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Alexander Addison: the Disillusionment of a ALEXANDER ADDISON: THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF A "REPUBLICAN SCHOOLMASTER" G. S. Rowe the new American republic faced a herculean task in in- Thatculcating its citizenry with republican values and practices has been duly noted by American historians. Unfortunately, the degree to which the court system in general and the judiciary in particular shouldered the burden for this education has been largely ignored. 1 Pennsylvania's legal apparatus was employed in a variety of ways to promulgate the virtue and responsibility deemed crucial for the salva- tion of the new Republic. 2 No state judge strove more conscientiously or systematically to educate the public to the behavior and ideals called for by America's republican experiment than Alexander Addi- son. During his tenure as president of Pennsylvania's Fifth Judicial District between 1791 and 1803, he became for many Western Penn- sylvanians the "schoolmaster" of American republicanism. Addison has not fared well at the hands of historians. He has been characterized routinely as "arrogant," "humorless," "overbear- ing," "uncompromising," and "vindictive." His tenure as presiding G. S. Rowe is professor of history at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Recipient of a Ph.D. from Stanford, Professor Rowe has recently published a book, Thomas McKean :The Shaping of an American Republicanism, and has had articles appear in The American Journal of Legal History, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Delaware History, and Pennsylvania History. He is currently at workon a study of Pennsylvania's legal bar and judiciary during the Revolutionary years. Professor Rowe wishes to thank Professors Charles Meyer and Stephen T.Powers for their assistance in the preparation of this article.—Editor 1 Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill, 1965), 426; Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607-1783 (New York, 1970), 564-70. For a sensitive treatment of the court's educational functions in Virginia, see Rhys Isaac, "Dramatizing the Ideology of Revolution: Popular Mobilization in Virginia, 1774 to 1776," William and Mary Quarterly 33 (July 1976), 357-85. 2 See, for instance, George Bryan to the Sheriff of Philadelphia, Mar. 17, 1779; John Dickinson to the Judges of the Supreme Court, Oct. 8, 1785, in Pennsylvania Archives, 1st ser., 7: 252; 10: 523 (hereafter cited as Pa. Archives) ; Thomas McKean to Mrs. McKean, Oct. 29, 1779, McKean Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter cited as HSP). Dickin- son told the judges "that besides the Terror of legal Penalties, all the Influence to be derived from your Characters, and the Dignity of your Stations, might be applied in disseminating the best Principles & setting foreward the most effectual Regulations for the prevention of offenses." 222 G. S. ROWE JULY judge of the Fifth Judicial Circuit has been described in equally un- flattering terms :the consensus holds that he "permitted his violent partisanship to color his behavior on the bench, and ...condemned not only criminal offenders, but political opponents." 3 The fact that Addison was subsequently impeached, convicted, and removed from office by the state legislature in January 1803, has elicited as little adverse comment from historians as it did from contemporaries. 4 Thus, Addison stands starkly one-dimensional in accounts of early Pennsylvania, frozen in time as belligerent, congenitally conservative and Federalist, paranoid in the face of the democratic thrust increas- ingly apparent in state and national affairs, irrationally striking out at opponents, and perverting his office and court to his own selfish, myopic political ends. Ifmodern historians have conceded his role as a spokesman and propagandist of some power and influence, they 3 Russell J. Ferguson, Early Western Pennsylvania Politics (Pittsburgh, 1938), 115; Albert Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall, 4 vols. (Boston, 1916-1919), 3 :164; Raymond Walters, Jr., Albert Gallatin: Jeffersonian Finan- cier and Diplomat (Pittsburgh, 1957), 31;Leland D.Baldwin, Pittsburgh: The Story of a City (Pittsburgh, 1937), 176; Aurora, Jan. 19, 1803. James Schouler (History of the United States Under the Constitution, 7 vols. [New York, 1894-1913], 3: 61) remarks on Addison's "scandalous rudeness." Sanford W. Higginbotham (The Keystone in the Democratic Arch: Pennsylvania Politics, 1800-1816 [Harrisburg, 1952], 53) labels him "a violent Federalist," Dumas Malone (Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805 [Boston, 1970], 459) comments on Addison's "intransigence," Richard E. Ellis (The Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Republic [New York, 1971], 164) calls him "an uncompromising Federalist," and Robert M. John- stone (Jefferson and the Presidency [Ithaca, N.Y., 1978], 180) notes his "im- proprieties" and his "partisan decisions and political harangues from the bench." Allconcede his ability. For more favorable assessments of his conduct on the bench, see Neville B. Craig, The History of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, 1851), 286-87; WilliamH. Lloyd, The Early Courts of Pennsylvania (Boston, 1910), 141;Daniel Agnew, "Address to the Allegheny County Bar Association, December 1, 1888," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 13 (1889) :3 (hereafter cited as PMHB) ; J. W. F. White, "The Judiciary in Allegheny County," ibid. 7 (1883): 155-58; and A. B. Reid, "Early Courts, Judges, and Lawyers of Allegheny County," Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 5 (July 1922) :189, 194 (hereafter cited as WPHM). 4 A large dinner was given for Addison in Fayette County following his removal, and Neville B. Craig (History of Pittsburgh, 286), writes that "Pitts- burgh and the country around it were greatly excited by the impeachment of ... Addison." The Federalist press supported Addisen during the impeachment proceedings, as did Federalists in the legislature, but as Dumas Malone has correctly observed, "Federalists made littleof the case afterwards." He sug- gests that their reticence was prompted by the weakness of Addison's case. See Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 459. For a contemporary statement that Federalists were as embarrassed by Addison's antics as were Republicans and sought to support him only in a perfunctory manner, see Thomas McKean to Thomas Jefferson, Feb. 7, 1803, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as LCMD). An examination of Federalist newspapers in the state for the years 1803 and 1804 confirms McKean's assessment. 1979 ALEXANDER ADDISON 223 have almost universally condemned his doctrines and practices as xenophobic, reactionary, and, in the end, destructive to the very Republic he sought to save. 5 Yet a careful examination of Addison's public speeches, his writ- ings, and his judicial pronouncements during his twelve-year judicial tenure reveals a man strangely at variance with the historical charac- terization. These materials not only provide the basis for a more judicious portrait of Addison, but they also clarify the nature of his special role as a teacher in Western Pennsylvania in the decade before Jefferson's first inauguration. Moreover, they identify important shifts in Addison' s perceptions and assessments of the nature and di- rection of Pennsylvania's republican experiment. Ifthe historical cari- cature has any validity, these sources suggest that it has merit only in terms of the last years of Addison's public career. This article, therefore, is concerned with Addison's role as "schoolmaster" of American republicanism to Western Pennsylvania, and with his philosophical and ideological shifts.6 Born in 1759, the son of James Addison of Keith, Scotland, and educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen University, Addison emi- grated to Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1785. In December of that year, he appealed to the presbytery at Redstone (Brownsville) for a license to preach. Despite his having been previously licensed by the presbytery of Aberlaur, Scotland, and his having assisted the Reverend James Ogilvie at Rothes for four years prior tohis coming to America, the Redstone presbytery delayed in granting the license. 5 For comments on his rare oratorical skills and general persuasiveness, see Alexander Graydon, Memoirs of his own Time with reminiscences of the men and events of the Revolution, edited by J. S. Littell (Philadelphia, 1846), 352 ;Beveridge, Life of John Marshall, 3 :164 ;Henry Marie Brackenridge, Recollections of Persons and Places in the West (Philadelphia, 1868), 100; White, "The Judiciary in Allegheny County," 158. Addison was a teacher as a young man inScotland. 6 Historians have generally assumed that Addison's conservatism and his Federalism were consistent throughout his tenure. Note that Ferguson (Early Western Pennsylvania Politics, 115) concludes that "During the ten years from 1790 to 1800 ... [Addison] was a bulwark of Federalism in the region. .. ." Professor Higginbotham also leaves the impression that Addison criticized democracy inhis charges to grand juries throughout his career on the bench, and Professor Ellis tells us that Addison was "an uncompromising Federalist" from the beginning. See Higginbotham, Keystone in the Democratic Arch, 53, and Ellis, The Jeffersonian Crisis, 164. Three modern historians have appre- ciated that change occurred in Addison's thought over time, but none has sought to chart the specifics of those shifts. David H.Fischer (The Revolu- tion of American Conservatism: The
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