Episode 720: Founding Fathers – John Hancock

Published Jul 3, 2024, 9:00 AM

The lives of these men are essential to understanding the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in the securing of American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America.

On this episode of Newtsworld. As part of Founding Fathers Week, I'm talking about the lives and legacies of our original founders and the impact they've had in our country on this episode of Newtsworld. John Hancock was an American founding father, merchant, statesman, and prominent patriot of the American Revolution. He served as President of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and perhaps he has remembered best because of his huge signature of the Declaration of Independence. He also signed the Articles of Confederation and used his influence to ensure that Massachusetts ratified the United States Constitution in seventeen eighty eight. Hancock had a fascinating life. He was the son and grandson of ministers. Born January twelfth, seventeen thirty seven, he was sort of destined to become a minister. However, his life changed when Hancock was seven years old after his father died and his mother, brother, and sister went to live with his grandparents in Lexington, Massachusetts. Hancock's stay in Lexington, who was brief as his grandfather sent him to Boston to live with his uncle Thomas and aunt Lydia, who had no children of their own. They wanted to him a better schooling to prepare him for Harvard College. His uncle was one of the richest merchants in Boston and lived in a mansion on top of Beacon Hill. Hancock attended Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard in seventeen fifty four at the age of seventeen. Instead of following his late father and grandfather's footsteps, Hancock returned to his uncles to work in his merchant business, and notice he was graduating younger than many Americans today enter college. When his uncle died in seventeen sixty five, Hancock, who was twenty seven years old at the time, inherited his uncle's entire fortune and the merchant business. Now, Hancock was actually more interested in politics than in business, and in seventeen sixty five he was elected as a Selectman of Boston when the British government passed the Stamp Act. Initially, Hancock was not opposed to the act, but after witnessing the protest in Boston, he changed his mind. He then started participating in the protest by boycotting the importation of British goods and that made him popular with people in Boston. In seventeen sixty six, Samuel Ladam has voiced his public support for Hancock, which helped him get elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. And by the way, that must have been quite a contrast between the oratory of Samuel Adams and the merchant background of Hancock made him quite a pair as allies. When Parliament passed the Towns Enact, colonists began smuggling goods to avoid paying taxes, which caused British ships to illegally search and seize ships. In April seventeen sixty eight, a British customs agent illegally boarded Hancock's boat Liberty, and it tells you a little bit psychologically about where Hancock's coming from that he would name his ship Liberty. Hancock demanded to see warrants authorizing the search, and when the official was unable to produce the documents, he was asked to leave. On May ninth, seventeen sixty eight, Hancock's ship came into port with Madeira wine, and customs officials again visited his boat, but this time they had the proper warrants. The ship was loaded onto the dock, and Hancock paid the customs fee, but the officials thought that his shipment of wine twenty five casks, which was about a quarter of what the ship could hold, seemed too small, and speculated that he had smuggled some of the wine before coming into port. A month later, on June ninth, seventeen sixty eight, Thomas Kirk, the customs official who boarded Hancock's boat a month earlier, changed his initial story and accused Hancock of offering him a bribe. He claimed that Hancock offered him several casks of wine if he told the British government that his ship only contained twenty five casks, so that he could avoid paying the fee. He insisted that he did not take the bribe, but Hancock's captain, John Marshall, had threatened him if he ever told the truth. John Harrison, the official collector of the port, brought Kirk's statement to the Commissioner's and wanted to place the King's mark on Hancock's boat waiting for legal proceedings. Controller Benjamin Hollowell, however, urged him to seize the boat instead, so Harrison enlicted a crew another smuggler, Daniel Malcolm, and A handful of men saw Harrison boarding the boat and argued that they should at least wait for Hancock to arrive first. A fight broke out between the men, but Harrington and his crew still managed to bring Hancock's boat onto the side of their boat, capturing it. Hallowell, Harrison and his son fled the fight on the wharf with scrapes and bruises. An angry crowd began to assemble. When word of Hancock's boat being seized got out, A crowd of about three thousand men began to search the city for Harrison and Hollowell. When they couldn't find him, they shattered the windows of their houses instead. The following month, a sub was fouled Onst. Hancock for the sum of nine thousand pounds with the smuggling of wine. Being unable to negotiate this himself, Hancock enlisted John Adams to defend him in court. That's a cousin to Samuel Adams. They were both deeply involved in seeking freedom. In his defense, John Adams questioned the validity of the case as it denied Hancock the right of a jury trial, and according to Adams, it repealed the Magna carta as far as America is concerned, degrading Hancock below the rank of an Englishman. This is a theme that goes through again and again with the founding fathers. They saw themselves as Englishmen, and the British people had come to believe that they had certain rights which the government could not infringe on, and the right to trial was one of them. Adams is weaving back into British history to claim the rights of an Englishman, not of an American colonist. Adams defense was successful, and on March twenty fifth, the case was dropped and the record read, quote the Advocate General praise leave to retract this information, and says our Sovereign Lord, the King will prosecute no further hero On September fourteenth, seventeen sixty eight, Hancock, with Joseph Jackson, John Ruddick, John Rowe, and Samuel Palmerton, wrote a letter in response to the Town and Acts quote, you are already too well acquainted with the melancholy and very alarming circumstances to which this province, as well as American General, is now reduced taxes equally detrimental to the commercial interests of the parent country. And her colonies are imposed upon the people without their consent, taxes designed for the support of the civil government the colonies, in a manner clearly unconstitutional and contrary to that in which till of late government has been supported by the free gift of the people. In American assemblies or parliaments, as also for the maintenance of a large standing army, not for the defense of newly acquired territories, but for the old colonies, and in a time of peace. The decent, humble and truly loyal applications and petitions from the representatives province for the redress of these heavy and very threatening grievances have hitherto been ineffectual, being assured from authentic intelligence that they have not yet reached the Royal ear. The only effect of transmitting these applications, hitherto perceivable has been a mandate from one of His Majesty's Secretary's of State to the Governor of this province to dissolve the General Assembly, merely because the late House representatives refuse to rescind a resolution of a former House which implied nothing more than a right in the American subjects to unite in humble and dutiful petitions to their gracious sovereign when they found themselves aggrieved. This is a right naturally inherent in every man and expressly recognized at the Glorious Revolution as the birthright of an Englishman. Let me point out that the Glorious Revolution is of course the return of Protestant monarchy, as Willim and Mary come from Holland in sixteen eighty eight. It's a decisive moment in British history and leads directly to the whole concept of natural rights. And what they're se saying here is we're Englishmen. You owe us these rights. You are stepping upon our natural right here. This is all going to echo into Thomas Jefferson's Declaration Independence. Also, notice there's this constant effort to draw a distinction between the bad government and the good King. There's a very important psychological goal here of trying to make sure that people understand that they're loyal to the king, they're just angry at the government. Now. Of course, the government and king in England see it differently, because the government see itself as the king and the king sees himself as the government. And this is why historically it's very hard to petition the King without looking like you're engaged in treason, which is the refusal to be loyal to your sovereign. Hi, this is newt In my new book, March the Majority, The Real Story of the Republican Revolution, I offer strategies and insights for everyday citizens and for season politicians. It's both a guide for political success and for winning back the Majority. In twenty twenty four, March to the Majority outlines the sixteen year campaign to write the Contract with America. Explains how we elected the first Republican House majority in forty years, in how we worked with President Bill Clinton to pass major reforms, including four consecutive balance budgets. March to the Majority tells the behind the scenes story of how we got it done. Go to ginglishtree sixty dot com slash book and order your copy now. Order it today at gingishtree sixty dot com slash book now. They go on to say, this dissolution your Sensible has taken place. The governors publicly and repeatedly declared that he cannot call another Assembly, and the Secretary of State for the American Department, in one of his letters communicated to the Late House, has been pleased to say that proper care will be taken for the support of the dignitive government, the meaning of which is too plain to mean misunderstood. In other words, the British officials are now saying to the American colonists, we will take care of things, We will raise money, we will decide how to spend it. You have no rights. They go on to say, quote the concern and perplexity into which these things have thrown the people have been greatly aggravated by a late declaration of his Excellency, Governor Bernard, that one or more regiments may soon be expected in this province. The design of these troops is, in every one's apprehension, nothing short of enforcing by military power the execution of acts of Parliament in the forming of which the colonies have not and cannot have any constitutional influence. This is one of the greatest distress to which a free people can be reduced. Notice what they're saying here, the very fact that the British ship concluded that they have to oppress the Americans. They can't really negotiate with them, they can't reason with them. So they're going to send an army, and that army is going to, in fact live in Boston and is going to impose the will of the British government no matter what the local folks think. This is the sort of thing which began to move in a direction where suddenly they create the Committee of the Boston Sons of Liberty, which included John Hancock, Sammuel Adams, John Adams, James Otis. The group's amazing. This is the beginning of real patriotism defining itself more and more and more isolated from the British seventeen sixty nine, the Committee of the Boston Sons of Liberty. Notice again, liberty is a huge word in this period. Eighteen forty, an older man was asked, why did you fight the revolution? They were looking for this stamp act or the tax on tea or whatever. He said, you know, we aim to be free, and they aimed that we shouldn't. And that's what it was all about. And that's why liberty is such an important word here, because they're coming back again and again the idea we are a free people. You were about to take away our freedom, So in their mind they've already got the freedom. They're not fighting for freedom, they're fighting against the oppression which would take away freedom. So this continues to move in the same direction. By December seventeen seventy, the Massachusetts House represented wrote a letter which Hancock again signed, to Benjamin Franklin, appointing him an agent at the Court of Great Britain. This is the first letter of Franklin, the only one known to have survived. Franklin is asked by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to go to London to represent them. He goes to London. He's initially very well received. Gradually, the longer he's there, the more he realizes he will never be an Englishman. They will never accept him into their circle. He will always be a colonist, no matter how bright he is, no matter how renowned he is as a scientist, no matter how wealthy he is. He just isn't them. Somebody once wrote, Franklin left America as an Englishman and returned as an American. This is the person who the Massachusetts House is asking. Since you're already there anyway, would you also represent us? And they explain them what they're worried about. Quote the House representatives of this province, after appointing you their agent at the Quart of Great Britain directed us to correspond with you in the recess of the Court upon matters that concern the interest of the province in general. There is nothing that will more promote the true interest to this party, as well as Great Britain herself, than a happy settlement of the disputes that have too long subsisted between the other country in the colonies. These are justly tenacious of their constitutional natural rights and will never willingly part with them, and it certainly can never be for the advantage of the nation to force them away. Great Britain can lose nothing that she ought to retain by restoring the colonies to the state they were in before passing the obnoxious Stamp Act, and we are persuaded if that is done, they will no further contend. This. We think it necessary early to inform you of as our own opinion is. We have reason to think that there are persons on both sides the Atlantic, whose interest it may be to keep alive a spirit of discord, who are continually insinuating the men of power, that such a concession of the part of Great Britain would only serve to increase our claims, and there would be no end of them, which we believe and may even venture to assure you, is that the least color of foundation and truth. In other words, the founding fathers, generally speaking, and Hancock was a key member of this, are not asking to leave Great Britain. They're not moving towards independence. What they want is their rights to be respected, their role to raise taxes on themselves in the spirit of the Magna Carta, to be accepted, to negotiate with the British government as equals, and not in any way to move towards independence. Now, the fact is, Hancock is faced with the Boston Tea Party coming up. He's faced with growing public anger, and there's actually not certain that Hancock was involved in planning the Boston Tea Party, which is when a group of Americans dressed as Indians broke into a British ship and threw tea into the Boston harbor in order that it not be available to sell because they did not want to pay the tax on tea. Hancock the most he said that we know publicly, he told the crowd, let every man do what is right in his own eyes. So he's not saying he's going to participate but he's also not saying you shouldn't know it. And that very same evening, the crowd went into the Boston Harbor addressed as Native Americans boarded the ship dumped three hundred and forty two chests of tea into the harbor. Tea back then was expensive. So this is a substantial hit on the East India Company and a direct defiance of the British government. Now, Hancock never talked about it other than this comment that night before it happened. Now though, also as a part of this growing separation, there was an annual commemoration of the Boston Massacre, which in seventeen seventy one British soldiers who were rattled shot and killed several Massachusetts colonists. And so Hancock was chosen on March fifth, seventeen seventy four to read the third annual oration to commemorate the Boston Massacre. So he really is beginning to lay the case out here as a public figure. He says in his oration quote, is the present system which the British administration have adopted for the government of the colonies a righteous government? Or is it tyranny? Here? Suffer me to ask, and would to heaven, there could be an answer, What tenderness, what regard, respect or consideration has Great Britain shown in their late transactions for the security of the persons or properties of the inhabitants of the colonies, Or rather, what have they omitted doing to destroy that security? They have declared that they have ever had, and of right ought to ever have, full power to make laws of sufficient validity to bind the colonies in all cases whatever they have exercised this pretended right by imposing attacks upon us without our consent. And notice this is not the heart of it, Lest we should sow some reluctance at parting with our property. Our fleets and armies are sent to enforce their mad pretensions. The town of Boston, ever faithful to the British Crown, has been invested by a British fleet. The true troops of George third have crossed the wide Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to assist a band of traders in trampling on the rights and liberties of his most loyal subjects in America, those rights and liberties which is a father he ought ever to regard, and as a king he has bound in honor to defend from violation, even at the risk of his Unlet notice what he's now starting to say. Hancock is saying, if you help enforce this law. Notice the word he uses, band of traders. You are a trader to America. You're a trader to our rights under the Constitution. And therefore the division is getting deeper and deeper. That year, he's elected as a delegate to the first Continental Congress, called to bring together the colonies to talk about what's going on. And he's also faced with the fact that living in Boston is less and less safe because the British could come and arrest him at any time. So Hancock moves to his grandfather's home in Lexington, and on April eighteenth, seventeen seventy five, doctor Joseph Warren got news that British troops were heading toward Lexington. Warren sent three writers, the most famous of them Paul Revere, to warn people. Revere warned Hancock and Adams of the incoming troops and suggested they flee before the British reached Lexington. This is the first real moment of violence because what had happened was the American militia had been practicing, and this is one of the great differences in the courses behind the whole notion of the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. The British Army was very good at putting down peasant revolts. They'd put down revolts in England, in Scotland, and Wales in Ireland, and so they marched out of Boston, assuming this would be just like all those other peasant revolts. But they had a problem. They were now faced with a free people who had weapons and who had been practicing, and also people who frankly went deer hunting and generally actually provisioned their houses by their effectiveness as hunters. The result was a disaster for the British Army. They were shot at all the way back to Boston. They took a substantial number of casualties. Suddenly, what was then called the shot heard around the world. The Americans stood up and said, if you try to take our weapons, we will shoot you. Across all of the colonies. People were shaken because suddenly this was a real fight. This wasn't just words. The British Army had attempted to do something which would have stripped the Americans of their ability to be free. Shortly after that, Hancock was elected President of the Second Continent of Congress. He is a significant figure in the development of the ideas and the movement that leads to American freedom. As President, he presided during the discussion on the appointment of the Commander in chief of the Continent Army. Now, this is a very interesting moment in American history. They need an army in order to stand up to the British. However, that army is going to be in Boston. It's going to be largely New England, and they have to find a way to unite all of the colonies into this fight and not just have it be a New England fight. Now, one of the great moments of theater, there's a very tall man walking around wearing the University the unit form of a Virginia Militia officer, Colonel Washington, who says to everybody, Oh, I don't know why you would think of me as the commander. I'm not sure I could be the commander. I'm not really sure I could do the job. But he's the only guy at the whole place wearing a uniform, and it's just one of those things about Washington, who's very understudied but very strategic. So of course they picked Washington. And now you have this Virginian going to Boston to lead a largely new England army. Remember, the accents were wildly different, and there was this whole sense of getting used to each other. Washington does a brilliant job throughout the Revolutionary War. Hancock takes the wealth he had inherited and he'd grown with his own businesses, and he helped fund the army. I mean, Hancock is genuinely putting his life, his liberty, and his fortune to the fight for freedom. He oversaw the Declaration of Independence on July fourth, seventeen seventy six. In his most famous single moment, John Hancock was the first to sign the document. He had a large cursive signature and said, there, John Bull can read my name without spectacles. He may double his reward when he sang as John bullmant England. The King can see clearly that Hancock has signed the Declaration Independance, and the King then wants to double the reward for killing him. That's fine, and that's where the term John Hancock meaning signature comes from. Because he deliberately went out of his way, almost as a propaganda act. Two days later, in July sixth, Hancock writes Washington, instructing him to read the Declaration of Independence to his troops. And this is an important thing to remember about the American Revolution. This was an informed military. Again and again Washington, who's a master at this, make sure that they understand why they're fighting, They understand what the situation is, and they are reminded that they have a moral cause. That's a key part of it. Now. I think Hamilton felt that this was a duty. They were doing, working and doing everything they can as a team. And so you have militia coming from all over, you have people showing up on a regular basis, and you begin to really see that there's going to be an American force, not a Massachusetts force or Virginia force, but a genuinely Amerrican force. Hancock stays as President of Congress until seventeen seventy seven. When he resigns as president, he had his chance as a military leader. He led five thousand Massachusetts soldiers to attempt to recapture Newport, Rhode Island in seventeen seventy eight. The mission ultimately was a failure, but he went back home and in seventeen eighty he helped frame the Massachusetts Constitution and was elected as the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Member, we are still fighting at this point, and he's now the governor of the commonwealth. Where you could argue the fight started. In seventeen eighty eight, delegates elected Hancock to serve as president of the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention. Unfortunately, he had gout, which is a recurring eilment for Hancock, and which he probably tried to solve by drinking port, which made the gout worse. But he was prevented from attending the debates until January thirtieth. At that point he did everything he could to help make sure that the majority would be in favor of ratifying the constitution. In fact, he felt so deeply that on the morning of January thirtieth, wrapped in blankets, he was carried into the convention and attended the debates for the first time. He was absolutely in favor of the new system. This is a quote from Henry Van Shack, who was actually in attendance, who writes Governor Hancock had come to the convention and declared himself decidedly in favor of the system, which had an amazing influence over a great number of wavering members. Ill health had prevented the governor's attendants and convention before. The opposition took advantage of this and industriously reported that his Excellency was opposed to the Constitution and advised and to reject it. There's room to conjecture that the Governor would not have come out so soon if it had not been for those reports, as he was extremely unwell at the time he went out. A day later, on January thirty first, Hancock read from a speech prepared by the Federal's Caucus supporting the signing of the Constitution. And I think it's very important to realize here's a guy who has personally spent his money helping fight the war, who has taken great risk, who has been persecuted by the British, and he is committed to working on the Constitution getting it approved. And at that point, I think he has had a major role because Massachusetts, which is one of the biggest colonies in both population and wealth, having endorsed the Constitution is a major step in the right direction, and it's not decisive. It's very likely if Hancock had come out against the Constitution that it might have lost. It only wins in the Massachusetts convention by one eighty seven to one sixty eight, so there's a pretty narrow margin that it wouldn't have taken much to have turned it into a defeat. In seventy eighty nine, Hancock's a candidate in the first US presidential election, but only received four electoral votes out of total of one thirty eight. George Washington garnered sixty nine votes. John Adams captured thirty six votes, earning the two men the presidency and vice presidency. Back then, you all ran on one ticket and the number one or two people got to be president and vice president. That changed after Adams and Jefferson had to suffer each other and realized that it was crazy to have a system where you were not elected as a ticket. After the adoption of the Constitution, Hancock was elected for a final time as governor, and he kept getting elected until his death. On October twenty fourth, seventeen eighty nine, President Washington and a tour of the Eastern States arrived in Boston, where the whole town, minus Hancock, went out to greet him. Hancock believed that his governor Washington should come to him. However, soon after he realized this was a mistake, he visited Washington and claimed that an illness kept him from arriving sooner. On October eighth, seventeen ninety three, Hancock, while still in office, died at the age of fifty six and received one of the largest state funerals from his longtime friend Samuel Adams. John Hancock is one of the people upon whom America stands. It was his commitment, his courage, his belief in liberty, his willingness to risk everything and literally to spend his fortune to help us become free, which has helped make America the country it is. And that is why he's one of the immortals as we look at the Founding Fathers. Thank you for listening. You can read more about John Hancock and get links to my other Founding Father's episodes on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Gingish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guernsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at gingishtree sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so all this can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of neut World consign up for my three freeweekly columns at ginglishthree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrish. This is neut World.

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