column by Sen. Tom Cotton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html">New York Times screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How news and opinion grew apart</h2>
<p>Long before newspapers became institutions for collecting and distributing news, they were instruments for the personal expression of individuals – their owners. There was little thought given to whether or not opinion and fact were intermingled. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/pennsylvania-gazette/#:%7E:text=Pennsylvania%20Gazette,Pennsylvania%20Gazette%20from%20Samuel%20Keimer.">Benjamin Franklin ran the Pennsylvania Gazette</a> from 1729 to 1748 as a vehicle for his own political and scientific ideas and even just his day-to-day observations. The <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030483/">Gazette of the United States</a>, first published in 1789, was the most prominent Federalist paper of its time and was funded in part by Alexander Hamilton, whose letters and essays it published anonymously.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Front page of the inaugural issue of the Gazette of the United States, from April 15, 1789.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030483/1789-04-15/ed-1/seq-1/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 19th century, newspapers were <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2013/07/16/from-tom-paine-to-glenn-greenwald-we-need-partisan-journalism/">often nakedly partisan</a>, since many of them were funded by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/party-press-era">political parties</a>. </p>
<p>Over the course of the 19th century, though, newspapers began to seek a popular audience. As they grew in circulation, some began to emphasize their independence from faction. </p>
<p>Coupled with the rise of journalism schools and press organizations, this independence enshrined “fact” and “truth” as what scholar Barbie Zelizer calls <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1479142042000180953">“God-terms” of journalism</a> by the early 20th century.</p>
<p>Newspaper owners never wanted to give up their influence on public opinion, however. As news became the main product of the newspaper, publishers established editorial pages, where they could continue to endorse their favorite politicians or push for pet causes. </p>
<p>These pages are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/about-the-times-editorial-board">typically run by editorial boards</a>, which are staffs of writers, often with individual areas of expertise (economics or foreign policy or, in smaller papers, state politics), who draft editorial essays. They are then voted on by the board, which usually includes the publisher. They’re then published, usually with no author attribution, as the official opinions of the newspaper. There are variations on this process: Often the editorial board will decide on topics and the paper’s opinion before these writers get to work on their drafts.</p>
<p>James Bennet, The New York Times opinion editor who resigned, acknowledged in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/reader-center/editorial-board-explainer.html">an article on the paper’s website</a> that was published in January 2020, months before the Cotton essay, that “the role of the editorial board can be confusing, particularly to readers who don’t know The Times well.”</p>
<p>Through most the 20th century, newspapers reassured their readers and their reporters that there was a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3118032">“wall” between the news and opinion sides</a> of their operations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unbiased journalism is a relatively new phenomenon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-walk-by-the-front-of-the-new-york-times-building-on-news-photo/1027689402?adppopup=true">Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Publishers relied on this idea of separation to insist that their news reporting was fair and independent, and they believed that readers understood that separation.</p>
<p>This is a particularly American way of operating. Readers in <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2015/04/28/our-partisan-press-does-it-matter-to-journalism-or-politics/">other countries</a> usually expect their newspapers to have a point of view, representing a particular party or ideology.</p>
<h2>The creation of the op-ed page</h2>
<p>One way that newspapers found to allow a greater range of opinion in its pages was to create an op-ed page, which publishes opinions by individuals, not those of the editorial board. As journalism historian <a href="https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=cmj_facpub">Michael Socolow recounts</a>, John Oakes, the editorial page editor of The New York Times in 1970, created the first op-ed page because, he felt, “a newspaper most effectively fulfills its social and civic responsibilities by challenging authority, acting independently, and inviting dissent.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.seattletimescompany.com/editorial/howtoread.htm">“Op-ed” is short for “opposite the editorial page,”</a> not “opinion and editorial” or opinions that are opposite from those of the editorial page. Literally, the name comes from the fact that it was located across from – opposite – the editorial page in the print newspaper.</p>
<p>The op-ed page of a print newspaper typically includes the newspaper’s opinion columnists. These are employees of the paper who write regularly. The paper also usually publishes a selection of opinion pieces from outside writers. Newspapers around the country emulated the Times after the op-ed page debuted.</p>
<h2>Online opinions, changing norms and blurred lines</h2>
<p>With the expansion of opinion pages online, the Times was <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-publisher-ag-sulzberger-laments-loss-of-a-talent-like-james-bennet">publishing 120 opinion pieces a week</a> at the time of James Bennet’s resignation.</p>
<p>While the move online allows The New York Times op-ed page to vastly increase its output, it also creates a problem: Opinion stories <a href="https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2017/news-or-opinion-online-its-hard-to-tell/">no longer look clearly different</a> from news stories. </p>
<p>With many readers coming to news sites from social media links, they may not pay attention to the subtle clues that mark a story published by the opinion staff. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Washington Post homepage on June 19, 2020. Opinions at top right; reporting to the left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/?reload=true">Screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Add to this the fact that even readers who go to a paper’s homepage are met with news and opinion stories displayed graphically at the same level, connoting the same level of importance. And reporters share analysis and opinion on Twitter, further confusing readers. </p>
<p>The news sections of the paper also increasingly run <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13pubed.html">stories that contain a level of news analysis</a> that casual readers might not be able to distinguish from what The New York Times designates as opinion.</p>
<p>In 1970, when the op-ed page debuted in The New York Times, <a href="http://media-cmi.com/downloads/Sixty_Years_Daily_Newspaper_Circulation_Trends_050611.pdf">daily newspaper circulation was equivalent to 98% of U.S. households</a>. By 2010, that number had dropped below 40% and has continued to dip since then.</p>
<p>Even if readers in 1970 could clearly differentiate between news and opinion, they likely do not have the same level of critical engagement when news exists online and in almost unmanageable volume. </p>
<p>If news organizations such as The New York Times continue to maintain that a robust opinion section, separate from their news reports, serves to further the public conversation, then those institutions will need to do a better job of explaining to news consumers where – or if – the “wall” between news and opinion exists.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin M. Lerner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is a tenet of American journalism that reporters working for the news sections of newspapers remain entirely independent of the opinion sections. But that wall may be invisible to readers.Kevin M. Lerner, Assistant Professor of Journalism, Marist CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1402682020-06-10T17:28:09Z2020-06-10T17:28:09ZDebate: Smile, you’re under surveillance!<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340272/original/file-20200608-176542-hvq05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=116%2C76%2C1246%2C637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The icon of Houseparty, a "user-friendly" application that rose in popularity during the Covid-19 lockdown.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Will history remember the Covid-19 pandemic as a moment during which citizens gave up their civil rights for health reasons?</p>
<p>Two elements can be used together to exert pressure on citizens: the first is fear, as used by Big Brother. The second is entertainment, as used by Big Mother. This draws from the field of psychoanalytical theory in which the father or big brother enforce the law, while the mother nurtures in the large sense of the term (food) and also entertains.</p>
<h2>Toward generalised surveillance</h2>
<p>In a way, data surveillance is already omnipresent. Who can still believe that our conversations remain private, no matter the medium or the proclaimed protections?</p>
<p>Police in Morocco <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-morocco-idUSKBN2162DI">arrested a dozen people</a> who posted Covid-19-related information on social media which the authorities considered to be “fake news”. In Hungary, at least <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/hungary-critics-silenced-in-social-media-arrests-as-eu-debates-orbans-powers/ar-BB144qYc">three people were arrested</a> for having criticised on social media the handling of the pandemic by Victor Orban. This action could cost them five years in prison thanks to an emergency measure adopted on March 30 to deal with the pandemic. In Turkey, one can be punished with three years in prison for spreading what are portrayed as falsehoods. The Ministries of Truth have a plethora of candidates: any questioning of the state’s version of the situation is already considered to be conspirational.</p>
<p>The lockdown pushed what had previously been considered a niche category of technology, conferencing software, into the mainstream. While Zoom had just 10 million users in 2019, it’s currently one of the most downloaded applications on the planet, with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-zoom-idUSKBN21K1C7">200 million users in March 2020</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337573/original/file-20200526-106853-1eeju5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Video conferencing on Zoom, the most downloaded application for work meetings during containment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The application is everywhere, including use by numerous universities for classes and meetings. At the end of March 2020, however, we learned that <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/lawsuit-claims-zoom-illegally-shared-user-data-with-facebook/">Zoom sent users’ data to Facebook without their consent</a>, even if they were not on Facebook themselves.</p>
<p>In its <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200331221522/https:/www.houseparty.com/privacy/">privacy policy statement published on March 25</a>, the application Houseparty declared that it was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“free to use the content of any communications submitted by you via the Services, including any ideas, inventions, concepts, techniques, or know-how disclosed therein, for any purpose including developing, manufacturing, and/or marketing goods or Services.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Suzanne Vergnolle, a law doctoral student specialising in the protection of personal data, called our attention to an <a href="https://www.francetvinfo.fr/internet/securite-sur-internet/donnees-personnelles-pourquoi-faut-il-se-mefier-des-applications-de-visioconference-zoom-et-houseparty_3896389.html">article that noted</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If you are a company, for example, and you wish to share secret information, you should know that Houseparty and Zoom have access to your conversations.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Worse, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/03/zoom-privacy-law-enforcement-technology-yuan">Zoom does not encrypt free calls</a> and Houseparty conversations are <a href="https://www.web24.news/u/2020/03/why-you-should-use-the-houseparty-app-with-care.html">not encrypted at all</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, we all know the role of geolocalisation used to keep tabs on the virus in many countries. The Chinese government monitored individual smartphones and uses <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/02/china-brings-in-mandatory-facial-recognition-for-mobile-phone-users">facial recognition tools on a massive scale</a>. Mobile applications, used everywhere around the world, let users know who may be infected in their circle of acquaintances.</p>
<h2>Applying “sub-veillance”</h2>
<p>How is it possible to get entire populations to accept these measures? The secret is to convince people to submit freely.</p>
<p>Rather than speaking of sur-veillance, one invokes the principle of <a href="https://www.multitudes.net/de-la-sousveillance/">“sub-veillance”</a> in which the individual is not actively watched but followed by digital traces, in a discreet way – it’s both immaterial and omnipresent. In George Orwell’s classic novel, <em>1984</em>, published in 1949, he did not explain how Big Brother came to power or how that society came about, although he described it in great detail. In many ways we have already gone far beyond some surveillance characteristics described by Orwell.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C120%2C3935%2C2897&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337571/original/file-20200526-106823-n8wons.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statue of George Orwell in front of BBC House, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Statue_of_George_Orwell_%282018%29.jpg">Ben Sutherland/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, Orwell did not predict the portable screen, or freely consented submission, although he did invoke the idea of a video surveillance device, called a “telescreen”, which is very similar to our connected screens. Nor did he predict that each individual would consent to general surveillance through a small mobile screen for which, on top of everything, they would have to pay.</p>
<h2>Big Mother: Distract into servitude</h2>
<p>What Orwell did not anticipate was that today’s equivalent of the telescreen, the smartphone, has become widespread because has been designed to be fun to use. Users are pleased, distracted and let down their guards.</p>
<p>In another famous dystopia, Aldous Huxley’s <em>Brave New World</em>, citizens take the drug “soma”, which weakens their resistance. In the novel, soma is portrayed to be a simple medicine, but is in fact a synthetic drug that plunges users into a paradisiac slumber.</p>
<p>Digital devices today seem to combine the soma of <em>Brave New World</em> and the telescreen of <em>1984</em>. A modern-day adolescent spends nearly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/11/03/teens-spend-nearly-nine-hours-every-day-consuming-media/">nine hours every day playing with a screen</a>, with no serious or educational benefit. The digital device has become an extension of oneself, an artificial limb. To continue using its functions, which are practical – and above all fun – people must give up a little bit of freedom, and the payoff between benefit and risk is that using applications compensate for the intrusions into one’s private life.</p>
<p>Digital devices also do provide real entertainment while taking away from classroom knowledge and difficulties. A <a href="https://www.placedeslibraires.fr/livre/9782376872924-la-nouvelle-religion-du-numerique-le-numerique-est-il-ecologique-florence-rodhain/">five-year study</a> we conducted among post-secondary school students in France indicated that they spend 61 out of 90 classroom minutes having fun with the tablets distributed to them by their universities. Only 20% of their time on these devices had any relationship with class material.</p>
<p>On social networks, each “like” that a user’s posts receive releases an immediate <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-wise/201209/why-were-all-addicted-texts-twitter-and-google">dose of dopamine</a>, as can be clearly seen with users hooked up to an MRI. Huxley saw it coming.</p>
<h2>Big Brother: Scare them into obedience</h2>
<p>World powers have used the language of war to fight against Covid-19, including <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/france-paris-emmanuel-macron-coronavirus-covid19/608200/">French president Emmanuel Macron</a>. Wartime is a time for exceptional unilateral decisions, and lets authorities behave in ways that would be unthinkable during peacetime. Every war is also a war on civil liberties. </p>
<p>When it comes to digital surveillance, however, the exception becomes the rule. The video surveillance market received a gift on September 11, 2001, when it was given an official boost in the name of the “war on terror” even before it became the norm and was globally adopted.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.vie-publique.fr/rapport/32126-livre-blanc-sur-la-securite-publique">2011 white paper on public safety</a> published by France’s Interior Ministry, popular resistance to new technologies that could be considered intrusive was specifically evoked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[The] use of nanotechnologies combined notably with geolocalisation can raise fears as to the protection of individual freedoms.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How could the Interior Ministry overcome resistance against electronic surveillance? The answer can be found in the same white paper:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[There] is no doubt that a significant feeling of ‘threat’ (be it terrorist or economic) contributes to a more favourable perception of the use of new technologies within society.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One cannot ignore the fact that this method works, as we have seen since 2001. When governments use technology under the cover of war, citizens more easily accept it.</p>
<h2>Voluntary servitude</h2>
<p>Fear of terrorism, fear of illness: this feeling is maintained using doubt and a continual barrage of well-chosen information.</p>
<p>Entertainment, like fear, leads to a form of voluntary servitude that also uses the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674504578">narcissistic pleasure offered by social media</a>.</p>
<p>An often-cited line attributed to Benjamin Franklin states “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”. While often used when discussing questions of technology and surveillance, the subject was in actuality a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century">tax dispute concerning defence spending</a>. In the current context, however, that many of us are willing to exchange our liberty for a little entertainment seems foolish indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Florence Rodhain ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>In the current health crisis, authorities use our need for security and private firms our desire for entertainment to encourage us to give up our civil rights.Florence Rodhain, Maître de Conférences HDR en Systèmes d'Information, Université de MontpellierLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1378752020-06-02T12:16:46Z2020-06-02T12:16:46ZHow the Postal Service helped stamp identity on America – and continues to deliver a common bond today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337960/original/file-20200527-20219-12ub5k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C44%2C4880%2C3241&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">United States Postal Service mail carrier Frank Colon, 59, departs on his delivery route at the Remcon Circle Post Office amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 30, 2020 in El Paso, Texas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-states-postal-service-mail-carrier-frank-colon-news-photo/1211465060?adppopup=true">PAUL RATJE/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/one-group-favors-a-usps-bailout-the-american-public-51588368113">Americans overwhelmingly support</a> a federal bailout for the cash-starved United States Postal Service. They view the USPS as a vital civic institution – one that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2020/04/16/the-right-way-to-bail-out-the-post-office-190271">despite a crisis</a> brought on by massive debts and falling revenue continues to reliably deliver medicine, communications and absentee ballots that allow Americans to vote safely during the coronavirus pandemic. </p>
<p>Equally important, the postal service delivers a common bond that has helped shape American society for more than 250 years. Research for my <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/lust-on-trial/9780231175227">recent book</a> on the postal inspector Anthony Comstock introduced me to the prominent role the postal service played in enabling Americans to conceive of themselves as a singular nation.</p>
<p>Sending a letter from Virginia to New England in 1640 was no easy task. Settlers in Southern Colonies mostly relied on the open seas to deliver their mail, and more than three times as many <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1724425/pdf">vessels</a> followed trading routes to Europe than to the Northern Colonies.</p>
<p>In the fall months, when crops sailed from Charleston and Virginia to New Amsterdam and Boston, letters traveled in a ship captain’s mailbag. Chance determined whether these letters reached their destination. </p>
<p>Beyond these insecure routes, settlers in early North American Colonies enjoyed precious little ability to <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14599.html">communicate</a> among themselves, which did not bode well for our nation’s future. </p>
<h2>Mail delivery takes off</h2>
<p>The ability to send overland letters evolved significantly by the end of the 18th century thanks to the expansion of “post roads,” especially between <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Kings-Best-Highway/Eric-Jaffe/9781416586159">Boston and New York</a>. But mail delivery remained infrequent and unreliable.</p>
<p>It was not until Benjamin Franklin was appointed deputy postmaster for the Colonies, in 1753, that mail delivery modernization truly took off. During his tenure, Franklin instituted numerous <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b61050&view=1up&seq=7">innovations</a> unique to America.</p>
<p>Until 1753 postmasters were not paid. Printers, nonetheless, had jockeyed for these positions to expand the circulation of their own publications and deny mail service to competitors. But in 1754 Franklin established a <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015033569834&view=1up&seq=62">subscription model</a> that assured pay to printers and post riders. And in 1758 he insisted that all news sheets be delivered because they <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015033569834&view=1up&seq=62">“are on many Occasions useful to Government, and advantageous to Commerce, and to the Publick.”</a></p>
<p>In doing so, Franklin contributed to an early American culture of free speech, which recognized the benefits of competing ideas and shared knowledge.</p>
<p>Together with postmaster William Hunter of Virginia, Franklin also instituted <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b61050&view=1up&seq=12">changes</a> that vastly extended the flow of information among the Colonies. These included <a href="https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/pmg-franklin.pdf">improved accounting methods and home delivery for the price of a penny</a>. </p>
<p>In 1763, the two men rode 1,600 miles on horseback from Virginia through New England to improve the service. They laid the groundwork for improvements in routes and timetables that led to an explosion of low-cost communications throughout the Northern Colonies. </p>
<p>In the years leading up to the American Revolution, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-9?mediaType=Article#acrefore-9780199329175-e-9-note-6">newspapers and pamphlets</a> flooded the Colonies, facilitating a shared outrage over British tyranny and condescension, and solidarity among the citizens of the fledgling nation.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337961/original/file-20200527-20215-1d1rayo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wood engraving depicts a U.S. Mail wagon pulled by horses along Broadway during a snowstorm, New York, New York, circa 1886.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/wood-engraving-depicts-a-us-mail-wagon-pulled-by-horses-news-photo/158817036?adppopup=true">Stock Montage/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Continental Congress appointed Franklin as the nation’s first postmaster general in May 1775. Franklin, in turn, oversaw the rapid transition of the Colonial network he had helped create into the first post office of the United States. </p>
<p>After the Revolutionary War, George Washington declared that a democratic republic required an unprecedented diffusion of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311582/how-the-post-office-created-america-by-winifred-gallagher/">“knowledge of the laws and proceedings of Government.”</a> He convinced Congress to support a sweeping expansion of postal routes that circulated mail and news with greater scope and reliability. </p>
<p>By 1800, nearly 21,000 miles of postal routes connected Americans living in disparate climates and economies – from <a href="https://bangordailynews.com/2011/11/21/news/state/four-rural-post-offices-to-be-spared-from-closure/">Sandy Point, Maine</a> to <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Postal_Record/zOOcAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=united+states+postal+routes+1800&pg=PA65&printsec=frontcover">Natchez, Mississippi</a>. Just a generation later, French statesman Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the reach of the post service, writing that there was <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674833425">“no French province in which the inhabitants knew each other as well as did the thirteen million men spread over the extent of the United States.”</a> </p>
<h2>United in ‘fellow feeling’</h2>
<p>Today there are few elements of American life that unite us. We have no national health service, which amid COVID-19 is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/world/europe/coronavirus-nhs-uk.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">uniting</a> the United Kingdom in “fellow feeling,” as Queen Elizabeth II <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE4Cmr1j0tA">described recently</a>.</p>
<p>What we do have is the USPS, a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/can-america-survive-without-the-united-states-post-office">constitutionally acknowledged</a> resource that still connects us all. Today it operates <a href="https://facts.usps.com/size-and-scope/">31,322</a> post offices, as far-flung as Pago Pago in American Samoa and Hinsdale, New Hampshire, the nation’s oldest <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/postmaster/494498/">continuously operating</a> post office. With mail circulation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/politics/postal-service-trump-coronavirus.html">down by a third</a> since the COVID-19 outbreak and continued attacks on the service by Republicans eager to privatize, the U.S. Postal Service faces grave danger.</p>
<p>Unlike its private sector competitors, the USPS does not depend on profitability, and keeps its promise to reach all Americans, no matter the cost. Half a million postal workers continue to make this equitable service possible, providing binding threads that draw us together in our American version of “fellow feeling.”</p>
<p>When congressional leaders consider proposals to <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/05/democrats-to-push-for-25-billion-for-postal-service-oversight-chairwoman-says/">bail out</a> the USPS, they should weigh the value of this cherished and historic service in uniting our country.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137875/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Werbel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The United States Postal Service plays a vital role in US civic life, one that helped shape American society more than 250 years ago and continues to characterize it today.Amy Werbel, Professor of the History of Art, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1309222020-01-30T18:41:53Z2020-01-30T18:41:53ZLimiting Senate inquiry ignores Founders’ intent for impeachment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312901/original/file-20200130-41507-4rurv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=991%2C437%2C1358%2C1014&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin was a leading voice in the debates framing the Constitution.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aoc.gov/art/other-paintings-and-murals/signing-constitution">Howard Chandler Christy/Architect of the Capitol</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Senators will soon decide whether to dismiss the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump without hearing any witnesses. In making this decision, I believe they should consider words spoken at the Constitutional Convention, when the Founders decided that an impeachment process was needed to provide a “regular examination,” to quote Benjamin Franklin.</p>
<p>A critical debate took place on July 20, 1787, which resulted in adding the impeachment clause to the U.S. Constitution. Franklin, the oldest and probably wisest delegate at the Constitutional Convention, said that when the president falls under suspicion, a “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">regular and peaceable inquiry</a>” is needed.</p>
<p>In my work as a <a href="http://www.clarkcunningham.org/">law professor</a> studying <a href="http://www.clarkcunningham.org/OriginalMeaning.html">original texts</a> about the U.S. Constitution, I’ve read statements made at the Constitutional Convention that demonstrate the Founders viewed impeachment as a regular practice, with three purposes: </p>
<ul>
<li>To provide a fair and reliable method to resolve suspicions about misconduct;</li>
<li>To remind both the country and the president that he is not above the law;</li>
<li>To deter abuses of power.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Good for the president and the country</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Franklin_by_Joseph_Duplessis_1778.jpg">Joseph Duplessis/National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Franklin persuasively argued that impeachment was a process that could be “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">favorable</a>” to the president, saying it is the best way to provide for “the <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">regular punishment</a> of the executive when his misconduct should deserve it and for his <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">honorable acquittal</a> when he should be unjustly accused.”</p>
<p>Franklin may have carried the debate when he <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=70">told his fellow delegates the story</a> of a recent dispute that had greatly troubled the Dutch Republic. </p>
<p>One of the Dutch leaders, William V, the prince of Orange, was suspected to have secretly sabotaged a critical alliance with France. The Dutch had no impeachment process and thus no way to conduct “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">a regular examination</a>” of these allegations. These suspicions mounted, giving rise “to the <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71&">most violent animosities & contentions</a>.”</p>
<p>The moral to Franklin’s story? As Franklin put it, if Prince William had “been impeachable, a regular & peaceable inquiry would have taken place.” The prince would, “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">if guilty, have been duly punished – if innocent, restored to the confidence of the public</a>.”</p>
<h2>Main goal was preventing abuse of power</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Mason of Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Mason_portrait.jpg">Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Madison of Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Madison(cropped)(c).jpg">White House Historical Association/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312926/original/file-20200130-41485-13hc06l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312926/original/file-20200130-41485-13hc06l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312926/original/file-20200130-41485-13hc06l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312926/original/file-20200130-41485-13hc06l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312926/original/file-20200130-41485-13hc06l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312926/original/file-20200130-41485-13hc06l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312926/original/file-20200130-41485-13hc06l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312926/original/file-20200130-41485-13hc06l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William R. Davie of North Carolina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WilliamRichardsonDavieByCharlesWillsonPeale.jpg">Charles Willson Peale/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many Constitutional Convention delegates agreed with the assertion by George Mason of Virginia that “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">no point is of more importance</a> … than the right of impeachment” because no one is “above justice.”</p>
<p>In the discussions leading to the decision to add the impeachment clause to the Constitution, a recurrent reason was raised: concern that the president would abuse his power. George Mason described the president as the “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">man who can commit the most extensive injustice</a>.” James Madison thought the president might “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">pervert his administration</a> into a scheme of [stealing public funds] or oppression or <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">betray his trust to foreign powers</a>.” Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, said the president “will have <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=70">great opportunitys of abusing his power</a>; particularly in time of war when the military force, and in some respects the public money will be in his hands.” </p>
<p>Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania worried that the president “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">may be bribed by a greater interest to betray his trust</a> and no one would say that we ought to expose ourselves to the danger of seeing [him] in foreign pay.” James Madison, himself a future president, said that in the case of the president, “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">corruption was within the compass of probable events</a> … and might be fatal to the Republic.” </p>
<p>Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts pointed out that a good president will not worry about impeachment, but a “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">bad one ought to be kept in fear</a>.” </p>
<p>A final word from the founding that has special resonance to the Senate’s current discussions: William R. Davie of North Carolina argued that impeachment was “an essential security for the good behaviour” of the president; otherwise, “he will spare no efforts or means whatever to <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=67">get himself re-elected</a>.”</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/founders-removal-from-office-is-not-the-only-purpose-of-impeachment-124254">article</a> originally published Sept. 26, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130922/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clark D. Cunningham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Calling witnesses and reviewing documents fit the Founders’ goals for impeachment to curb the president’s unilateral power.Clark D. Cunningham, W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics; Director, National Institute for Teaching Ethics & Professionalism, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1242542019-09-26T21:33:29Z2019-09-26T21:33:29ZFounders: Removal from office is not the only purpose of impeachment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294246/original/file-20190925-51457-1ifkyrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=938%2C220%2C2056%2C1616&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin was a leading voice in the debates framing the Constitution.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aoc.gov/art/other-paintings-and-murals/signing-constitution">Howard Chandler Christy/Architect of the Capitol</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Congress considers formal charges of impeachment against President Donald Trump, they should consider words spoken at the Constitutional Convention, when the Founders explained that impeachment was intended to have many important purposes, not just removing a president from office. </p>
<p>A critical debate took place on July 20, 1787, which resulted in adding the impeachment clause to the U.S. Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, the oldest and probably wisest delegate at the Convention, said that when the president falls under suspicion, a “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">regular and peaceable inquiry</a>” is needed.</p>
<p>In my work as a <a href="http://www.clarkcunningham.org/">law professor</a> studying <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/29/big-trump-case-hinges-definition-emoluments-new-study-has-bad-news-him/">original texts</a> about the U.S. Constitution, I’ve found statements made at the Constitutional Convention explaining that the Founders viewed impeachment as a regular practice with three purposes: </p>
<ul>
<li>To remind both the country and the president that he is not above the law </li>
<li>To deter abuses of power </li>
<li>To provide a fair and reliable method to resolve suspicions about misconduct.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Convention delegates repeatedly agreed with the assertion by George Mason of Virginia, that “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">no point is of more importance</a> … than the right of impeachment” because no one is “above justice.”</p>
<h2>Need for deterrence</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294441/original/file-20190926-51425-1fa1c8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Mason of Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Mason_portrait.jpg">Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294442/original/file-20190926-51429-1azrxng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Madison of Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Madison(cropped)(c).jpg">White House Historical Association/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the Founders’ greatest fears was that the president would abuse his power. George Mason described the president as the “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">man who can commit the most extensive injustice</a>.” James Madison thought the president might “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">pervert his administration</a> into a scheme of [stealing public funds] or oppression or <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">betray his trust to foreign powers</a>.” Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, said the president “will have <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=70">great opportunitys of abusing his power</a>; particularly in time of war when the military force, and in some respects the public money will be in his hands.” </p>
<p>Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania worried that the president “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">may be bribed by a greater interest to betray his trust</a> and no one would say that we ought to expose ourselves to the danger of seeing [him] in foreign pay.” James Madison, himself a future president, said that in the case of the president, “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">corruption was within the compass of probable events</a> … and might be fatal to the Republic.” </p>
<p>William Davie of North Carolina argued that impeachment was “an essential security for the good behaviour” of the president; otherwise, “he will spare no efforts or means whatever to <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=67">get himself re-elected</a>.” Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts pointed out that a good president will not worry about impeachment, but a “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=69">bad one ought to be kept in fear</a>.” </p>
<h2>Creating a powerful oversight procedure</h2>
<p>Until the very last week of the Convention, the Founders’ design was for the impeachment process to <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=432">start in the House of Representatives and conclude with trial in the Supreme Court</a>. </p>
<p>It was not until Sept. 8, 1787, that the Convention <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=557">voted to give the Senate instead the power to conduct impeachment trials</a>. </p>
<p>This is clear evidence that the Convention at first wanted to combine the authority and resources of the House of Representatives to conduct the impeachment investigation – a body they called “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=159">the grand Inquest of this Nation</a>” – with the fairness and power exemplified by trial in a court. </p>
<p>Even though trial of impeachments was moved from the Supreme Court to the Senate, Congress can still draw on the example of court procedures to accomplish an effective inquiry, especially if they are trying to get information from uncooperative subjects. In many of the investigations that are now part of the House’s impeachment inquiry, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-blocking-congress/">Trump administration has refused</a> to hand over documents and blocked officials from testifying to Congress.</p>
<p>The Constitution makes clear that impeachment is not a criminal prosecution: “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei">Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office</a>.” If impeachment trials had remained at the Supreme Court, the Court could therefore have consulted the rules it has approved for civil cases. It makes sense that when the Convention at the last minute decided Congress would have complete power over impeachment, the delegates intended Congress would have at least the same powers the Supreme Court would have exercised.</p>
<h2>When courts are stonewalled</h2>
<p>In civil cases, courts have powerful tools for dealing with someone who blocks access to the very information needed to judge the allegations against him.</p>
<p>The most commonly known method is the rule that says that once a person is legally served with a lawsuit against them, they must respond to the complaint. If they don’t, the court can <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_55">enter a judgment</a> against them based on the allegations in the complaint. But there are other processes as well.</p>
<p>One court tool that could easily be adapted to the impeachment process comes from the federal rules of civil procedure. In a process called “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_36">request for admission</a>,” one party to a lawsuit can give their opponents a list of detailed factual allegations with a demand for a response.</p>
<p>If the party does not respond, the court can treat each allegation as if it were true, and proceed accordingly. If the respondent denies one or more particular allegations, there is a follow-up procedure called a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_34">request for production</a>, demanding any documents in their possession or control supporting the denial. If the respondent refuses, again the court has the power to order that the alleged fact be taken as true. </p>
<h2>Getting to the truth</h2>
<p>In an impeachment process against President Donald Trump, the House of Representatives could present the president with a request for admission to the following two simple factual statements, which could be inferred from a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/26/us/politics/whistle-blower-complaint.html">whistleblower complaint</a>: </p>
<ol>
<li>“In July 2019 President Trump personally issued instructions to suspend all U.S. security assistance to Ukraine.”</li>
<li>“President Trump issued these instructions with the intent to pressure the government of Ukraine to conduct a formal investigation of Hunter Biden and his father Joe Biden.”</li>
</ol>
<p>The House could give Trump a brief amount of time to respond, including providing any evidence that might disprove the allegations. </p>
<p>If he refused to respond, or if he denied but refused to produce supporting documentation, the House could assume the set of alleged facts to be true and include them in articles of impeachment. Then the House could vote and, depending on the outcome of that vote, the matter would then proceed to the Senate for trial.</p>
<p>Congress could engage in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/politics/subpoenas-trump-congress.html">long, drawn-out battle</a> trying to use its oversight and subpoena powers to force various executive branch officials to release documents or testify about what they saw, heard and did. Or they could try this simple and quick procedure, which does not require the cooperation of the Department of Justice or court action. </p>
<h2>Good for the president and the country</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294443/original/file-20190926-51438-chhu7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Franklin_by_Joseph_Duplessis_1778.jpg">Joseph Duplessis/National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=70">Benjamin Franklin told his fellow delegates the story</a> of a recent dispute that had greatly troubled the Dutch Republic. </p>
<p>One of the Dutch leaders, William V, the Prince of Orange, was suspected to have secretly sabotaged a critical alliance with France. The Dutch had no impeachment process and thus no way to conduct “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">a regular examination</a>” of these allegations. These suspicions mounted, giving rise to “to the <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71&">most violent animosities & contentions</a>.”</p>
<p>The moral to Franklin’s story? If Prince William had “been impeachable, a regular & peaceable inquiry would have taken place.” The prince would, “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=71">if guilty, have been duly punished — if innocent, restored to the confidence of the public</a>.”</p>
<p>Franklin concluded that impeachment was a process that could be “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">favorable</a>” to the president, saying it is the best way to provide for “the <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">regular punishment</a> of the Executive when his misconduct should deserve it and for his <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=68">honorable acquittal</a> when he should be unjustly accused.”</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article originally published Sept. 26, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clark D. Cunningham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Founders saw impeachment as a regular part of ensuring presidential accountability. A constitutional scholar offers a possible process for a rapid and smooth impeachment inquiry.Clark D. Cunningham, W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics; Director, National Institute for Teaching Ethics & Professionalism, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1159822019-05-23T10:55:34Z2019-05-23T10:55:34ZThe Constitution dictates that impeachment must not be partisan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275962/original/file-20190522-187169-9ralbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump arriving at the Rose Garden, May 22, 2019, in Washington. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/3ca010e6c8714bc08bb52436bd982223/21/0">AP/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Barely two decades since the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/clinton-impeachment-trial-begins">impeachment of Bill Clinton</a>, the people of the United States again are confronting the possibility that their president, now Donald Trump, could be impeached, meaning <a href="https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Impeachment/">charged by the House of Representatives</a> with offenses that, if proved in a Senate trial, would remove him from office.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, politics have pervaded the debate. </p>
<p>Many, perhaps most, assume that impeachment of a president should be, or inevitably will <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-new-congress-likely-wont-impeach-trump-and-remove-him-from-office-heres-why-107688">devolve into a political melee</a>. The few historic examples that exist show political motivations – to varying degrees – in the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Clinton.</p>
<p>Democratic House Speaker <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/03/11/feature/nancy-pelosi-on-impeaching-president-trump-hes-just-not-worth-it/?utm_term=.dbf22073f443">Nancy Pelosi told The Washington Post</a> in March that “impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275963/original/file-20190522-187179-ehkyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275963/original/file-20190522-187179-ehkyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275963/original/file-20190522-187179-ehkyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275963/original/file-20190522-187179-ehkyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275963/original/file-20190522-187179-ehkyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275963/original/file-20190522-187179-ehkyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275963/original/file-20190522-187179-ehkyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275963/original/file-20190522-187179-ehkyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">House Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is against impeaching the president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Congress-Russia-Probe/4c509a4d0cec4f78889de2d47a826b0c/27/0">AP/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/20/nancy-pelosi-impeachment-1336587">Democratic leaders don’t want impeachment, at least at this point</a>, fearing a political backlash in 2020 if they pursue impeachment. Some believe that if impeached in the House and tried and acquitted by the Senate, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/16/trump-impeachment-reelection-midterms-778968">Trump’s political popularity will skyrocket</a> like Bill Clinton’s did after his impeachment in 1998. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, impeachment supporters in the House now number, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/us/politics/mcgahn-subpoena-house-impeachment.html">according to The New York Times</a>, “roughly two dozen.” House and Senate Democratic leaders are facing increased calls by a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/21/politics/nancy-pelosi-impeachment-trump/index.html">growing number of colleagues</a> to begin formal impeachment proceedings against President Trump.</p>
<p>To date, only one Republican has joined the chorus, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/us/politics/justin-amash-trump-impeachment.html">Michigan Rep. Justin Amash</a>. </p>
<p>Other Republicans – supporters of President Trump – accuse <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/politics/donald-trump-campaign-pelosi-impeachment/index.html">Democrats of using impeachment to overturn</a> the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>Politics now characterize the serious issue of whether Trump has obstructed justice and committed other offenses worthy of his removal from office.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://law.unlv.edu/faculty/peter-bayer">a scholar of law</a>, I believe that under our Constitution, impeachment – or the decision not to impeach – must not be based on partisan considerations.</p>
<h2>Rooted in the Constitution</h2>
<p>Some advocates of impeachment have recognized the correct basis to decide whether Congress should investigate and impeach President Trump. </p>
<p>Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania <a href="https://scanlon.house.gov/media/press-releases/congresswoman-scanlon-announces-support-impeachment-inquiry">announced in a May 21 press release,</a> “We took an oath to uphold our constitution and the President’s efforts to cover up his acts, and those of his campaign and administration, threaten the foundation of our democracy.” </p>
<p>Similarly, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a Democratic candidate for president, urged that based on their oaths to safeguard the Constitution, the House of Representatives <a href="https://www.axios.com/elizabeth-warren-calls-trumps-impeachment-senate-floor-cdd7c731-45c2-4676-99ac-032ab17666e4.html">has an affirmative duty to begin a full impeachment investigation</a>. </p>
<p>Leaving aside whether the present record supports an impeachment inquiry against Trump, I believe Warren and Scanlon are right that the decisions whether to impeach and possibly remove any president from office should be rooted in the Constitution itself.</p>
<h2>Corrupting the office</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Impeachment/">Constitution gives the House of Representatives sole power to impeach</a>, meaning to formally charge that the president (or other federal “Officer”) has committed offenses worthy of immediate removal from office. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Senate_Impeachment_Role.htm">Senate conducts the impeachment trial</a>. A conviction requires a super-majority of no less than two-thirds of all senators. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/1/3/18166821/impeachment-trump-democrats-house-congress-mueller">The Framers decided</a> that power as drastic as removing a sitting president should belong to Congress, the branch of government most closely associated with the will of the people. </p>
<p>Rather than leaving impeachment to the Supreme Court or other small, unelected body, impeachment becomes the tool of the national will – not a political will, but rather the national will to respect the Constitution’s neutral legal requirements.</p>
<p>Of course, as the Framers well knew, by its very nature Congress would be, and indeed is, politically partisan. Voters elect members of Congress to enact laws based on those voters’ policy preferences. Inevitably, laws favored by the “majority” may frustrate or even hinder voters whose candidates lost. </p>
<p>Such is the normal “give and take” of democracy.</p>
<p>However, the Constitution clarifies that regarding impeachment, Congress cannot conduct business as usual. Like declaring war, impeachment is one of the rare matters where politics should be utterly inappropriate.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A2Sec4.html">The Constitution’s Article II, Section 4</a> commands that a president may be removed from office only for “Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”</p>
<p>Accordingly, Congress must base its decisions whether to impeach and to remove a president from office on a factual, politically neutral record demonstrating whether the president actually has committed, in the Constitution’s language, “Crimes.” </p>
<p>This plain text tells us that impeachment is not a device by which a disgruntled Congress may negate the voters’ political choice, even if Congress honestly believes a duly elected president’s policies are unsound, reckless or dangerous. Rather, Congress must approach the matter whether a president has committed constitutional “Crimes” as if it were jurors in a courtroom. </p>
<p>Commentators, then, rightly have denounced the <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/faculty_scholarship/679/">seemingly political nature</a> of Clinton’s impeachment and, roughly 130 years earlier, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275964/original/file-20190522-187169-14i5vm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275964/original/file-20190522-187169-14i5vm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275964/original/file-20190522-187169-14i5vm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275964/original/file-20190522-187169-14i5vm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275964/original/file-20190522-187169-14i5vm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275964/original/file-20190522-187169-14i5vm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275964/original/file-20190522-187169-14i5vm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275964/original/file-20190522-187169-14i5vm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., introduced articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Jan. 4, 2019, the Democrats’ first day in power after the 2018 elections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Impeachment/29e20c192696476cba587b2fa8ad122b/59/0">AP/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Offenses against the government</h2>
<p>Importantly, history shows that the Constitution’s term “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not limited to actual criminal conduct. </p>
<p>Noted scholars <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Treatise_on_constitutional_law.html?id=obyRAAAAMAAJ">Ronald Rotunda and John Nowak</a> explain that the Framers wisely intended the phrase “or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” to include undermining the Constitution and similar, “great offenses against the federal government (like abuse of power) even if they are not necessarily crimes.” </p>
<p>For instance, Alexander Hamilton <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed56.asp">asserted</a> that, while likely to be criminal acts, impeachable wrongdoings “are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men … from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” </p>
<p>James Madison <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_720.asp">urged that impeachment is appropriate</a> for “loss of capacity, or corruption … [that] might be fatal to the republic.” </p>
<p>And founding father <a href="http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/a1_2_5s7.html">Benjamin Franklin agreed that impeachment</a> is “the best way … for the regular punishment of the Executive when his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused.” </p>
<p>Thus, out of respect for the democratic process, a president cannot be impeached to promote Congress’ political agenda. Nor should lawmakers avoid impeachment because of perceived political cost.</p>
<p>Rather, given its remarkable gravity, a president should be impeached for conduct that – if committed by any president regardless of political or party affiliations – so taints or corrupts the presidency, he or she must be removed to preserve the integrity of American government.</p>
<p>Thus, the standard for impeachment must be politically neutral. Otherwise, impeachment becomes an illegitimate device to overturn elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Brandon Bayer is a registered member of the Democratic Party for purposes of voting in political primaries.</span></em></p>Politics have pervaded the debate about whether Congress should impeach President Trump. One legal scholar says that whether to impeach – or not – should not be viewed as a political question.Peter Brandon Bayer, Associate Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las VegasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/803092017-08-09T00:28:51Z2017-08-09T00:28:51ZEclipsing the occult in early America: Benjamin Franklin and his almanacs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181273/original/file-20170807-2667-6m8q7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C801%2C6501%2C5729&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Franklin's lifelong quest was spreading scientific knowledge to regular people.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003674083/">Mason Chamberlin</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By the time he was 20 years old, colonial American Benjamin Franklin had already spent two years working as a printer in London. He returned to Philadelphia in 1726. During the sea voyage home, he kept a journal that included many of his observations of the natural world. Franklin was inquisitive, articulate and <a href="http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_inquiring_weather.html">interested in mastering the universe</a>.</p>
<p>During one afternoon calm on September 14, Franklin wrote,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“as we sat playing Draughts upon deck, we were surprised with a sudden and unusual darkness of the sun, which as we could perceive was only covered with a small thin cloud: when that was passed by, we discovered that that glorious luminary laboured under a very great eclipse. At least ten parts out of twelve of him were hid from our eyes, and we were apprehensive he would have been totally darkened.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Total solar eclipses are not rare phenomena; <a href="https://www.space.com/25644-total-solar-eclipses-frequency-explained.html">every 18 months</a> on average one occurs somewhere on Earth. Franklin and his shipmates likely had seen eclipses before. What was different for Franklin and his generation was a new understanding of the causes of eclipses and the possibility of accurately predicting them.</p>
<p>Earlier generations in Europe relied on magical thinking, interpreting such celestial events through the lens of the occult, as if the universe were sending a message from heaven. By contrast, Franklin came of age at a time when supernatural readings were held in suspicion. He would go on to spread modern scientific views of astronomical events through his popular almanac – and attempt to free people from the realm of the occult and astrological prophecy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181275/original/file-20170807-25556-188qjlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181275/original/file-20170807-25556-188qjlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181275/original/file-20170807-25556-188qjlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181275/original/file-20170807-25556-188qjlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181275/original/file-20170807-25556-188qjlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181275/original/file-20170807-25556-188qjlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181275/original/file-20170807-25556-188qjlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181275/original/file-20170807-25556-188qjlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ptolemy’s Earth-centered universe with the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn orbiting our planet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Planisphaerium_Ptolemaicum_siue_machina_orbium_mundi_ex_hypothesi_Ptolemaica_in_plano_disposita_(2709983277).jpg">Andreas Cellarius</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beyond divine heavens with modern astronomy</h2>
<p>Ancient people conceived of the heavens as built around human beings. For centuries, people subscribed to the <a href="http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/theories/ptolemaic_system.html">Ptolemaic belief about the solar system</a>: The planets and the sun revolved around the stationary Earth.</p>
<p>The idea that God drove the heavens is very old. Because people thought that their god (or gods) guided all heavenly occurrences, it’s not surprising that many people – <a href="http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/astronomy/sky.html">ancient Chinese</a>, for example, and <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/solar-eclipse-apocalypse-how-ancient-civilisations-explained-disappearance-sun-1492508">Egyptians and Europeans</a> – believed that what they witnessed in the skies above provided signs of future events. </p>
<p>For this reason, solar eclipses were for many centuries understood to be harbingers of good or evil for humankind. They were attributed <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar-eclipse-history.html">magical or mysterious predictive qualities</a> that could influence human lives. During the first century A.D., people – including astrologers, magicians, alchemists and mystics – who claimed to have mastery over supernatural phenomena held sway over kings, religious leaders and whole populations.</p>
<p>Nicholas Copernicus, whose life straddled the 15th and 16th centuries, used scientific methods to devise a more accurate understanding of the solar system. In his famous book, “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” (published in 1543), Copernicus showed that the planets revolved around the sun. He didn’t get it all right, though: He thought planetary bodies had circular orbits, because the Christian God would have designed perfect circles in the cosmos. That planetary motion is elliptical is a later discovery.</p>
<p>By the time Benjamin Franklin grew up in New England (about 150 years later), few people still believed in the Ptolemaic system. Most had learned from living in an increasingly enlightened culture that the Copernican system was more reliable. Franklin, like many in his generation, believed that knowledge about the scientific causes for changes in the environment could work to reduce human fears about what the skies might portend. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181276/original/file-20170807-25576-1ftk19s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181276/original/file-20170807-25576-1ftk19s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181276/original/file-20170807-25576-1ftk19s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181276/original/file-20170807-25576-1ftk19s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181276/original/file-20170807-25576-1ftk19s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181276/original/file-20170807-25576-1ftk19s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181276/original/file-20170807-25576-1ftk19s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181276/original/file-20170807-25576-1ftk19s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By measuring the height of celestial objects with an astrolabe, a user could predict the position of stars, planets and the sun.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Astrolabe_planisférique.jpg">Pom²</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was an age of wonder, still, but wonder was harnessed to technological advances that could help people understand better the world they lived in. Accurate instruments, such as the astrolabe, allowed people to measure the motion of the planets and thus predict movements in the heavens, particularly phenomena like solar and lunar eclipses and the motions of planets like Venus.</p>
<p>In his earliest printed articles, Franklin criticized the idea that education belonged solely to the elite. He hoped to bring knowledge to common people, so they could rely on expertise outside of what they might hear in churches. Franklin opted to use his own almanacs – along with his satirical pen – to help readers distinguish between astronomical events and astrological predictions.</p>
<h2>Old-fashioned almanacs</h2>
<p>Printing was a major technological innovation during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries that helped foster information-sharing, <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/from-tablet-to-tablet/final-projects/-almanacs-in-17th-and-18th-century-america-michael-myckowiak-14">particularly via almanacs</a>.</p>
<p>These amazing compilations included all kinds of useful information and were relied on by farmers, merchants, traders and general readers in much the same way we rely on smartphones today. Colonial American almanacs provided the estimated times of sunrises and sunsets, high and low tides, periods of the moon and sun, the rise and fall of constellations, solar and lunar eclipses, and the transit of planets in the night skies. More expensive almanacs included local information such as court dates, dates of markets and fairs, and roadway distances between places. Most almanacs also offered standard reference information, including lists of the reigns of monarchs of England and Europe, along with a chronology of important dates in the Christian Era. </p>
<p><a href="https://newenglandquarterly.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/colonial-almanacs/">Almanac culture dominated New England life</a> when Franklin was a youth. They were the most purchased items American printers offered, with many a printer making his chief livelihood by printing almanacs.</p>
<p>Almanacs were money-makers, so <a href="http://www.librarycompany.org/BFWriter/poor.htm">Franklin developed his own version</a> shortly after he opened his own shop in Philadelphia. The city already had almanac-makers – Titan Leeds and John Jerman, among others – but Franklin aimed to gain the major share of the almanac trade.</p>
<p>Franklin considered astrological prediction foolish, especially in light of new scientific discoveries being made about the universe. He thought almanacs should not prognosticate on future events, as if people were still living in the dark ages. So he found a way to <a href="http://www.vlib.us/amdocs/texts/prichard44.html">make fun of his competitors</a> who continued to pretend they could legitimately use eclipses, for instance, to predict future events.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181278/original/file-20170807-28176-k1oa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181278/original/file-20170807-28176-k1oa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181278/original/file-20170807-28176-k1oa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181278/original/file-20170807-28176-k1oa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181278/original/file-20170807-28176-k1oa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181278/original/file-20170807-28176-k1oa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181278/original/file-20170807-28176-k1oa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181278/original/file-20170807-28176-k1oa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin dispensed many aphorisms in the guise of ‘Poor Richard,’ such as ‘Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003654338/">Oliver Pelton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Introducing Poor Richard</h2>
<p>In addition to the usual fare, <a href="http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/poor-richards-almanac/">Franklin’s almanac provided</a> stories, aphorisms and poems, all ostensibly curated by a homespun character he created: <a href="http://www.librarycompany.org/BFWriter/poor.htm">Richard Saunders, the fictional “author”</a> of Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac.”</p>
<p>The “Poor Richard” Saunders persona allowed Franklin to satirize almanac makers who still wrote about eclipses as occult phenomena. Satire works because it closely reproduces the object being made fun of, with a slight difference. We’re familiar with this method today from watching skits on “Saturday Night Live” and other parody programs.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181280/original/file-20170807-20706-16xeqxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181280/original/file-20170807-20706-16xeqxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181280/original/file-20170807-20706-16xeqxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181280/original/file-20170807-20706-16xeqxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181280/original/file-20170807-20706-16xeqxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181280/original/file-20170807-20706-16xeqxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1375&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181280/original/file-20170807-20706-16xeqxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181280/original/file-20170807-20706-16xeqxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1375&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Title page of Franklin’s first ‘Poor Richard’ almanac, for 1733.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Franklin’s voice was close enough to his satirical target that “Poor Richard” stole the market. For instance, Poor Richard began his career by predicting the death of Titan Leeds, his competitor. He later would do the same thing to John Jerman. Franklin was determined to mock almanac-makers who pretended to possess occult knowledge. Nobody knows when a person might die, and only astrologers would pretend to think a solar or lunar eclipse might mean something for humans.</p>
<p>Franklin included a wonderfully funny section in his almanac for 1735, making light of his competitors who did offer astrological prognostications. As “Poor Richard,” he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I shall not say much of the Signification of the Eclipses this Year, for in truth they do not signifie much; only I may observe by the way, that the first Eclipse of the Moon being celebrated in Libra or the Ballance, foreshews a Failure of Justice, where People judge in their own Cases. But in the following Year 1736, there will be six Eclipses, four of the Sun, and two of the Moon, which two Eclipses of the Moon will be both total, and portend great Revolutions in Europe, particularly in Germany….”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Richard Saunders is clear in the opening remark that “Eclipses … do not signifie much.” He nonetheless goes on to base amazing predictions for 1736 on them, in effect lampooning anyone who would rely on the stars to foretell human events. Great revolutions were taking place in Europe, but no one needed to read eclipses in order to figure that out; they needed only to read the day’s newspapers.</p>
<p>The next year, Franklin decided go a step further than just satirizing these occult prognostications. He had Richard Saunders explain his understanding of some of the science behind eclipses. He characterized the “Difference between Eclipses of the Moon and of the Sun” by reporting that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“All Lunar Eclipses are universal, i.e. visible in all Parts of the Globe which have the Moon above their Horizon, and are every where of the same Magnitude: But Eclipses of the Sun do not appear the same in all Parts of the Earth where they are seen; being when total in some Places, only partial in others; and in other Places not seen at all, tho’ neither Clouds nor Horizon prevent the Sight of the Sun it self.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The goal of an explanation like this? To eclipse occult belief. He hoped people would become more confident about the universe and everything in it and would learn to rely on <a href="http://nationaleclipse.com/history.html">scientifically validated knowledge</a> rather than an almanac-maker’s fictions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80309/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla J. Mulford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Franklin advanced a scientific – not supernatural – understanding of astronomical events such as eclipses. His satirical character ‘Poor Richard’ mocked those who bought into astrological predictions.Carla J. Mulford, Professor of English, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/607542016-07-01T13:42:30Z2016-07-01T13:42:30ZDr. Franklin, I presume? The founder who could have been our “founding physician”<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128570/original/image-20160628-7825-yth3zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Benjamin Franklin observed many things about health, including the adverse effect of lead type.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=rER0Z561FWf9SGsjfwx3FQ&searchterm=benjamin%20franklin%20&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=200761622">From www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Benjamin Franklin deferred to Thomas Jefferson in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, he did so for multiple reasons. He wished to avoid the annoyance of being edited by the committee of the whole Continental Congress, as Jefferson was, to Jefferson’s great distress. Franklin sought to ensure the support of Jefferson’s Virginia for a revolution begun in New England. He wanted to give the younger man a chance to shine.</p>
<p>Franklin’s reputation was already secure. Before the American Revolution made Jefferson and George Washington and the other founders famous, Franklin was hailed internationally as one of the great philosophers — that is, scientists — of the age. His work in electricity had won him the era’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and his many admirers spanned Britain and continental Europe.</p>
<p>Yet it was Franklin’s attention to another science that has a more modern ring. In Franklin’s day medicine rarely warranted the label of science, with theories of disease running from rank superstition to wild surmise. As I have written in my <a href="http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/17604/the-first-american/">book,</a> “The First American,” Franklin brought to the field an aptitude for keen observation and an ability to draw general conclusions from scattered evidence.</p>
<h2>The cold doesn’t cause a cold, he observed</h2>
<p>His contemporaries typically ascribed the common cold to a chilling of the sufferer; hence the name for the malady. Franklin disagreed. A regular crosser of the Atlantic, he observed that sailors, frequently chilled in their work, rarely caught cold. It wasn’t being chilled that caused colds, he conjectured, but being closed indoors with other people already infected — as occurred during winter, the season of colds. Fresh air, far from causing colds, helped prevent them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128572/original/image-20160628-7825-1t506w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128572/original/image-20160628-7825-1t506w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128572/original/image-20160628-7825-1t506w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128572/original/image-20160628-7825-1t506w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128572/original/image-20160628-7825-1t506w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128572/original/image-20160628-7825-1t506w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128572/original/image-20160628-7825-1t506w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While they could agree on the Treaty of Paris, Franklin and Adams disagreed on whether cold air caused a cold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=CE19yiGeLepgHnGvs9VwpA&searchterm=benjamin%20franklin%20john%20adams&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=244391350">From www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>John Adams experienced Franklin’s theory of colds during a journey the two took together. On retiring to their shared bedchamber, Adams closed the window tightly. “Oh, don’t shut the window,” Franklin objected. “We <a href="http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/17604/the-first-american/">shall be suffocated</a>.” Adams replied that he feared the night air. Franklin rejoined, “The air within this chamber will soon be, and indeed is now, worse than that without doors. Come! Open the window and come to bed, and I will convince you. I believe you are not acquainted with my theory of colds.” Adams answered that he had heard of Franklin’s novel theory. </p>
<p>It didn’t match his own observation, but he was willing to hear it again, and with the window open, “The Doctor then began an harangue, upon air and cold and respiration and perspiration, with which I was so much amused that I soon fell asleep, and left him and his philosophy together,” Adams recalled. And he woke up the next day <a href="http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/17604/the-first-american/">without a cold</a>. </p>
<h2>Ahead of his time on lead</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128573/original/image-20160628-7836-wrke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128573/original/image-20160628-7836-wrke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128573/original/image-20160628-7836-wrke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128573/original/image-20160628-7836-wrke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128573/original/image-20160628-7836-wrke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128573/original/image-20160628-7836-wrke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128573/original/image-20160628-7836-wrke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin observed that lead could lead to illness, including gastrointestinal symptoms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=lead%20type&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=127414445">From www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If attention to the spread of disease is timely when Zika worries people around the globe, Franklin’s conjectures on exposure to lead address concerns raised by the recent events in Flint, Michigan. On winter days during his career as a printer, Franklin warmed the lead type he set in his press, to make the letters easier to handle. He noticed that at the end of such days his fingers were stiff and his hands ached. Comparing notes with other printers, he concluded that lead absorbed through the skin was the cause. </p>
<p>Franklin meanwhile tracked reports of “dry gripes,” a gastrointestinal malady linked to various occupations, of which the unifying feature was exposure to lead. He noted that the dry gripes were common in the British West Indies but not the French West Indies. The climate and geography of the two regions were the same; what differed was that the British drank rum while the French drank wine. Rum was distilled in devices that contained lead pipes. “I have long been of opinion,” he wrote of the dry gripes, “that that distemper proceeds always from a metallic cause only, observing that it affects among tradesmen those that use lead, however different their trades, as glazers, type-founders, plumbers, potters, <a href="http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/17604/the-first-american/">white lead makers</a> and painters.” </p>
<h2>A hospital for the poor, thanks to Franklin</h2>
<p>If Franklin had lived in the 21st century he might or might not have endorsed the Affordable Care Act, but in the 18th century he was a pioneer of the principle that public health is a public good and therefore worthy of public support. In 1751 Franklin organized a petition to the Pennsylvania Assembly for the establishment of a hospital to care for the poor of the colony. </p>
<p>When the legislature balked at the expense and questioned the breadth of support for the project, Franklin proposed to raise half the money through private donations if the assembly would guarantee the other half. The assembly agreed, with many lawmakers confident Franklin would never meet his goal. Franklin had surreptitiously secured sufficient pledges already, and the assembly was compelled to pay up. “I do not remember any of my political manoeuvres, the success of which gave me at the time more pleasure,” Franklin recalled. “Or that in after thinking of it, I more easily excused myself for having made use of some <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=D29W3OkXFq4C&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=%22I+do+not+remember+any+of+my+political%22&source=bl&ots=g6DZPQ30wa&sig=tqR6I_fR_mhy_RwOlh8LBgtv6bc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU-aa4vY7NAhWM7iYKHSmIDyEQ6AEIJDAB#v=onepage&q&f=false">cunning</a>.” </p>
<h2>Strong advocate of immunization</h2>
<p>Another memory evoked not pleasure but pain. Franklin was an early advocate of inoculation against smallpox. His newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, publicized the procedure, and he sponsored a fund for the inoculation of Philadelphians too poor to pay for it themselves. Yet he neglected to inoculate his younger son, Francis, on account of the boy’s poor health and his own distraction by business.</p>
<p>He soon lamented his failure, for the child was swept away by smallpox at the age of four. “I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation he wrote later. "This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=D29W3OkXFq4C&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=%22I+do+not+remember+any+of+my+political%22&source=bl&ots=g6DZPQ30wa&sig=tqR6I_fR_mhy_RwOlh8LBgtv6bc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU-aa4vY7NAhWM7iYKHSmIDyEQ6AEIJDAB#v=onepage&q&f=false">operation</a>.” Modern parents, especially those inclined to skip their kids’ vaccinations, should take heed as well. </p>
<p>Medicine and public health have come quite far since Franklin’s time. Scientists now have tools and techniques he couldn’t have dreamed of. But the best of today’s researchers share the inquisitive spirit and open mind he brought to everything he did. As for negotiating the ever difficult intersection of politics and policy, a bit of the Franklin cunning doesn’t hurt, either.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>H W Brands does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Benjamin Franklin was the most famous man of his era not only because of his role in founding our country. He had a keen interest in health, with many ideas that hold up today.H W Brands, Professor of History, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/560272016-03-14T04:23:57Z2016-03-14T04:23:57ZWhy African scientists must be champions for democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114462/original/image-20160309-13689-c2n5iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Science and innovation can improve the world –but scientists have to help ensure strong democracies too.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Kumerra Gemechu </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hundreds of people were murdered in my home town during three bloody days in December 2015. They were victims of what’s come to be called the <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/zaria-massacre-u-s-joins-calls-investigation-deaths-kaduna-state-n480981">Zaria massacre</a>, killed by soldiers who were supposed to protect them. A baby girl, scores of children, university students and journalists were among those killed in the Nigerian town where I grew up. If I had been home in December, I could have been among the victims. </p>
<p>This incident – one of many stories of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/africa">human rights violations</a> in Africa – may not sound like it has anything to do with science or maths. But it’s actually inextricably linked with an ongoing drive to find the <a href="http://nef.org/">next Albert Einstein</a> right here on the continent. For what is the point of finding this new Einstein, or many Einsteins, if they cannot do their work safely or actively contribute to building democracy on the continent?</p>
<h2>Scientists and humanity</h2>
<p>There is <a href="https://theconversation.com/maths-and-science-are-the-keys-to-unlocking-africas-potential-55237">no doubt</a> that scientists and mathematicians have an enormous amount to contribute to Africa’s future. They can develop vaccines and cures for disease, find ways to purify drinking water, create mathematical and statistical models, and engineer infrastructure.</p>
<p>That is only one side of the coin, though. African mathematicians and scientists must play an equally active role in establishing and protecting a democratic continent where basic human rights are respected in principle and practice. This notion of a science-humanity connection isn’t unprecedented. Benjamin Franklin <a href="https://www.fi.edu/benjamin-franklin-faq">invented</a> bifocals, the lightning rod and swim fins, among other things. But he was also a leader of the American revolution and one of the founders of the United States. </p>
<p>There are more recent examples: German Chancellor <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-angela-merkel-became-the-most-powerful-woman-in-the-world-2015-2">Angela Merkel</a> has a doctorate in physical chemistry. In Asia, it’s <a href="http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/why-dont-americans-elect-scientists/?_r=0">common</a> for politicians to be trained scientists.</p>
<p>So how can scientists be equipped with the tools to become activists for democracy?</p>
<h2>Learning beyond science</h2>
<p>In 2003 I was honoured to be among the first cohort of students at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences’ <a href="https://www.aims.ac.za/en/about/about-aims">(AIMS)</a> South African centre. Such a space wouldn’t have been possible before the country became a democracy in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela – young scientists of different races wouldn’t have been able to mix, share ideas and learn from each other during apartheid. Other centres have opened in Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon and Tanzania; a sixth will be opened in Rwanda soon. The organisation’s purpose is to develop young scientists and mathematicians. But it goes further.</p>
<p>One of the most exciting aspects of my curriculum back in 2003 was the sessions set aside for exploring contemporary social and political issues. We were taught how to be creative and critical not just in our own scientific research but in all matters. This offers a valuable model: where young scientists gather, there must be discussions about democracy and human rights alongside those about physics, maths, chemistry, biotechnology, innovation and so on.</p>
<p>For instance, the 2018 Next Einstein Forum (the second of its kind after 2016’s March <a href="http://nef.org/">meeting</a> in Dakar, Senegal), should organise spaces for such discussions. This platform is a chance for questions and problems to be raised and possible solutions to be analysed. Politicians, NGOs and other non-scientists should be welcome, too – their input and influence are crucial for implementation. But such work can’t only happen at special, occasional gatherings. It needs to be carried out on a smaller scale, too.</p>
<h2>Developing activist scientists</h2>
<p>Mathematicians and scientists are not members of some secret cult with hidden ideas or agendas. Young people must be taught from school that there’s more to these disciplines than remaining cloistered in a laboratory or absorbed in theoretical work. They need to understand that their work can be applied to real change, and that they have a role to play in African democracies.</p>
<p>There are a number of politically active scientists around the world who could drive this process. I met several at AIMS, among them applied scientist and engineer <a href="http://web.mit.edu/sanjoy/www/">Sanjoy Mahajan</a> and <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/david-mackay-appointed-regius-professor-of-engineering">David MacKay</a>, the former chief scientific advisor to the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change. Many others exist who could play a valuable role in educating scientists about their social obligations. Activists, journalists and humanitarians can also get involved in teaching scientists about the world beyond their laboratories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shehu AbdusSalam has been affiliated from childhood with the Islamic Movement in Nigeria. </span></em></p>African mathematicians and scientists have an important role to play in establishing and protecting a democratic continent.Shehu AbdusSalam, Assistant professor, high energy physics, Shahid Beheshti University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/474522015-10-14T02:51:30Z2015-10-14T02:51:30ZIs it time America finally took a chance on Syria’s refugees?<p>Afghan, Syrian and Eritrean refugees <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34483681">keep arriving</a> on Europe’s shores, reputedly at an increasing rate. </p>
<p>They attempt to traverse the Mediterranean by land and sea, presumably <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/middleeast/russia-syria-isis/">hastened</a> by Putin’s bombing campaign. Now some even arrive by traveling <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/europe/bypassing-the-risky-sea-refugees-reach-europe-through-the-arctic.html">across the Arctic</a>.</p>
<p>So how does the proposed American response to this crisis compare to that of European countries? And how surprised should we be by the US’ relatively paltry effort?</p>
<h2>Two remarkable responses</h2>
<p>Sweden’s response has been remarkable. </p>
<p>The Swedes’ longstanding “open door” policy means that they have now accepted <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/09/world/welcome-syrian-refugees-countries/">the largest number of refugees per capita</a> of any <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/09/daily-chart">European</a> country. One hundred and fifty thousand asylum seekers <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/latest-boat-runs-aground-baby-dies-greek-incidents-063446312.html">are expected</a> to arrive there this year. Not surprisingly, it has been the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24635791">preferred destination</a> of many seeking asylum for quite some time. </p>
<p>Germany, of course, has accepted the largest total number of refugees. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/markets-germany-migrants-idUSL5N11M21Q20150916">The estimated numbers</a> could reach two million over the next two years at a cost of 25 billion Euros. </p>
<p>Yet Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, has remained resolute. She has ruled out imposing a freeze on the numbers, even as the refugees keep arriving every day by the thousands. And despite growing right-wing domestic criticism, “We will manage,” <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/merkel-rules-out-freeze-on-refugee-intake/a-18767224">declared Merkel</a>. “I am quite strongly convinced of that.” </p>
<p>Members of other European countries, of course, like the Hungarians and Czechs, remain stubbornly opposed. </p>
<p>Even those generally in favor of accepting refugees, like the French, have become noticeably nervous as the estimated numbers grow, seeking “European-wide” solutions instead of just taking unilateral action. The UK’s nominal acceptance of 20,000 refugees over five years <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34502419">has drawn derision</a> from 300 of its own former judges and lawyers. </p>
<h2>How’s America doing?</h2>
<p>By comparison, however, the American response can generously be described as anemic.</p>
<p>The US has taken in about <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/us-will-accept-more-syrians-but-not-many.html">1,600 Syrians</a> since 2011. Last month, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/john-kerry-says-u-s-to-admit-30-000-more-refugees-in-next-2-years-1442768498">John Kerry announced </a>that the US would raise its annual ceiling of refugees and asylum seekers to include 10,000 more Syrians next year. </p>
<p><a href="http://iprnewswire.com/u-s-to-boost-refugee-intake-by-30000-over-two-years-update-2/">Kerry claimed</a> the move would be “in keeping with America’s best tradition as a land of second chances and a beacon of hope.” But nowadays 10,000 refugees is just a busy day in Bavaria. If it took in the same proportion as the Germans or Swedes over the next two years, America would now be accepting nearer 10 million refugees, not 10,000.</p>
<p>It is important to put Kerry’s proposed paltry figure in some perspective. </p>
<p>Since the early days of the Cold War, the United States characteristically has had one of the more generous asylum policies in the world. It routinely accepts approximately <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43442030/ns/us_news-life/t/us-system-refugee-asylum-seekers-explained/">70,000 refugees a year</a> from around the world – until very recently far more than any other country. And Kerry did note that the total figure would be increased to 85,000 in 2016 and 100,000 in 2017. But even this plan obscures a series of issues.</p>
<p>First of all, the total numbers of refugees the US intends to accept – assuming that the next president even abides by this plan – obviously makes no serious contribution to the overall problem at all.</p>
<p>Second, as columnist Josh Rogin <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-16/white-house-refugee-plan-overwhelmed-by-syrian-exodus">wrote</a> in a recent piece in Bloomberg,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem with the plan, no matter how quickly adopted, is how long it will take to have any effect. Migrants applying for refugee asylum in the United States now will not have their applications considered until at least 2017 because of a long backlog. And once an application begins to be considered, the asylum seekers can face a further 18 to 24 months before they are granted or denied asylum. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So next year’s proposed 10,000-person increase would come almost exclusively from the backlog of Syrians who have <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/world/middleeast/refugees-stuck-in-grinding-us-process-wait-and-hope.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=world/middleeast&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&pgtype=article">already applied</a>. It would not help the people who are fleeing now. </p>
<p>Arguably, exceptional times call for exceptional measures. </p>
<p>Americans like to pride themselves on their humanity and generosity. And there are groups in the US calling for a more generous response. Notably <a href="http://www.hias.org/">HIAS</a> – the prominent American Jewish organization focused on Jewish refugee resettlement since 1881 – has been outspoken in supporting the mass resettlement of Syrians in the US in far greater numbers.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there is the issue of responsibility: after all, a good argument can be made that America’s two wars in Iraq over the last decade have significantly contributed to the regional instability that bought about this crisis. The US owes the Syrian refugees far more than the Germans or Swedes.</p>
<p>So why, faced with such a humanitarian crisis, the refusal to drastically increase these numbers and act more quickly to process applications?</p>
<h2>It’s national security, stupid</h2>
<p>The answer, of course, is political – and tied to perennial American concerns about national security. </p>
<p>Republicans have been particularly vocal <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/world/middleeast/obama-directs-administration-to-accept-10000-syrian-refugees.html">in arguing</a> that accepting refugees poses a potentially serious security threat, as Jihadists could embed themselves in the refugee population arriving in the US. Both America’s <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/RichLowry/Emerging-Threats-Homeland-Security-Immigration-Syria/2015/09/22/id/692676/">right-wing press</a> and the <a href="http://www.debbieschlussel.com/68629/outrage-obama-seeks-to-bring-30000-syrian-muslim-refugees-to-us-waive-counterterrorism-laws/">conservative blogosphere </a>have exploded with anger at the prospect of what they regard as President Obama’s disregard for the counterterrorism legislation.</p>
<p>It’s easy to conclude that these are exceptional times and they require exceptional diligence. But this national security syndrome when it comes to refugees and migrants is nothing new. </p>
<p>America has an unenviable historical record when it comes to barring immigrants or refugees from entry to the US, or denying them of their rights once they have settled, in the name of national security.</p>
<p>The list of nationalities, ethnic groups and religions that have been barred or denied their constitutional rights is long and shameful. Some advocates of exclusion are also quite surprising.</p>
<h2>The historical record</h2>
<p>National security and nationality? Benjamin Franklin <a href="http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-peter-collinson/">once suggested</a> that German immigrants were unable to subscribe to American values and republican political principles. Franklin worried that German immigrants would overwhelm America and change its most basic virtues, possibly bringing an end to the fledgling republic. “Not being used to Liberty,” Franklin wrote, “they know not how to make a modest use of it.” </p>
<p>National security and religion? Many thought that Republican candidate <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/25/a_muslim_president_was_ben_carson_right_128207.html">Ben Carson’s comments</a> about a Muslim being unsuitable for the position of president because they might follow Sharia law was novel. But the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Alien.html">Alien and Sedition Act </a>signed by John Adams in 1798 authorized the president to imprison or deport aliens considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” The legislation did not specifically single out any group. But it did in fact, herald a nativist crusade that focused on Irish immigrants and Catholics more generally. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Samuel Morse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Morse_LIFE_1.jpg">LIFE photo archive</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That crusade was epitomized by Samuel FB Morse, more famous for inventing Morse Code and developing the telegraph. He <a href="http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1798.html">once wrote,</a> “It is a fact that popery is opposed in its very nature to democratic republicanism; and it is, therefore, as a political system, as well as religious, opposed to civil and religious liberty, and consequently to our form of government.” </p>
<p>National security and ethnicity? Under the terms of the Naturalization Act of 1870 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, <a href="http://www.wherevertheresafight.com/excerpts/in_a_strange_land_the_rights_of_immigrants">restrictive measures were introduced</a> that limited naturalization to “white persons and persons of African descent.”</p>
<p>But Solicitor General Holmes Conrad caught the tenor of the times in his plea before the Supreme Court, when he insisted that the US-born Chinese “are just as obnoxious as their forebears.” When asked about the idea of a Chinese eligible for the presidency, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZcpEYQ-pG2YC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=US+born+Chinese+were+%E2%80%9Care+just+as+obnoxious+as+their+forebears%E2%80%9D.&source=bl&ots=nhMPfXXgOz&sig=g0-AhvTfSmj6bUkVBrSYoZwUOrw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIurnEnrG2yAIVgUg-Ch0ohwP0#v=onepage&q=US%20born%20Chinese%20were%20%E2%80%9Care%20just%20as%20obnoxious%20as%20their%20forebears%E2%80%9D.&f=false">he responded</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if so, then verily there has been a most degenerate departure from the patriotic ideas of our forefathers, and surely in that case America citizenship is not worth saving. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Remarkably, people of Chinese descent were not eligible for naturalization until 1943.</p>
<h2>An endless cycle</h2>
<p>The list of refugees or landed foreigners supposedly threatening American national security is endless – even in the 20th century. </p>
<p>Franklin D Roosevelt is hailed as a great American president. But by the 1930s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-fdrs-moral-failure-on-the-holocaust/2013/03/11/6bb9ef56-8a76-11e2-8d72-dc76641cb8d4_story.html">he purposely limited </a>the entry of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. Many of those arrived in the UK instead, and were then interned in camps in Australia and Canada on the grounds that they might be spies.</p>
<p>It is commonly known that Americans of Japanese descent were interned in World War II. What is less commonly known is that any foreign-born Japanese remained ineligible for naturalization until the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952.</p>
<p>I could go on at length. But the point is clear: when faced with conflict, America has a history of denial of entry and incarceration – on the grounds someone might remotely be a threat. </p>
<p>The Syrians are no different on that score. Their need is just particularly urgent.</p>
<h2>Breaking the cycle</h2>
<p>I accept that there may be a Jihadist, a criminal, or a terrorist in the bunch if America does show the moral courage to assume responsibility for a greater proportion of Syrian refugees. Every time I travel through Manhattan, I acutely aware of such risks. But one could argue that it is a remote risk. It is one we have to accept when we live in an open society.</p>
<p>Sadly, you can’t live in Arizona, Oregon or <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-of-texas-faculty-are-uneasy-about-campus-carry-48549">Texas</a> and teach on a college campus without accepting <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-guns-on-campus-lead-to-grade-inflation-40748">a risk</a>, because America’s gun laws protect the rights of many despite the evil few. </p>
<p>Likewise, America, we are told, was founded on a legal system that is designed to let guilty people go free for fear that one innocent person might be falsely imprisoned – implying a profound sense of risk in protecting the innocent despite the fact that guilty might go unpunished. </p>
<p>It is a shame that we don’t apply the same principle when it comes to accepting refugees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Afghan, Syrian and Eritrean refugees keep arriving on Europe’s shores, reputedly at an increasing rate. They attempt to traverse the Mediterranean by land and sea, presumably hastened by Putin’s bombing…Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.