Emo Ben Franklin / Birthday Sale

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America 250 on Mostly Aesthetics, Part 1: Words and Feelings.

1. The Battle of Words. Abraham Lincoln never referred to the Confederacy as if it were a separate nation. Instead they were “states in rebellion,” or “the seceded states, so called,” or states “out of their proper practical relation with the Union.” In his Speech on Reconstruction Lincoln bit his thumb at Jefferson Davis, the supposed “President” of the Confederacy, writing

Unlike the case of a war between independent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with. No one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man.

Great Britain tried this too, in 1776. After Independence, with the war a year old, the opposing generals had need to communicate, not least about how their men were treated when taken prisoner. The British addressed their letters to “George Washington”—not “General Washington,” not “Commander in Chief.” Washington did not like this, and expressed his dislike the same way my father would, when he was sent jury duty notices: he threw them in the trash, unopened. To address this impasse, James Paterson (a British adjutant general) came to Washington’s camp. Patterson needed to convey to Washington a letter, which Washington needed, even more, to refuse. The result was a formal tiptoe around alpine pride. Paterson pulled out the letter, but “did not directly offer” it to Washington, instead he laid it on the table, to be examined by all parties like a dead skunk. The letter was addressed to

Geo. Washington &c. &c. &c.

Washington, not picking up the letter,

said that a Letter directed to a person in a publick Character should have some Description or Indication of it [that is, of his office] otherwise it would appear a mere private Letter.

The British responded that all of those “&c”s included “General” in their meaning: a reply worthy of an expensive lawyer, or a professional philosopher. Washington would have none of it: “it was true the &c. &c. &c. implied everything,” but also

they also implied any thing.

The British tried harder, and engaged in what today we might call gaslighting: no disrespect was intended, they “regretted the Difficulties which had arisen respecting the Address of the Letters,” they “held his Person & Character in the highest Esteem.” But Washington won this battle, as he would win the war.

2. Emotional Intelligence. “Emotional Intelligence” may not be real, but Benjamin Franklin still had it in spades, as shown by his knowledge of the causes and persistence of affection and resentment. Lord Howe wrote him in 1776 offering pardons to the “rebels,” if they would give up the fight. Franklin took this for what it was, a slap in the face. If it was not meant as such, that just proved the ministry stupid:

Directing Pardons to be offered to the Colonies, who are the very Parties injured, expresses indeed that Opinion of our Ignorance, Baseness, and Insensibility which your uninform’d and proud Nation has long been pleased to entertain of us, but it can have no other Effect than that of increasing our Resentment.

Franklin had long wanted to keep the colonies in the Empire, which in this very letter he calls “that fine and noble China Vase”; such was his reputation as a reconciliationist, that Samuel Adams, leader of the radical faction, never quite trusted him. But Franklin really was all-in on Independence. This was not just his own sentiment, but his sense of the sentiment of the people generally, and Franklin knew why. Referring to the ongoing war, in which colonists had been killed, he wrote that

These atrocious Injuries have extinguished every remaining Spark of Affection for that Parent Country we once held so dear.

Indeed, even if the political elite gave up the fight, and legally the colonies returned to Britain, it would never work out—because of how the British would feel about it. As with any breakup, Things Could Never Be The Same Again:

[even if it] were possible for us to forget and forgive [those injuries], it is not possible for you to forgive the People you have so heavily injured; you can never confide again in those as Fellow Subjects, and permit them to enjoy equal Freedom, to whom you know you have given such just Cause of lasting Enmity. And this must impel you, were we again under your Government, to endeavour the breaking our Spirit by the severest Tyranny.