Revolutionary Characters by Gordon Wood

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by Gordon Wood is a book for fairly serious American Revolutionary era history buffs. If one is indeed such an aficionado, this is a thought provoking and fun read.

Wood’s book consists of a series of essays, each concerning a different major American Founder. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Aaron Burr are all covered. For the most part, the pieces are not biographical sketches; instead they are analyses of the public personas of each of the men. Therefore, I would not recommend this book to readers who have only a cursory interest in the men or the era. Some of the essays, particularly the one that covers John Adams and his political theories, dig into fairly intricate concepts and issues of the time.

In several linking essays, Wood explains that the public image of these men was of the utmost importance both to the men themselves as well as the public at large. All of these men considered themselves enlightened gentleman of their times. The author argues that in this era, society did not look to or esteem private personalities. Thus, a “constructed” public personality, as long as it was kept consistent in public, was not considered disingenuous or undesirable; in fact, to some degree, private or inner character was disregarded as unimportant.

These men all spent their early years striving to become part of the enlightened elite. They rejected what at the time were traditional conceptions of hereditary elitism of the old aristocracy. Instead, the conception of a “gentleman” involved reaching, through one’s own devices, a level of education, morality and manors that placed a man above the masses of society.

Wood writes,

“To be a gentleman was to think and act like a gentleman, nothing more, an immensely radical belief with implications that few foresaw. It meant being reasonable, tolerant, honest, virtuous, and “candid,” an important eighteenth-century characteristic that connoted being unbiased and just as well as frank and sincere. Being a gentleman was the prerequisite to becoming a political leader. It signified being cosmopolitan, standing on elevated ground in order to have a large view of human affairs, and being free of the prejudices, parochialism, and religious enthusiasm of the vulgar and barbaric. It meant, in short, having all those characteristics that we today sum up in the idea of a liberal arts education.”

In addition to striving to attain the status of a gentleman, Wood explains that the Founders highly valued the concept of “disinterestedness”.  A virtuous leader needed to be wealthy enough that they did not need to work or even concern themselves with making money. In theory, only a person who was rich enough not to have interest in the profit motive could be trusted with the reigns of government. Not all of the Founders disliked mercantilism (some, like Thomas Jefferson, despised it) but most believed that it was inappropriate for a businessperson to be a politician.

Wood describes this concept,

“We today have lost most of this earlier meaning. Even educated people now use disinterested as a synonym for uninterested, meaning “indifferent or unconcerned.” It is almost as if we cannot quite imagine someone who is capable of rising above a pecuniary interest and being unselfish or impartial where an interest might be present.

In the eighteenth-century Anglo-American world gentlemen believed that only independent individuals, free of interested ties and paid by no masters, could practice such virtue. It was thought that those who had occupations and had to work strenuously for a living lacked the leisure for virtuous public leadership.”

Within this framework of a disinterested gentleman, all of the Founders, either through their own machinations or through external impositions, had constructed public personas. These characters, how they came to be, what they represented, how they affected history, etc. are generally the subjects of Wood’s essays. Each piece digs fairly deep into the analysis of Wood’s subject. Having read fairly extensively on these men and the era previously, I feel that Wood’s essays provided depth as well as both familiar and unique perspectives, though I do not agree with all of Wood’s conclusions.

One of many interesting points here was that there were always exceptions to the rules. Wood argues that Paine’s public persona did not fit that of a gentleman and Burr’s persona did not appear to be “disinterested.”

As one final irony pointed out by Wood, the nation and society that these men helped to create, that of powerful mercantile interests, an economy propelled by the acquisition of material goods and common people (though only white males) participating in political and social discussion and debate, had little interest in electing disinterested gentleman as political leaders. Thus, Wood convincingly argues that all subsequent generations of American political leaders were of a very different breed from that of the Founders.

Though not an introduction to the American Founders, this work provides important and, at least for me, intriguing information on the personalities, philosophies, perceptions and accomplishments of these very important people. There are a lot of detailed and interesting musings within the essays that I cannot come close to delving into within a single blog post. Highly recommended for those interested in the period as well as in the history of government.

The Following Posts cover related subjects:

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph Ellis

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

Burr Verses Hamilton: Two Views

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg

Thomas Jefferson:The Art of Power by John Meacham

Radicalism and the American Revolution by Gordon Wood

Reading Gordon Wood