Originally published on December 4, 2023 (Episode 344)
Introduction
“Founders” is a term that we typically use to refer to just a few men—usually the first four Presidents of the United States, plus Ben Franklin and (nowadays) Alexander Hamilton. We think of them as typical representatives of their age, which produced civic saints of wisdom and service to the new nation.
We don’t usually think about the other Founders, all those men and women who created the institutions, the politics, and the culture of the new republic—from Richard Allen to Judith Sargent Murray to John Jay. And we certainly don’t consider that an age which considered people like Washington to be heroic had points of contrast—the “many unscrupulous figures who violated the era’s expectation of public virtue and advanced their own interests at the expense of others.” Think of them as America’s Founding Scoundrels, whose plots and cons ended up shaping the nation sometimes as much as did the plans and hard work of the institution-builders.
David Head and Timothy J. Hemmis are the co-editors of A Republic of Scoundrels: The Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers Who Created a New Nation (Pegasus, 2023). They’re with us to discuss some of the grifters who built the nation.
About the Guests
David Head is Professor of History at the University of Central Florida and the author of A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution (Pegasus, 2019), which we discussed previously on the podcast.
Timothy J. Hemmis is Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University Central Texas, where he teaches Early American and American Military History.
For Further Investigation
Davis, William C. The Rogue Republic: How Would-Be Patriots Waged the Shortest Revolution in American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
Hale, Edward Everett. “The Man without a Country.” The Atlantic Monthly, December 1863, 665–79. Link
Linklater, Andro. An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson. New York: Walker & Co., 2009.
Lurie, Shira. The American Liberty Pole: Popular Politics and the Struggle for Democracy in the Early Republic. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2023.
Martin, James Kirby. Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Hero Reconsidered. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
Narrett, David. Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana–Florida Borderlands, 1762–1803. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
💬 Listen & Discuss
How should we balance the achievements of America’s celebrated Founders with the legacies of its “scoundrels”? Do the failures and schemes of the unscrupulous reveal more about the early republic than the stories of civic saints? Share your thoughts in the comments, and send this episode to someone who enjoys the messy side of history.
