Virginia's Founding Fathers
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1 Washington, Jefferson, Madison: Family Experience and Personality in the Politics of Three Virginian Founding Fathers Elizabeth Wirth Marvick Contents Preface: The Virginia Founders: Toward a Psychopolitical Approach to an Early American Political Elite …………………………………………… 6 Chapter 1: A Special Place? Virginia in the Eighteenth Century………. 12 Virginian exceptionalism Third World Virginia Defensive Virginians A Man‟s World Economic decline Politics Virginia Style Unruly Virginia A Shadow Society Violent Virginia Always on Stage: Sociable Virginia Striving to be Free: Dependency as a Virginian Them Chapter 2: A Special Breed? America‟s Virginian Founders………………66 A political and psychological anomaly Parallel Beginnings, Linked Family settings National leaders from the Virginia cradle Patriots, Pragmatists, Republicans, Secularists Chapter 3:The Prototype: Family imagery and revolutionary spirit in Washington‟s creative leadership …………………………………..… . 100 2 Washington into Washington: Looking for clues Family History: The Washingtons Family experience: Captain of the “B” Team Mary Ball Washington Rival myths: Mother and Father Fatherless in Virginia: Righting the Wrongs Toward political perspectives Chapter 4: Jefferson: Star Pupil… ………………………………………144 Prototype and apprentice: Washington and Jefferson Parallels and variations in Family experience Jefferson‟s developmental history Emerging psychodynamic patterns Political consequences Constructing the world to fit a self-image The renaissance man Jefferson and women Generations to come Chapter 5: Madison: ―A peculiarly artificial and complicated character‖? …..217 The Political Man: An overview of Madison‟s career The Mind and the Man: Madison‟s personality and politics Chapter 6: John Marshall: Virginia Gentleman?…………………………..… 256 Chapter 7: Interrelations: : Attachment and Alliance, Aversion and Enmity…. 279 Pairs:……With GW & TJ & Jmad reserve increased as confidence diminished: They in turn began to circulate the view that he was getting slow and senile On the other hand he turned to physical, material representations of national ideals. 3 GW‘s ―moral character‖ much extolled (Gordon Wood:‖ but also put body and soul into his self-modeling and his leadership. Physical symbols of the republic essential features of his institution-building. (Article on him and WDC /Latrobe and TJ in Tjpsych?) Body and Soul: The physical side of George Washington. On GW‘s ―aloofness.‖ (e.S. Morgan.) His sexuality evident—advice to niece, scandal, reaction of women. But GW to DH, MV 12/26/86 On learning invited to be delegate to Phila next May "I immediately wrote to my particular friend Mr. Madison." Fitz 29:127] "Should this matter be further pressed...what had I best do?" id. (copied to 05interel.) 1.Attachment and alliance; aversion & enmity a. Washington‘s favorites: First of all there was the sun king around whom all the planets revolved. b. Humphreys and Randolph c. Jefferson and Madison Parallel between (and liking as well, vide Marshall note above) Marshall and Monroe. Marshall attached himself to GW, Monroe to TJ; expressed (as in the 1788 Va convention) openly views that TJ shared but diplomatically kept quiet. d. : Mad: GW to TJ; Did JMad know he was making a choice?; Did his betrayal rub off on Randolph? Fear and enmity Satellites & protégés: Edmund Randolph : The political divorced from the personal? ER wrote JMad, "I feel happy at my emancipation from an attachment to a man who has practiced upon me the profound hypocracy of Tiberius and the injustice of an assassin."11/1/95Reardon 331.] A tin ear for politics. and James Monroe: Loser and winner in the political game Chapter 8: Personality and Decision Making. Substance and MO ……………..291 GW decisions: to attend the convention Veto choices The break w Randolph ikoT The sublimation was not stable in either TJ or JMad. Tendency to break down: TJ‘s migraine, JMad‘s fits, incapacity for work. Using Others: Friends, deputies 4 Older & younger Changing alignments of favorites ER wrote JMad, "I feel happy at my emancipation from an attachment to a man who has practiced upon me the profound hypocracy of Tiberius and the injustice of an assassin."11/1/95Reardon 331.] Edmund Randolph: odd man out. TJ‘s deprecation of ER to JMad: probably tried to sabotage him, certainly first to GW (re secretary of stateship); by his own report simulated friendship to ER himself (GW88) Actually thought ER held balance of power in govt. Unfit for many reasons including ―circumstances‖! McKitrick on how hard TJ was on him (for doing what he did, ERNTs) Marbury v. Madison a coup in that respect; but even more so was the one he said TJ hated more. [Chapter 9: Values and Methods: ] Washington: Acting Out; Working the Crowd b: Warding off or neutralizing enemies. Anticipating the other Jefferson and Marshall: Two forms of indirection TJ‘s operation on GW Using agents to assassinate Marshall single-minded in adapting tactics to achieve ends; Context put him between a rock and a hard place: In hearing on Chase showed how far he was willing to go to save the game (keep from being impeached.) Virginian leadership in national decisions Reversals and consistencies Imperial dreams: [*04Parallel:GWTJ] GW took tour of NW wilderness, enthralled (to Chastellux) with "new Empire."278 [This is Humphreys letter refs. I think; find in papers or Fitz.] Idem: GW To DH[Desire for peace, "First wish is to see this plague ...banished...,& the sons and Daughters of this World employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements than in preparing implements, & exercising them for the destruction of the human race & the "poor, needy & oppressed of the Earth...resort to the fertile plains of our Western Country, to the second Land of promise, & there dwell in peace." Confed:3:149, 7/25/85.] 5 Jefferson and Washington at opposite poles in post hoc rationalization. A national university vs Mr. Jefferson‘s college; a national metropolis uniting a country by commerce . How TJ preempted it vs. a Utopian dream of Greek society. Madison adept in rationalizing actions…. [Chapter 10]: Lessons from the Past? Populist pragmatism and republican realism in modern democratic politics…………………………………………..…….298 Political correctness: eighteenth-century style. The Politics of Imagination vs. the Politics of Realism: 6 Preface On an evening in the late 1920s, in New Orleans, a social psychologist addressed a meeting of American sociologists. He reported on his research into the social origins of the new Russian revolutionary elite. When he finished, his findings were challenged from the floor by an indignant Russian sociologist, a recent refugee from the Bolshevik revolution. The White Russian angrily charged that the speaker‘s results were flawed because they overlooked the ―fact‖ that the mothers and fathers of the Bolshevik leaders were all prostitutes or sons of prostitutes. According to witnesses of this encounter, the two scholars attempted to settle the argument by non-verbal means before being separated by colleagues. Although I first heard this story from one who claimed to have been present on that occasion, I cannot vouch for its accuracy, having been unable, despite efforts, to determine the time and place of the event described. But even if it is apocryphal, it is a story worth retelling. What a providential opportunity it would be for the psychological study of a group of political leaders if their parents could be shown to have the kind of common histories that the refugee sociologist reportedly claimed for the first generation of Bolshevik rulers! How greatly it would simplify the task of distinguishing between the influence of social and cultural variations on political behavior, on the one hand, and differences attributable to idiosyncratic factors arising from individual predispositions and unique childhood experiences. The rationale for this book, therefore, is the extraordinary fact that a handful of Virginians, all born near the mid-eighteenth century, presents such near-experimental conditions for studying developing political patterns in early American history. While these Virginians may not have exhibited a commonality of origins quite to the extent allegedly attributed by the Russian sociologist to the Bolshevik revolutionaries, they were a sufficiently homogeneous cohort to promise insight into developmental and psychodynamic patterns that produced an exceptional leadership cadre. This is a study of some of the opportunities these Virginia ―founders‖ offer for better psychological understanding of an important series of political events in American history. History presents few opportunities for the systematic study of groups of highly placed leaders who display similar career patterns of innovative, constructive political activity in the 7 context of a republican political culture. Modern European bureaucratic elites, like ancient Asian ones, have sometimes been formed along common patterns, and their members have often been self-perpetuating at the apex of the political pyramid but such successions to office are usually similar to hereditary patterns in monarchies: studying them is little help in understanding major transformations in the political life of states committed to popular principles. At the other end of the spectrum, the small groups that typically lead revolutions—innovators by definition—have sometimes been shown to share like ―peripheral‖ social positions, and to demonstrate evidence of common psychodynamic traits that help explain their high revolutionary ambitions.