(bright music) - [Presenter] The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership presents "The Civic Discourse Project: Sustaining American Political Order in History and Practice."

This week.

- Even if it seems like a no-brainer today, when we look back to 1776, declaring independence was a very uncertain step and only taken with much time and deliberation.

- [Presenter] "The Civic Discourse Project" is brought to you by Arizona State University School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership.

Now, Brooke Barbier, a historian and author, discusses political moderation as a stabilizing force in a time of rebellion.

John Hancock and the American Revolution.

- When you think of the American Revolution, you likely think of a single group of united patriots moving together as one unit towards independence, wholly united against the British Crown.

That wasn't the reality on the ground, however.

The colonists in the 18th century held incredibly diverse political views about the imperial crisis.

There were those who opposed the rebellion, of course, and there were those in the middle who didn't like either side.

Then there were those who joined the patriot cause, but some in that group were far less inflammatory than others.

Such patriots wanted to change the power structure between the Crown and the colonists, but they had varying ideas about how and when to achieve that.

We're going to zoom in on Boston and Massachusetts tonight, because Boston in the 1760s and '70s was the epicenter of violent protests, mobbing, and tarring and feathering.

The town had no shortage of bold and brash radical inhabitants like Samuel Adams.

They wanted to affect political change, but there were also plenty of more moderate patriots like John Hancock, who, because of his wealth, status, and personality, also had tremendous influence.

When we were doing a check today of the slides, I said, "Oh, John Hancock would be thrilled at how big his picture is here (chuckles).

Because of Hancock's wealth, status, and personality, he also held tremendous social influence.

He may have had a bold signature on the Declaration of Independence, but he disagreed sharply with Adams, Samuel Adams, even about independence, as we're going to see.

They both arrived at the same destination, rejection of British rule and an independent United States, but they traveled on divergent paths.

Psychologists identify a tendency called hindsight bias wherein people tend to see past events as predictable or logical.

When evaluating history, and especially a revolution, it is easy to succumb to hindsight bias and believe that everything transpired the way that it should have.

But this ignores the complexity of life in the late 18th century when many patriots disagreed with each other about the course of resistance.

Hindsight bias is not exclusive to us as we look back 250 years later, though, it dogged people who lived during this time period, lived through the events, witnessing them firsthand.

Let me give you an example.

Great Britain's legislative body, called parliament, passed the Stamp Act in 1765, which put a tax on printed goods, including newspapers and playing cards.

This begins that familiar timeline of Americans clamoring, "No taxation without representation."

Andrew Oliver was the Stamp Act collector for Massachusetts, and to oppose the tax, a mob in Boston targeted his home, broke all of the home's windows, set fire to his carriage, and destroyed his warehouse where they thought the stamps would be stored.

Then the mob demanded that Oliver resigned the next day.

He did.

Two weeks later, another mob targeted Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson.

Rioters used axes to split open the door of his mansion here, and they spent hours breaking windows, stealing cash and clothing, and drinking all the alcohol stored in his cellar.

One observer said that at daybreak, quote, "There was scarce anything left, but the walls."

Because Oliver had resigned in the face of intimidation, other colonies in North America implemented similar tactics against their Stamp Act collectors.

A mob in Rhode Island targeted their customs official, which resulted in the closing of their customs house.

The Stamp Act collector in New York saw which way the winds were blowing and he resigned before he could get himself into any trouble.

But not every colony had the same resistance.

Thomas McKean was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.

In 1813, he wrote to a friend in Massachusetts who had also signed the Declaration of Independence, John Adams.

And McKean claimed that after the Stamp Act was passed in 1765, quote, "The great mass of the people were zealous in the cause of America."

He was writing 48 years after the event, and it's easy to gloss over the intricacies of the past.

This is his hindsight bias at work, especially natural, because the revolution was won and McKean was living in a successful and growing United States.

His friend John Adams disagreed with him though.

John Adams said that not all Americans were united at the time.

He reminded McKean, for example, of the struggle to get Pennsylvania on board, and he allotted that about 67% of Americans were zealous.

He said, quote, "Upon the whole, if we allow two thirds of the people to have been with us in the revolution, is not the allowance ample?"

Adams' allowance of two thirds is also overly generous though.

Despite the challenges of labeling people within static groups, historians have estimated that about 20% of British colonial Americans at this time remained loyal to the Crown.

About 40% were rebel patriots, and then the other 40% were indifferent.

Being on the wrong side at this time was minimally punished with threats from your neighbors and more severely punished with physical harm to your property or body, as both Andrew Oliver and Thomas Hutchinson could attest.

John Adams ended up on the same side as the moderate John Hancock, but they could not be considered allies.

They would not have considered each other allies.

Even when someone was avowedly a patriot, as John Hancock was, he still didn't want the same results or to use the same tactics as the cousins, John and Samuel Adams.

Hancock opposed the tax, no question, but he was furious at the way that the violence against Hutchinson had devolved.

He said of that, quote, "I abhor and detest as much as any man breathing."

Hancock was the wealthiest man in Boston.

He inherited a massive mercantile business from his uncle, and he worried that Boston would get a bad reputation, especially among those in London, his trading partners.

So, he did something pretty interesting.

He got the rioters together, the Stamp Act rioters, and he entertained them with food and drink at a local tavern, paying for this party, and he asked for everyone to peacefully demonstrate going forward.

Parliament doesn't give up though.

The Stamp Act is passed in 1765, and it's just two years later when they passed the Townshend Duties.

This is placing a duty on imported British goods, so clothing, tea, paper, things like that.

To enforce these taxes and reduce smuggling, the Crown set up a new customs board in Boston.

If the tax was bad, the customs officials were worse.

They earnestly patrolled Boston Harbor, eager to stop and search any vessel they thought might be smuggling, and there would be no bigger prize to get than the popular and smuggling John Hancock.

Trumped up smuggling charges against Hancock come up in 1768.

Customs officials believed that he had smuggled in a boatload full of wine.

Townspeople gathered at the wharfs when they heard that Hancock's ship would be seized from his wharf.

The townspeople warned the customs officials that they shall not seize Hancock's ship unless they wanna be chucked into the harbor.

The customs officials were undeterred.

They seized Hancock's ship, which was called Liberty.

That's more than a little ironic.

They branded the main mast with the king's mark and hauled liberty away from Hancock's wharf.

The townspeople erupted.

They assaulted the two customs officials who had seized Liberty.

The son of one of those customs officials was also overrun.

He was dragged by the hair through the streets of Boston as people hit him with sticks and threw dirt on him.

Then this group of men, now numbering between 500 and a thousand men, did something extraordinary.

They dragged a sailboat built by one of these customs officials out of Boston Harbor.

They hauled it through the streets of Boston, up to Boston Common, Boston's public park, where they set the boat on fire.

This was all a stunning display to defend Hancock's right to smuggle wine.

Despite the violent mob in support of Hancock, though, Hancock was not nearly as troubled by the politics of it all.

His top concern at this time was making profits, not opposing taxes, and as long as the British held onto his ship, Liberty, he couldn't use it and could transact no business with it.

He was a businessman who employed hundreds of men in Boston, and he was eager to get back to work.

He struck a deal with customs officials.

He would agree to stand charges if they chose to charge him with smuggling if they returned his ship, the deal was done.

Other Patriots in Boston, more radical patriots, including Samuel Adams and the firebrand lawyer, James Otis, don't let his cherubic little face fool you.

This guy is a tough radical here.

They were furious when they heard about Hancock's agreement.

Late that night, they went to Hancock's mansion and told him he made a bad deal.

With no commercial interests, Adams and Otis inside Hancock's home had little empathy for someone with more to lose.

Other Bostonians also arrived to Hancock's mansion and explained that Hancock simply could not legitimize British taxes and policies by agreeing to this deal.

With mounting pressure, Hancock reneged on the arranged deal.

He sought practicality when living under British rule, and he had a more temperate disposition.

But when faced with strong opinions from Bostonians, Hancock backtracked.

He continued, however, to work on a more peaceful way to affect political change.

To render the Townshend Duties moot, he and other merchants in Boston tried to get other North American merchants to implement a boycott of British goods.

It's pretty simple.

If no one imports British goods, the Townshend Duties serve no purpose.

This boycott was mostly successful, but there were a few violators, even in Boston, and some patriots made life very difficult for them.

After five contentious years of rebellion, beginning with the Stamp Act, Hancock was ready to step away from politics entirely in 1770.

People are complex and make political choices for a myriad reasons.

What may be good for them one year will not be good for them another.

And then everything changes in 1773.

Parliament passes another tax, and this one's on tea.

Hancock reengages with politics after the Tea Act is passed because it's going to directly affect his business.

For the past few years, he'd been trading in tea, and under the provisions of the Tea Act, he would no longer be able to sell the commodity.

In an unlikely twist, Hancock teams up with Samuel Adams and they both support the Boston Tea Party.

These two patriots, who over the previous eight years had differed greatly on how to proceed against taxes, both gave rallying speeches moments before the crowd went down to the harbor to dump the tea in.

Here, Hancock was on the more radical side, while other patriots had a tempered and even disappointed reaction.

There was a merchant from Boston called John Rowe, who is really usually right in the middle, sometimes conservative, sometimes on the patriot side.

He called the Tea Party a, quote, "Disastrous affair," and said, quote, "I am sincerely sorry for the event."

He and other merchants favored paying restitution for the cost of the tea destroyed that night during the Boston Tea Party.

Two men who Americans today would consider ardent patriots, the most patriot bonafides of all, also disagreed with the tactics of the Boston Tea Party.

Benjamin Franklin wrote from London and urged Bostonians to pay back the cost of the tea to London.

George Washington wrote to a friend, quote, "The cause of Boston now is and ever will be considered as the cause of America."

The cause of America, what he's referring to here is not the Boston Tea Party, and it's not the Tea Act.

It was parliament's shocking response to the Boston Tea Party that made the cause of Boston now the cause of America.

These were a series of laws called the Coercive Acts.

They were passed in 1774 and they were harsh and overreaching.

The Boston Port Bill, for example, shut down Boston Harbor until the value of the tea destroyed was paid back.

Boston is a maritime economy and society, and it cripples them immediately.

Nothing did more to unite the colonists across North America than these Coercive Acts.

Not the Stamp Act, not the Townshend Duties, not the Boston Massacre.

Colonists were surprised by the severity of the laws because they seemed to punish, they didn't seem to, they punished all of Massachusetts for the actions of 150 men who threw tea into the harbor.

Virginia also recommended that the colonies get together for an Intercolonial Congress.

The first continental Congress met in Philadelphia in Carpenter's Hall in September and October, 1774.

The delegates hoped to moderate the passions of Massachusetts and its rebellious capital of Boston.

By the end of the meeting, though, they'd done the opposite.

They sanctioned a new government in Massachusetts, one that was wholly outside the bounds of Crown authority, and they authorized a colony-wide boycott that would be policed by the people.

Ordinary Americans were the ones that had prompted this change to Congress.

They applied pressure to their delegates, who had mostly wanted a more moderate approach.

The second Continental Congress met in the spring of 1775 in Philadelphia.

This time, they met at Independence Hall.

Hancock, being elected president of the second Continental Congress, was the single most important moment in Hancock's political life and cemented his legacy Hancock's Wealth, his massive fortune assuaged other conservatives who also were interested in protecting their wealth, but the fact that he came from Boston and had a reputation for rebelling against British policies, notably with his support for the Boston Tea Party, assuaged the more defiant delegates' concerns.

So, in that way, he had safe credentials 'cause he kind of split both sides.

Hancock had decades of proof that being a part of the British empire was financially lucrative.

He had traveled to London the decade before, which deepened his overseas friendships and business connections.

Hancock, and other affluent men like him, had many incentives to continue to work with the British empire.

The Adams cousins, in sharp contrast, had far less at stake.

Rupturing with Great Britain would cost them little.

Even if it seems like a no-brainer today, when we look back to 1776, declaring independence was a very uncertain step and only taken with much time and deliberation, and after King George III ignored that Olive Branch Petition.

There were many delegates who wanted to reconcile, but who eventually came around to independence, and that includes John Hancock.

In 1787, a group of elite men in Philadelphia proposed a new government structure run by a new Constitution.

Given that the Constitution still governs the United States today, we can look back on the debate about its ratification and feel convinced that it was the right government at the right time.

But the US Constitution was unpopular among many Americans, and there was a very real chance that it would not be passed.

The delegates in Massachusetts were pretty evenly split for and against the Constitution, with a slight majority opposing ratification.

Before the Massachusetts Convention began in 1788, four states had already ratified, and Connecticut ratified the day the Massachusetts Convention began.

This political cartoon comes from a Federalist newspaper.

Federalist is the name given to those who supported the Constitution.

And as each state would ratify the Constitution, a new pillar would be added to cartoon.

Only nine states were needed to ratify the Constitution.

So, Federalists were more than halfway before Massachusetts even weighed in.

But Massachusetts was not just one more vote, it was considered a swing state because it had strong revolutionary credentials and clout.

People believed that if it passed there, it might prompt others to do the same.

Federalists in Massachusetts knew who to lobby, the state's governor and most popular man, and president of the Ratifying Convention, John Hancock.

Delegate after delegate agreed that whichever side Hancock landed on would be victorious.

Fearing defeat, Federalists caucused hard after hours, including to going to Hancock's home and proposing a bargain.

They said, "You can offer amendments to the Constitution."

No other state or person had done that yet, because previously, up to that point, it had not been allowed to offer amendments.

You either voted up or down.

The Federalists knew that if the influential Hancock suggested changes, it might calm other citizens' concerns.

Hancock decided to support the Constitution, but he chose a moderate path.

He split the difference between support for the Constitution and opposition to.

He would vote to ratify, but not in its current form.

He proposed nine amendments that focused on the power of the states, which would be stripped by the Constitution as it was currently written.

Throughout the American Revolution, Hancock had excelled at bringing people together.

He could genuinely offer such sentiments for unity because he could see merits on both sides.

"We must all rise or fall together," Hancock said.

With that, the vote began and Massachusetts very narrowly approved the Constitution.

After Hancock suggested amendments, every state thereafter that ratified also suggested amendments.

This led to over 100 amendments being sent to Congress and being filtered out to the 10 Bill of Rights that we know today.

These are our most cherished rights as Americans, and they were not proposed by the framers of the Constitution, but by those who had concerns about the Constitution.

Being more temperate did not mean John Hancock was not a patriot, or that he had no influence.

It was the opposite.

He had power precisely because he was thoughtful and measured.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) (gentle music) - You strike a very interesting note that moderation is not just splitting the difference between opposing views.

One theme that you mentioned that I'd like to pick up before we turn to questions is John Hancock's trip to London that, like many Americans, many colonists, Hancock visited the metropole, the imperial capital, he went to London, and this is a period wherein what was called the British Atlantic world, the American mainland colonies, along with the Caribbean colonies, there's all of these ties, not just with each other, but back to Britain, and particularly to London, which was the center of social and economic and cultural life, as well as the center of government.

Hancock was there at the death of George II.

What did Hancock take from that experience?

- Hancock, I think, really loved being in London.

He was lonely.

He was a man who craved personal connection throughout his life, and he lacked that in London.

But what he gained was when George II died, he was so sad because all the theaters shut down and the shops were required to close and he could have no fun basically.

But what he learned when he saw George III come through, he didn't see the coronation, but he saw pomp and circumstance.

And I didn't talk about it in the talk tonight, but this was one way that Hancock gained so much influence.

He was so good at understanding looking the part of a leader and playing the part of a leader.

So, in London, he learned some of those formalities that didn't exist in the colonies and he arguably brings them back with him.

- Listening to the story, it seems as though, or great wealth is required for moderation.

- Yeah.

- So, can you speak more to this?

- Yeah, well, I think what you're saying, I laugh because I think there's some truth to that, and then let me present the flip.

Poverty, or not having great means, leads itself to great radicalism too, because the Adams cousins, for example, John Adams goes on to be fine financially later in his life, but in the time period we're talking about, there's just less at stake for them.

Those Adams cousins, they don't have as much at stake, so they're more inclined to be radical.

So, I didn't mention really conservatives today, but there were even conservative patriots who eventually go along, they're far fewer, and they were typically of a wealthier class.

Thank you guys.

(audience applauding) - [Presenter] "The Civic Discourse Project" is brought to you by Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership.

(lively music) (lively music continues)