A Republic of Scoundrels
For generations, the founders of the American republic were mythologized by schoolteachers, elevated as demigods by politicians, extolled as flawless. Even as a boy, George Washington was said to be incapable of telling a lie. But no one should be surprised to learn that they were flawed, as all of us are. We owe a lot to the best among them—including the sagacity of Benjamin Franklin and the humility of Washington for setting the precedent (unbroken until 2020) for the peaceful transfer of power.
And then there’s the rest of the gang, the second-rate Patriots (and pseudo-Patriots) who form the rogues gallery of A Republic of Scoundrels. David Head and Timothy C. Hemmis, from the University of Central Florida and Texas A&M, have edited an essay collection that might make them unpopular among their states’ MAGA legislators.
Each essay examines the career of one criminal or mountebank that played an important role in the American Revolution. Some of their names have been left unmemorized by school children except, perhaps, locally. William Blount is regarded as one of Tennessee’s founders; he was also a real estate magnet who swindled war veterans of the land they were promised, a persecutor of Indigenous people and a schemer who met with British agents in the early years after U.S. independence, hoping to encourage another Anglo-American war for his own benefit. When his scheme was exposed, he became the first officeholder to be impeached under the new U.S. Constitution.
Foreign entanglements were never far from the minds of our nation’s founders at a time when America’s national identity was fluid. Witness Gen. James Wilkinson, whose for-profit scheme involved making Kentucky a colony of the Spanish Empire. Highly “skilled in the arts of deception,” he survived the exposure of his machinations and continued to enjoy a long career in the U.S. Army.
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Of course, there is also Aaron Burr, the vice president who sought to “exploit the regionalism that existed in the early republic.” The demagogue plotted rebellion by settlers in the West to establish a separate nation along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Arrested on charges of treason, Burr had the money to assemble a formidable defense team. Chief Justice John Marshall presided over the trial.
Many of the arguments heard in court remain familiar today. Burr carped that unfavorable media attention made jury selection impossible; his attorneys demanded testimony from Pres. Thomas Jefferson, who ignored the subpoena. Burr’s defense hinged on a narrow interpretation of the Constitution’s treason clause.
“Conspiracy theories blossomed” after Marshall attended a dinner party during the proceedings with Burr and his attorneys. The Chief Justice agreed with Burr’s Constitutional reasoning and the culprit was acquitted. However, the hatred of Burr from Jefferson and the Jeffersonians permanently blackened his reputation.
A Republic of Scoundrels offers a balanced lesson in American history, an admission that many of our founders were motivated less by high ideals than by greed and power.
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