Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic [Hardcover]

Professor Joanne B. Freeman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300088779 | ISBN-13: 978-0300088779 | Publication Date: September 1, 2001

In this extraordinary book, Joanne Freeman offers a major reassessment of political culture in the early years of the American republic. By exploring both the public actions and private papers of key figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton, Freeman reveals an alien and profoundly unstable political world grounded on the code of honour. In the absence of a party system and with few examples to guide America's experiment in republican governance, the rituals and rhetoric of honour provided ground rules for political combat. Gossip, print warfare, and duelling were tools used to jostle for status and form alliances in an otherwise unstructured political realm. These political weapons were all deployed in the tumultuous presidential election of 1800 - an event that nearly toppled the new republic. By illuminating this culture of honour, Freeman offers new understandings of some of the most perplexing events of early American history, including the notorious duel between Burr and Hamilton. A major reconsideration of early American politics, Affairs of Honor offers a profoundly human look at the anxieties and political realities of leaders struggling to define themselves and their role in the new nation.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Modern American politics may often resemble a demented circus, but thus it has always been. So writes historian Joanne Freeman in this vigorous account of America's first national leaders, those entrusted with creating a nation unlike any other on Earth, one "egalitarian, democratic, representative, straightforward, and virtuous in spirit, public-minded in practice." The reality was less noble than all that; as Freeman writes, the first postrevolutionary Congress, convened in the spring of 1789, was marked by regional and private rivalries, mudslinging, acrimony, favor-seeking, and backroom bargaining, all of which produced far more discord than unity. In that climate, as John Adams and George Washington would often complain, these early politicians were more interested in "their interests, careers, reputations, and pocketbooks" than in matters of the public good. Yet, Freeman suggests, it could scarcely have been otherwise; an "emotional logic" governed the governors, involving a shared code of honor that drew no lines between the personal with the political, so that any disagreement over policy was liable to turn into a duel or campaign of slander; a day-to-day style of conduct in which panic, paranoia, and shrill accusations were the norm; a fortress mentality in which anyone who was not a sworn friend was a sworn enemy.

Amazingly, it sometimes seems, they made a nation. Freeman's well-crafted study makes a useful corrective to the view that contemporary politics represents a freefall from some golden age, and it adds much to our understanding of America's past. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

This study illuminates the founders, but it also promises to reshape the way historians think about politics, which in their time, contends Freeman (an assistant professor of history at Yale), was girded by the notion of honor "reputation with a moral dimension and an elite cast." John Adams and Aaron Burr were no less conscious than Bill Clinton of how they were being perceived and how they would be remembered. The elected representatives in the early republic, Freeman says artfully, were "constructing a machine already in motion, with few instructions and no precise model." They were not only reinventing the shape of the government from monarchic colony to loose confederation to national republic. They were also reinventing the way people did politics. One mark of this new politics was theater, which Freeman illustrates by way of the career of Pennsylvania senator William Maclay, a consummate thespian. Another new political tool was gossip, which Freeman locates in the contretemps between Burr and Hamilton and in the career of Thomas Jefferson. She also examines the early national "paper war," investigating how newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides and correspondence shaped political opinion. Freeman demonstrates that our conception of politics is often too narrow; that the "private" papers of Jefferson and co. reveal every bit as much about politics as their official state papers; and that the highly charged emotions of the founders are political data to be taken seriously, not individual idiosyncrasies to be overlooked. Freeman's prose is lively, and she balances entertaining narrative with sharp analysis. The last few years have seen a spate of books about the founding fathers and the early republic: Freeman's elegant study of honor and politics in the new nation will easily tower over most of them. (Sept.)Forecast: Launched with a blurb from Joseph J. Ellis, this should find a ready audience if it is widely reviewed, as it deserves.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300088779
• ISBN-13: 978-0300088779
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pathbreaking scholarship, and a joy to read., August 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (Hardcover)

This is that rarest of books -- a work of pathbreaking scholarship that's a joy to read. Joanne B. Freeman, assistant professor of history at Yale University, combines the analytical talents of a subtle historian, the story-telling ability of a first-rate journalist, and the gift of empathy with historical figures. Her remarkable book examines the ways that the leading figures of the first decades of the American republic practiced politics. In her pages, such leading spirits as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton are not serene philosopher statesmen but self-conscious, harried, angry, fearful, insistent, sometimes even fanatical -- as they were in real life.
Freeman examines a series of episodes -- which previous historians have either overlooked altogether or have dismissed as idiosyncratic or crazy -- and explains them by setting them into the context of a key value that pervaded the political life and assumptions of the period: honor. With skill and grace, she shows that a political leader's honor and reputation were essential components of his case for his own right to be seen as a political leader. Indeed, many of the most bitter and previously inexplicable conflicts of the early Republic can be explained by reference to politicians' battles to shore up their own honor and reputation and to undermine that of their opponents.
Freeman's book begins with an incisive prologue recapturing the sense of uncertainty and anxiety that accompanied the launch of the American constitutional experiment in 1789.
Chapter 1 examines "the politics of self-presentation" through a close, attentive interpretation of one of the minor classics of American political writing, Senator William Maclay's diary of his service in the First Congress (1789-1791). In these pages she brings out just how self-conscious these politicians were about the ways they dressed, traveled, spoke, and otherwise held the political stage.
Chapter 2, "Slander, Poison, Whispers, and Fame," analyzes the art of political gossip, focusing on Thomas Jefferson's skilled collection and use of gossip about friends and foes. Freeman demonstrates that, far from being the disinterested philosopher he liked to portray himself as being, Jefferson was a shrewd and ruthless politician thoroughly engaged in the political cut-and-thrust of his time.
Chapter 3, "The Art of Paper War," shifts focus to the various forms of practicing politics in print; it is built around the lengthy series of newspaper essays with which former President John Adams sought in 1809 to defend his historical reputation against an 1800 pamphlet penned by Alexander Hamilton. Freeman ably anatomizes the various forms of political writing -- letters, pamphlets, newspaper essays, broadsides, and so forth -- by reference to their purposes and their intended audiences.
Chapter 4, "Dueling as Politics," Freeman examines a perennial favorite among episodes from this period -- the fatal duel in 1804 between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Freeman cuts through the fog of myth, legend, and psychohistorical speculation that have surrounded this most famous duel in American history. She demonstrates that the honor dispute between Burr and Hamilton was only one of a series of such disputes spanning the years between 1795 and 1807, and that this series of disputes (some rising to the level of an actual duel, some averted by negotiation) marked the fault-lines of politics in New York among Federalists, Clintonian Republicans (followers of George and later DeWitt Clinton), and Burrites. Indeed, dueling was the ultimate form of political combat -- in which politicians risked being killed and killing to vindicate their honor and reputation, and thus their claims to be political leaders. In this brilliant piece of historical detective-work, Freeman has solved the mystery of why these men went to the dueling-ground in Weehawken, leaving the reader understanding why they felt compelled to duel.
Chapter 5 brings all these strands together by focusing on the election of 1800 and showing how the culture of honor and the politics of reputation were key factors in shaping the outcome of the most critical presidential election up to that time. Here Freeman's central character is the enigmatic Aaron Burr. As with her earlier chapters, Freeman begins by taking Burr seriously and paying close attention to what he said, did, and wrote. Her nuanced and perspicacious investigation of the elections of 1796 and 1800 brings out how, in a period celebrated by other historians as witnessing the triumph of the first "party system," the politics of honor and reputation had far more than party to do with the actual outcome of the election and the process by which the crisis of 1800-1801 was resolved.
Freeman's deft epilogue examines the reverberations of honor culture and the politics of reputation in the struggles of key figures of this period to shape how history would view them and their thoughts, words, and deeds. Her central player is the Federalist New Hampshire politician William Plumer, who was determined (as a Senator during Jefferson's presidency) to collect and preserve the history of his time and vindicate himself and his allies. So, too, Jefferson, James Madison, Timothy Pickering, and other contemporaries struggled to fix their versions of the immediate past and transmit them to posterity. Indeed, the family of Federalist James Bayard, who had played a vital role in determining the electoral deadlock of 1800-1801, persisted in vindicating the role of their ancestor as late as 1907.
Freeman's fine book is formidably researched, and yet she carries her learning lightly. AFFAIRS OF HONOR sets a new standard for historical scholarship, not only in the rigor of its research and argument, but also in its lucid, accessible presentation. Any reader without any background in the subject will be able to pick up this book and read it with enjoyment and enlightenment. This is what books are for.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Their Sacred Honor, September 17, 2002

By 

Panopticonman "panopticonman" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (Hardcover)

This is a groundbreaking work that will be sure to change how we think about the revolutionary and postrevolutionary generations. In Affairs of Honor, Joanne Freeman illuminates the importance of the forgotten cultural force of honor among the Founding Fathers and the generations immediately following the revolutionary generation.

She proves her thesis admirably, and has chosen fascinating examples of how honor and its related values of fame and virtue were driving forces for their behavior. She demonstrates that through the prism of honor we can better understand behavior that we now find puzzling, having lost to history the central importance of the demands of honor upon our early leaders. Incidentally, she notes the relative paucity of historic sources during this period in American history, but argues convincingly that the influence of the code of honor, once recognized, appear everywhere in the documents of the time. She tells her story convincingly through the journals, diaries, and papers of politicians, pamphlets, newspapers and other historical documents, as well as through the histories crafted by Jefferson and Burr which she argues convincingly were written above all to defend their actions and their honor.

If it is true that every history book rewrites history, Affairs of Honor does so more than most. By exploring the complex interplay and shifting meanings of honor among the founding generation and how the code influenced understandings and misunderstandings among early lawmakers, she shows that the correct observance the cultural code was often more important than the actual programs and laws that were under consideration. For instance, even if a senator may have agreed with a proposal of Hamilton's, the fact that many considered his behavior to be dishonorable, might sway their vote against the proposal. (Notably, some of the battles about honor stretched forward through families for generations afterwards). To make it even more difficult and confusing, there were different kinds of honor as well - southern honor as practiced by the Virginians and other southern states, and as practiced by Northerners. (The code of Southern honor more often ended in duels than did the Northern interpretation). She notes that before political parties had platforms which enabled a politician to defend his voting as part of his party's requirement of him, each voting decision had to be defended on a personal level. The personal level was the level of honor, and thus a man's vote could be called into question on the basis of honor - sometimes resulting in bloodshed. Honor was sometimes used as a weapon in elections, too. Sometimes politicians would charge each other with dishonorable behavior just before an election so that the their opponents could not respond in time.

Contradictions between democracy and the culture of honor abound. While the founding fathers were "republicans," they were also "men of honor," a sometimes paralyzing combination. As republicans, they needed to demonstrate their allegiance with the citizens whom they represented, while in the chambers of government, they needed to pledge their lives, and their sacred "honor" to each other - the code of honor of the "aristocrat." In a classic example, she notes that in the story of the clothing G. Washington's wore for his inauguration, that Washington was conscious of and tried to balance these the conflicting demands, wearing a American made homespun suit but a suit of the finest homespun, coupled with the fancy buckles from France on his shoes.

She clearly shows that in this face-to-face culture, everyone was painfully conscious of the image they wished to project. Since man's reputation was critical to his success or lack of it in early government, much time is spent defending one's honor and questioning the honor and virtue of others. One chose one's enemies as carefully as one chose one's friends. Jefferson was a master of using the code of honor to advance his agenda, dirtying his enemies through intermediaries in the press. Adams, by contrast, was temperamentally too volatile to use the code of honor as subtly as his old friend Jefferson.

Overall, a great insight into the founding fathers, and into early American history.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, amusing and a vastly entertaining read, December 25, 2003

By 

R. Price "caesar_42" (Liverpool, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (Paperback)

If you have read enough books on early American politics it begins to appear redundant, that there isn't really any new areas that haven't been discovered. Joanne Freeman shows this simply isn't true by presenting an entirely original framework to understanding early American politics. Freeman presents an argument that early politics is best understood within a overarching framework of personal honor; that the political elites of the day operated within a traditional and highly regimented system of honor that controlled thier political actions. Freeman examines this system through a variety of case studies of the uses of gossip, paper, and dueling within the system and ends with a discussion of the 1800 election. While her arguments is strong, I'm not convinced that all of her claims necessarily hold water. But the best part of this book is that a new perspective is shown and that even heavily researched areas of history still have unexplored potential. I highly recomend this book for many reasons, not the least of which is it dispells the myth that the founders were above partisian politics. Freeman presents a picture of politics that is every bit as dirty and nasty as modern day, albeit for different reasons.