A Mythical End to a Revolutionary

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Your post gets a visibility boost so it's seen by candidates who match your criteria Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes with indndeed sponsored jobs. Listeners of the show will get a seventy five dollars sponsored job credit and indeed dot com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply need to hire. This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs It's nineteen eighty four, and journalist Jack Hitt is walking up Broadway in Manhattan toward Columbia University Jack is twenty seven at the time, recently out of grad school and obsessed with American history Constitution nerd And my girlfriend and I've decided to write a book about marginalized figures in American history A romance right there. So on this particularly romantic day, Jack was on his way to do some research on the Revolutionary War in the stacks of Butler Library The Butler library is one of these libries when you walk in the front door, it looks like it has about like four or five stories, but it's actually like twelve stories underground too So I'm down like in the ninth floor and you know that setting, right? It's just books, wall to wall books and there's nobody down there. It's this wonderful feeling of come off the elevator or walk down the stairs, you're in this like just dark envelope of books And each aisle is only illuminated by this little fifteen minute timer that you turn when you walk down it And so I'm heading down towards the American Revolution section On his mind is one particular figure from the American Revolution, someone Jack thought history had almost entirely overlooked We'd come across this guy named James Otis who had written this sort of inflammatory pamphlet really early on in the early seventeen sixties, you know, a good ten or fifteen years before the Declaration of Independence Some people say, you know, this is the document that sort of got the ball rolling. Jack was fired up about this pamphlet. And if you're thinking this is kind of like a brochure that you get at a doctor's office, you know with a diagram of the food pyramid, think again Pamphlets were how big ideas were spread at the time. They could be printed quickly and disseminated widely And it was also the place where you might have a hot take, right? So think of the famous pamphlets that we all learn later in American history, Thomas Painne's Common Sense or letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson. They're the ones that that lasted and were famous. And that's why my girlfriend at the time and I wanted to write this book because Otis' pamphlet deserves to be that famous what made the story kind of great for us is that Things go sideways for Otis Actually horribly tragic. That's like Shakespeare. A man, you know, soaring into greatness, crashing into unbelievable humiliation and then madness And you know, of course, I romance the idea that, you know, these dangerous ideas that he was entertaining so early on, you know, had taken him over the edge So without the internet to rely on, Jack is looking for a book that might tell him more about this tragic proto founding father and his inflammatory pamphlet And I'm poking through the books, looking for which ones I should check out. And I look behind one of the books and I see that there's something back there A thin volume. handand sewn binding. I'm like, what? pull out some books, pull this thing out This is the pamphlet James Od' Froat This is an original copy. It's a seventeen sixty four edition of the pamphlet that made him famous My first thought, of course is I should steal this Thinking that in the most virtuous way. of course they don't know what they have. They don't appreciate it. It's rotting into dust back there behind these books. I know what it is. It's the magna carta of America. I know what I'm holding in my hand. Wouldn't it just sit back there and turn into dust over the next hundred years Don't save it. It's the only moral option is to take it Right And then the light timer cut off and I was plunged into darkness. matching the darkness of your soul. Exactly. So of course, I crab walked out of there. took the elevator to the ground floor and up to the sixth floor into the bright light of the Rre books division. handed it to the curator And I told her, this jewel of the American Revolution has been rotting away in the stacks And I hope that they will take it and preserve it And u And that's where it is today. Wow. But James Otis is still sort of that hidden place in American history To tell the story of James Otis in his seminole pamphlet is to tell the story of a bolt from the blallue A spark that would electrify the American Revolution Before the Declaration of Independence was even a twinkle in the founding father's eyes, there was James Otis And you could argue that the story of this pamphlet is the story of the founding document of the United States of America ninet nine percent invisible in BBC stududios. This is a history of the United States and a hundred objects I'm Roman Mars And today Jack Hit is back with the Otis pamphlet, America's forgotten Magna Carta and the life of the tragic hero who wrote it. The story of this pamphlet begins around fifteen years before the Revolutionary War. In seventeen sixty one tiny hamlet. Boston, Massachusetts You know, at the time, Boston is this tiny little Port toown population sixteen thousand. So it it's like a large university. You all practically know everybody on campus. R. And certainly the people in power all knew each other The city is so small. you could walk from one side of it to the other in under an hour during which time you might hear boats from Boston Harbor creaking and knocking into the docks, you might encounter pigs loose in the street, and if you weren't like in a church, you were probably in a tavern. And just remember, you know, we're talking about a time when No one is thinking of rebellion, no one's thinking of independence. These are British citizens in Boston at seventeen sixty one full fifteen years before the Declaration of Independence And at the time, you know they're mostly merchants trying to make a living and make something of their new life in America But the living the merchants were making wasn't always strictly legal There there's a good bit of smuggling and everybody kind of knows it.. And a lot of it was about getting cheap French molasses out of the Caribbean and into the rum kegs. One of the big trades in the New England colonies was making rum But the cheapest molasses was from the French Caribbean So to get around heavy tariffs, merchants smuggled it in and London was tired of it pay one of those tax dollars or I suppose those tax shillings And so to catch these smugglers London has issued these new kinds of search warrants called writs of assistance and they're blanket warrants. I mean, you don't need any evidence. you can come aboard a ship day or night, You can go into a house or a warehouse anytime during the day with the barest of suspicions The reason they're called writs of assistance is the other aspect of them is that they An agent who holds this piece of paper can kind of dragoon anyone into accompanying them on one of these searches. That's the assistance part. You command it. I mean, if they stop you, if one of these customs agents stops you and says you have to help me You have to help them And so you have this like little mob, practically coming into people's places and searching and looking for smuggled goods and everything And the kicker was that the customs agents also had a financial incentive. They got a cut of whatever they found. So you've got agents prowling around town more and more like thugs and everyone is scared and on edge And ostensibly the owner or the holder of this writ of assistance is an agent of the British government in some way. Oh, yeah, These writs are executed, you know by authority from London by the court in Massachusetts. So you really have this sort of like wonderful tempest in a teapot where you have, you know, the authorities are angry. because Duties are definitely being avoided. Taxes are not being collected. money is not going into the king's coffers. So you have that. And then you have the merchants and they're also furious about, you know, the abuse of these blanket warrants. So you know, everybody's like ready for a courtroom battle And so the merchants bring a lawsuit and charge that, you know these wrs of assistance are illegal Okay Okay, so now Now it's february seventeen sixty one We're in the town hall. That's now called the old state House in Boston And there were five British judges sitting in wigs and red robes at the front. And so you can imagine the public is permitted to come. and so The place is packed First, the British government's lawyer gets up and makes the expected case in favor of the writs. Parliament authorized these search warrants, and Parliament's word is law standard, you know, defense of the writs, then it's the merchant's turn to try to convince the judges that the writs are illegal. And the first lawyer for the merchants gets up. a guy with a fabulous Dickenszian name, Oxen Bridge Thatcher Oxonbridge makes an equally predictable case on the opposite side And he makes this very tidy argument about the writs, you know, citing precedent and so on Oxenbridge sits down So far, the packed audience doesn't seem moved, but the merchants have a second lawyer too. A hot shot, hot headed man who just joined their team And this is James Otis I' just got to I got to try to describe James Otis to you And he was sort of known as a really hot shot kind of badass lawyer. He defended pirates in Nova Scotia. There was some young guys that went rioting on Guy Fawk Day. He took their case, you know And his friends had a nickname for him. He was called Furo. Oh wow. You have to earn that one And just to complicate things for Furio a little more, he had a personal history with the Chief Justice, a man named Thomas Hutchinson who at the time had just been appointed by the governor and the man he had passed over for this job that the governor had passed over and given to Hutchinson was James Otis' father Oh, looky. Yeah So it's no secret theseese two don't like each other But they also fundamentally disagree. Otis quit his job to take this case. Until days before the trial, he was working for the government side, meaning he should have been arguing in favor of the wrz But he quit the job. and dramatically offered to represent the merchants for free Oh You can say, you know, he did this for principle or he did this because he's still steamed about his old man. Yeah Yeah. Whatever Pretty exciting stuff. So Otis takes to the floor and he speaks for five hours. Now let me just say something about five hours. People forget that way before television and radio, before telegraph, before even magazines Oratory was a whole other kind of, you know public entertainment, really I always love to remind people that, you know, we laud the Stephen Douglas Abraham Lincoln debates There were seven Lincoln Douglas debates, each were three hours long But people had all the time in the world and this was great. Yeah. So when I say he carried on for five hours, I mean, that was just like this is a good show. That's what they totally. they're bingeing a Netflix show. Right. this is Spranos, season one. And you're just hitting nextxt episode. Next episode. Exactly And we know that he's spio, right? He's a funderist kind of fella. So you know, he warns the audience He says, I'm going to make this rather dangerous argument and even suggests one that may end up destroying me And as we know them, these are the words he said right at the beginning of his talk. He says, let the consequences be what they will I am determined to proceed The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man or to sacrifice his state Ease, health and applause and even life itself to the sacred call of his country Otis is preparing his audience. Whatever he's about to say about these writs of assistance, these search warrants be so crazy that it could threaten Everything And in fact, you know, he comes right in and lands it. He says, this writ, he says appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law that ever was found in an English law book inging What he's saying is that it's inherently wrong for thugs to break into your home without due process He says Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house And then he brings out this sort of cherished old metaphor He says A man's house is his castle. And whilst he is quiet, He is as well guarded as a prince in his castle This writ, if it should be declared legal totally annihilate this privilege And then he goes there He says, No acts of Parliament can establish such a writ, no matter how Parliament might word this writ would be void What is so radical about this is the fact that he's questioning the very validity of parliament. that there might be some laws that are deeper, more fundamental than the laws of Parliament. Because what he's basically saying here is that the King's law doesn't stand up against natural law. That's right He's saying Parliament's law. so Understand at this time, you know no one has really brought into an American courtroom this idea of natural rights. these notions that haven't even been written down yet. These five appointed judges totally believed that parliament was supreme. No exceptions. So remember, in the previous century, you know, a king had lost his head and another his thrown in this like centuries long struggle that culminated in this idea that the law of Parliament is supreme And that's the word they always used Parliament is supreme So here he is saying like this right to privacy and these British rights in general predate Parliament or any government ' certainly older than any of Parliament's mealy laws And so how is this panel of judges who represent Parliament's meealy laws? How are they reacting to this? The judges must have been floored. But you know the merchants in the room, they were moved, they thought, hey, you know, we were just trying to wiggle out of some smuggling fees, but now we're practically the knnights of the round table in the court of King Arthur. The truth is, we don't know exactly what James Otis said in that room. There isn't a transcript of his speech There was no minutes taker for the court In fact, we only have one set of notes from it There was really only one young guy who frantically scribbled down everything that he could get down on paper. ort was all over. twenty five year old freshly minted lawyer John Adams. Wow Yes, in the room John Adam For people who don't know, I mean, I don't know that John Adams, founding father, second president and kind of The scholar of the group You know, he's not only the scholar and the intellectual, but you know, Adams he kept his diaries. He's kind of the minute staker of the entire Revolution. I mean, we have his commentary on just about everything. And in fact here famamously writes a little later, Otis was a flame of fire Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did ready to take arms against writs of assistance To be clear, Adams isn't a merchant. He has no money at stake here. He's just a young lawyer who is swept up in the brilliance and precience of James Otis before him later he swoons a little bit and he says And this is this very famous line about this little moment Then and there The child Independence was born Even the chief judge Hutchinson would later marvel at the magnitude of this moment Later, Hutchinson writes his own little memoir and remembers that, you know, basically all the troubles in the colonies stem back to this time. and remembers that Otis before this speech, Otis swore to him that he would Set the province in flames The five hour oration may have radicalized the crowd of merchants and onlookers, but it failed to win the case. But he lost the case, but he kind of won in the Battle of ideas, at least in the crowown Absolutely. And one in terms of his reputation Otis becomes a politician. He's elected to the Massachusetts House. And meanwhile, over the next few years, he's taking this electrifying speech and refining his ideas, turning the argument into something he'll write down on paper in one of the most popular forms of political commentary of the day The pamphlet You know, this is three years after the speech. when this pamphlet comes out. So he's taken this idea of like these natural rights, these British liberties, these inherent rights that predate government, and he's kind of pulling it all together. And in seventeen sixty four, he publishes a little pamphlet with a big title. the rights of the British colonies. asserted and proved Otis writes this pamphlet and it does kind of go viral. In America, it goes through like three editions. It's published in London. so they're discussing it in Parliament Wow So yeah, this is a serious piece of paper, right And it made all the more serious by some of the crazy ideas that are being thrown out from this pamphlet He says, and I think he believes in his heart that he's trying to describe British government. He's describing what he thinks once existed in England, but in fact, he's kind of outlining what America is about to become Otis goes much further in this pamphlet than he went in his courtroom speech. and he starts to outline a version of a country that was so foreign at the time, it would put his life in jeopardy which is strange because to us today, these crazy ideas sound so familiar. They arere almost boring for example pamphlet, he lays out a structure for government. Instead of the supremacy of Parliament, he describes Th branches working in tandem. Th he even uses the phrase checks and balances to describe how they work harmoniously But of course, understand me Parliament does not see it that way also takes issue with how the colonists are taxed, even though they don't have a vote in elections He says The very act of taxing exercised over those who are not represented appears to me to depriving them. of one of their most essential rights as free men H you know this is going this idea is what sort of boils down to the bumper sticker Taxation without representation is tyranny. Right One of the central sort of mottos of the revolution That's in this pamphlet. And he evokes this idea in this dramatic moment that our rights aren't given to us by government byy God. He says, Parliament cannot make two and two five. And he says, you know, the only person that can make natural law two and two is four. is God? Yeah You know, and every founding person would kind of take this idea and make it their own. You know, Adams later talks about rights granted by our maker and of course, Jefferson, famously says, you know, inalienable rights endowed by our creator But he's also imagining a version of America that is far more of a utopia than most of the founding fathers would conceive of. And he has this one passage Cck this out. He says at one point The colonists are by the law of nature freeborn as indeed all men are. White or black. Whoa James Otis in this pamphlet goes there. because this is the absolute logic of all of these ideas. Absolutely, absolutely. And he says slavery threatens to reduce Europe and America to the ignorance and barbarity of the Dark ages I love that he sees it all Right? It's all there And he just carries it forward because he's hot headaded, you know, he's furo. Yeah. He's he's going to take his argument to the end Otis wasn't trying to start a revolution with this pamphlet. Remember, it's lovingly, awkwardly called the rights of British colonies, asserted and proved He wants to reform Britain. not start a new country. But the logic key sits out It's like a grenade Once he asserted that natural law supersedes parliamentary law, that there are rights so fundamental that no government can take them away, the tab had been pulled and the grenade thrown At Edward Tones, we believe rich isn't about having life all figured out. It's opening yourself to all the possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor provides long term planning built around you, Meeting you where you are and helping you get closer to where you want to be So no matter where you're starting from, you can move forward with confidence The key to being rich is knowing what counts Let's find your rich, Edward Jones, member SIPC Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have trusted prorogressives name your price tool for years. 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And their tees are soft enough to live in all day and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when summer nights cool down My essential quince item is the Italian suede Tailored sneaker I wear boots a lot of the time, but in summertime that just will not do. So the Italian suede sneaker complimments any summertime attire that I have on. Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quQints dot com slash invisible for free shipping on your order and three hundred sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's QinCE dot com slash invisible for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Qint d. com slash invvisible So once Otis's pamphlet is publish Like how is Otis being perceived? Well, you know, at first, of course, Otis is this great hero and this is a very powerful and strong pamphlet and here in the States, they think it's all great. Now, it does get published in London. And you know, like I said, this argument that parliament is not supreme. is just, you know, that is not going to sit. I did find this the eminent jurist of the day was a man named Lord Mansfield, and he did offer this opinion It is said the man is mad. The book is full of wildness Meanwhile, in the colonies, counter pamphlets are written, customs officers start bad mouthing them. so Otis responds in follow up pamphlets, hot takes flying back and forth And the consequences are becoming more and more dramatic People are asking some hard questions like What do you mean Calament is supreme Isn't that treason to say that? Don't you get hung for that? You know, these are the questions that are floating around. Yeah. And so how does Otis take that? Increasingly in these newspaper articles that he writes or in these other pamphlets that are sort of the follow ups He starts backtracking He doesn't want people to think that he's not a good Bit, that he's not a loyal British citizen swearing allegiance to the king and recognizing the supremacy of Parliament. He is, after all, a politician in Massachusetts. A British politician He writes in one of his subsequent pamphlets, things like, off course Parliament is the supreme sovereign power. And he says, you know, Parliament quote remains the supreme judge From whose final determination there is no appeal. Wow. So you're like oh, wait, what happened, Otice? Yeah. what happened? James What's going on? And you get a sense that Otis might be just even a little bit afraid Yeah. So we are talking about trees Right The last one is kind of hard to read Um 'cause it's so full of this kind of language. Check this out If there's anything offensive, he's referring to his previous families. He says If there is anything offensive in either, I am heartily sorry And then he refers to himself in the third person and says that the author of these previous pamphlets has given me authority in H his name humbly to ask pardon for the least ota that may have displeased his superiors And yeah What do you What do you make of this? What is your read on him backack tracking I mean, I think he was afraid You know back was fervent John Adams once again, always with his diaries and notes, always observing the scene Prace it Otis was called a reprobate, an Apistate and a traitor in every street in Boston. The indignation of all his political friends against him was universal So now Otis is a Pariah town goat You can see why he would begin to acquiesce, why he would begin to capitulate you know, we We lament him backtracking here. But there's nothing to stop what he's already started in a way Right, rightight. And, you know, I think You know, Otis In that pamphlet, he float so many radical ideas. I mean, when he goes off about racial equality He's speaking to an audience that Almost one hundred percent can't hear anything you say But he is, he is in a He's in a world of his own making He's in in America that wouldn't exist for Well doesn't exist yet but certainly He sees it, right? And I think All of his boldness in the pamphlet Once it hits, you know, the buzzsow of all this criticism, talk of treason You know, even the galls. You know, makes them realize, well man, maybe Maybe I did go a little too far But he does back up He does retreat And it's kind of horrible to read This is where things start to get Shakespeareian. Otis knows he's not going to win the fight against Parliament, so he starts backing off his revolutionary rhetoric. but he's still mad. He's still furo after all. So he starts fighting any fight that he might be able to win He starts publicly feuding in the papers with some of the customs agents who disagree with him. Al always fighting each other in the papers. In one article, he calls them quote, superlative blockheads So one day, Otis learns that one of these superlitative blockheads, a customs agent named John Robinson, is coming to Boston. And Otis takes to the newspaper to speak again about the natural rights of man And the Boston Gazette he writes this line I have a natural right if I can get no other satisfaction than to break his head. Now we're parodying himself, you know pity or not, Otis tries to make good on his threat. Otis prows the bars one night, looking for Robinson. and finds him, and he challenges him to a duel there and Robinson just grabs Otis by the nose and drags him around now they both have walking sticks So they just start beating the crap out of each other But Robinson gets the upper hand and seriously bashes Notice the skull in. with his stick He is seriously injured Brain inagry. A few months afterwards Adams visits him sees the healed gash and has a That's always in his diary, rightes You could lay a finger in it So it's bad And then It just gets worse The injury proves to be devastating Otis starts falling apart right there in front of all the townspeople of Boston. Remember This is like a college campus, and the hots shot hot head lawyer who took on the government with all the bravado in the world is now being described as a quote miserable vagabond Rolling in the streets and gutters, a drunkard a madman shooting guns out of his windows And then he does something pooetically, tragic One night he is in a rage and One of the merchants in town writes in his diary Mr. Otis got into a mad freak tonight and broke a great many windows in the townhouse And remember, that's where he made his speech And he goes there one night and smashes out all the windows Oh, where he made his first fiery speech. Right. He just goes theres at night and just spashed out the windows. Jows time. Yeah It rocks through all the windows. Oh my go So but then in seventeen seventy one, he's declared Lunatic L U N A T I C K Now yeah, the pre Webster spell I of take. That's right. And which is some sort of like category of mental state, you know, at the time Otis leaves Boston, leaves politics and law and all the arguments about parliament and the superlative blockheads, and he retires to a farm to convalesce and stops writing pamphlets and newspaper articles, stops outlining a version of a country only he can see Pretty soon Others start to see it too. Samuel Adams spreads Otis' argument, now filed into the sharpest slogan of the age. No taxation without representation. In seventeen sixty eight John Hancock's ship, The Liberty, gets seized while smuggling Madeira wine Hancock comes out the other side a revolutionary, throwing in with the sons of Liberty putting his fortune behind the cause. Some of them turn fast like Others like Jefferson and Washington, come to it slowly. talking themselves into treason One year at a time So here's the thing. They came to it together. They had committees and taverns and each other When Hancock needed a lawyer to defend him, his friend, John Adams took the case, and won It was a whole crowd of men radicalizing in the same direction at once but not Odas. So the whole war happens. He is You know, taking a rest at the farm. as to not sort of aggravate his lunacy And then we went Yorktown, the British sururrender Yeah And it's seventeen eighty three and we're about to we're we're in re to signing the Treaty of Paris and become a country. So somewhere in that year John Hancock decides to have a big party, you know He is John Hancock And he invites everybody. It's a big party And somebody, I think it's Hancock comes up with the idea that you know, we should invite James Otis because you know, he was there at the beginning, right Yeah Yeah. This is right at the time when people realized You know, books are going to be written about them now Statues are going to be carved. They won. We're starting a new country And so they invite Otis out of respect, you know And u And he comes There's not much written about this party But you can imagine it in the Hancock Manor, the finest home in all of Massachusetts Bay. They must have been drinking Madeira wine. John Hancock's famous smuggled Good or the rum punch that was the preferred drink of the revolutionary elite Tasts There must have been toasts. a war had been fought and won, lives had been lost, and an unlikely colony had beaten the most powerful empire on Eth And all the while James Otis is there old friends familiar faces, celebrating the victory of a battle, he'd surrender He could probably imagine the statues and the plaques, the parades, and the holidays to come wasas this like for Otis? Most of what we know comes from what a nephew of his recorded. And so the nephew escorts him not only out of the party, out of Boston and back to the far And we just have this one sort of bleak note that you know, immediately after this dinner, his nephew tells us He just kind of breaks down the way the nephew describes it is There was a visible oscillation of his intellect He was overwhelmed By the recollection of past days impressed probably with greater force by the presence of Hancock and others of the cononvives and by the scene alltogether You know It's hard to imagine what Otis was thinking when he was at that party You know, very few of us ever get to see the road notot taken.