The Hartford Wits
Blogger Andy Piascik recently wrote:
“Poets are sometimes as important in telling the story of a nation as historians. This is especially true of poets and painters who came of age during the revolution that birthed a nation. Such was the case with the Hartford Wits—a talented group of writers greatly influenced by the struggle of the American colonies for independence from Britain.”5
Although the Hartford Wits occupied a position of prominence among the Founding Fathers, they have faded all too easily from the annals of Revolutionary America. However, this does not appear to always have been the case. Seventy years ago, in the preface to his book, The Connecticut Wits, Leon Howard matter-of-factly stated that “The ‘Connecticut Wits’ are known, by name to everyone interested in the history of American literature…”6 If this was true then, it now begs the question, why have they been so easily forgotten, no longer even a footnote to Colonial American history? And perhaps more importantly, if they were to be correctly recast as influential political activists, would that make them more worthy of modern scholars’ attention?
In pursuit of an answer to the first question, “Why, to the individual living in modern times, have the Hartford Wits been forgotten by contemporary historians?”, it must first be understood that in their prime they were an important group of pamphleteers and satirists, closely associated not only with Yale, but with the inner circle of Revolutionary America. As one reads their verse, it is undeniable that they wrote poems that, while by some standards pedestrian or unsophisticated, were highly critical of loyalists and Anti-Federalists during the Revolutionary and Federal eras, respectively. In light of this, this curriculum unit will answer this as well as the second question, “In a more realistic light, are the Hartford Wits now more worthy of attention?”
Have the Wits been cast out of the public eye because of their inferior social standing? Were they of the insurrectionist ilk, like the mobs of rabble-rousers in Boston? Certainly not. A quick perusal would assure all but the most cynical reader that they were men of substance and character. According to Henry Beers,
Among their number were able and eminent men: scholars, diplomatists, legislators. Among their number were a judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court, a college president, foreign ministers and ambassadors, a distinguished physician, and officer of the Revolutionary army, intimate friends of Washington and Jefferson.7
And yet, although men of means, they were sufficiently outraged by British policies and actions that they became the voice of the disenfranchised. Perhaps this provides a key to understanding the marginalization of the Hartford Wits. Instead of looking at them as an effective political force, for too long they have been judged simply as provincial artists offering nothing of value. Biographic information on each of the major Wits follows.
David Humphreys was so much more than an epitaph on a gravestone. As he left Yale in 1776 to fight in the war, he composed a poem bidding his friends “Adieu, thou Yale, where youthful poets dwell.”8 He eventually rose through the ranks to become a Colonel and an intimate of Washington’s circle of friends and confidants. He was given the honor of delivering Lord Cornwallis’ surrendered colors to the Continental Congress at the close of the Revolutionary War.6 Moreover, Humphreys was at Washington’s side for a number of years over the rest of his life, eventually joining him in residence at Mount Vernon, where he served as a personal secretary and close friend. Just as in his military career, Humphreys would continue to rise through the social ranks of early America to become “one of the distinguished men of his generation.”9
John Trumbull’s credentials hardly need examination. He was of stout Connecticut pedigree: a cousin of Governor Jonathan Trumbull, and second cousin to Colonel John Trumbull, whose paintings hang in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and a dedicated wing at the Yale University Art Gallery. As for personal accomplishments, after earning his degree and tutoring at Yale, he moved to Boston to clerk for John Adams, where he would come into personal contact with many of the luminaries of the fledgling Revolutionary movement. After Adams left to attend the Continental Congress, Trumbull began intensifying his attempts at political verse. After the upheavals of the Tea Party, he eventually returned to Connecticut, where he would naturally gravitate to the politically stimulating company of the Hartford Wits.10
Timothy Dwight could also claim a noteworthy heritage, having one of the brightest lights in the New England galaxy for a grandfather, the fiery preacher Jonathan Edwards.11 While Dr. Dwight himself would go on to prominence as a beloved preacher and President of Yale, his contributions to the Wits were not as noteworthy as others’ and therefore will not be covered in this unit. However, a suggested reading list can be found below under the Resources heading should one desire a deeper understanding.
Of all the Hartford Wits, the most interesting and impactful would have to be Joel Barlow. Coming from humble beginnings, Barlow transferred to Yale from Dartmouth.12 Barlow greatly changed the narrative arc and cultural roots of American history with his epic poem, The Vision of Columbus. This foundational paradigm shift will constitute a good portion of the remaining discussion. After serving as chaplain in the Continental Army and returning to Yale, he took his place alongside these other intellectuals and so began an interesting and productive career that in many ways would outshine those of the other Wits.
Each of these men, primarily David Humphreys, John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, and Joel Barlow, clearly were members of the upper class and therefore had much to lose in fomenting a revolution. However, as England’s oppressive and seemingly random policies obfuscated the colonists’ vision of the rights owed them as members of English society, the Wits wrote in increasingly rancorous prose in an effort to point out the absurdity of denying political rights to citizens simply because distance, and not blood, separated them from their motherland.
A clue to their fall from grace in modern eyes can be found in the sentiments of a few commentators. Originally writing in 1926, Vernon Parrington, suggested why:
Their works lie buried in old libraries with the dust of years upon them…The record as they left it, very likely will not appeal to the taste of a far different age. We shall probably find their verse stilted and barren...hopelessly old-fashioned…but though they fell short of their ambitious goal, their works remain extraordinarily interesting documents of a critical period. 13
Henry Howard Brownell reveals a similar dismissive attitude in his co-option of a line from the Gospels, “Can anything good come from Hartford?”14 Moreover, the Cambridge Modern History, Volume 7, asserts:
They were all graduates of Yale College; all men of character, wit, ability, and accomplishment; and all eagerly enthusiastic. But none of them had much originality; and, although their poems and satires were credibly imitative (of verse by British poets such as Pope and Churchill), they revealed, in the end, nothing more than that Americans could imitate skillfully. Except as matter of literary history, they have long been neglected and forgotten.15
Perhaps those who would criticize the unsophisticated provincialism of the Wits are missing the point. William H. Goetzman writes:
Early American political writers easily reached the level of the universal and sometimes even the sublime. The poets had a much more difficult time. All of the Connecticut Wits - Dwight, Humphreys, Barlow and Trumbull - stumbled through the composition of jerry-built epics that were intended to be American...16
In light of these misguided assertions, a new appreciation might be gained by taking a closer look at the political rhetoric of the Hartford Wits, without expectations of cultural or artistic contributions. Perhaps re-introducing the Wits into the conversations of today, namely through the historic and not the cultural lens, would recast the Hartford Wits in a more realistic and deserving light.
Part of the problem lies with the historian, who could have been more vigilant in recognizing the Wits in a more favorable interpretation as political activists and not strictly as poets. In doing so, perhaps the historical narrative of the past century wouldn’t have so many gaps. According to Lehman and Nawrocki:
Joel Barlow, John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, David Humphreys and their friends were all inspired by the Revolution to write the myths of the new nation. Somehow, though, when American literature courses are created they usually skip directly from Jonathan Edwards to James Fenimore Cooper as if the years between were too full of bloodshed and struggle to produce authors. Removing the story might be good for contemporary aesthetic tastes, but it is bad as a matter of historical accuracy.17
It is precisely those years of struggle that produced the sentiments that drove the Founding Fathers to action. And, the Hartford Wits, along with Thomas Paine and other writers, helped to communicate that discontent in a way that garnered public support and political activism. With regard to Barlow’s Vision of Columbus, Lehman and Nawrocki add: “it connected Columbus with Anglo-American experience in a way that would shape the future national mythology for two hundred years. The other Wits helped him finish it, and it finally went to press in 1786.”18 In his lecture “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen (Auden): What Does That Mean and Why?”, Professor Paul Fry provides a compelling argument for the necessity for poetry in that it can profoundly and positively affect public life.19 Whether it is something as inspirational as the saving of Athens because the beauty of its poets proved it worthy of merit or as seemingly tangential as, in the purposes of this discussion, the angry satire of dissatisfied colonists, poetry has value because of the subtle ways in which it makes things happen.
Poetry has been described as the language of the soul expressing that for which often simple prose is inadequate. It might play better in poetry anthologies than in a history textbook, but in dismissing the works of poets like the Wits, historians risk doing a huge disservice to the contributions of passionate patriots by mislabeling them as strictly poets and refusing to see them in their proper light as political activists.
Looking Through the Wrong Lens
It seems clear that the Wits enjoyed, at some now distant point, a place of prominence in the American literary landscape. To first understand why they have been marginalized and then to counter these erroneous conclusions, it is helpful to consider that those who have been quick to categorize them in such a manner have largely been literary critics, and therefore, are viewing them through the wrong lens, or perhaps even the wrong end of the telescope. Instead of judging their contributions from an artistic perspective, if one considers, instead their contributions as patriots, or more accurately political activists, a new appreciation emerges. To this end, Annie Russell Marble writes:
For many years the question has been discussed: Has America a literature of her own; and if so, when did it begin? Only within recent times would one venture to affirm the independent existence of such a literature. The specious argument, that everything written in the English language belongs to English literature exclusively, has been nullified. We identify patriots today, by the spirit, not by the letter, of their writings.20
The main focus of the poetry of Hartford Wits is the use of satire and, to some extent, the panegyric as a political means to an end. Although by today’s standards, the term “wit” suggests one with a good sense of humor, to those living in previous eras, the term had much deeper connotations. Eric Lehman and Amy Nawrocki explain, “The word implies to modern ears that they were comedy writers, and while occasionally their poetry tickled the funny bone, they were, in fact, very serious about their endeavors.”21 Indeed, much of the Wits’ writings can be classified under the sub-genre of satire. According to Fry, satire is a familiar term meaning the use of humor or irony to ridicule or criticize (panegyric, a less common term, can be defined as prose that runs to the celebratory or in some cases, the apologetic, often to the point of excess.)22 The Hartford Wits were almost savage in their use of satire. Parrington suggests:
With the demands of partisanship laid upon them they dedicated their pens to successive causes. The war first summoned them, then the contest with populism, then the cause of the federal union, and finally the acrimonious struggle against French romantic philosophies and the party of Jefferson. Their verse became increasingly militant, and the note of satire rose above the occasional bucolic strains. For the serious business of poetic warfare they sought inspiration from Churchill and the contemporary English satirists….satire could be as useful to a gentleman as the small sword, and the literary dueling of rival partisans went on briskly…They sharpened their quills to a needle point, dipped them in bitter ink, and pricked their opponents as mercilessly as English gentlemen were doing.23
It is for this understandable imitation of the more notable and successful English poets that some, like Parrington, as quoted above, have been quick to dismiss the Wits. However, one has to consider the intent and not the method when placing the Wits in the pantheon of early American poets. That is to say, as Henry Beers has pointed out:
at the close of the Revolutionary War, the members of the group found themselves reunited for a few years at Hartford, they set themselves to combat, with the weapon of satire, the influences towards lawlessness and separatism which were delaying the adoption of the Constitution.24
It was at this point of history, with the inherent weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, an overreaction to England’s tyrannical rule that was so convincingly demonstrated by Shays’ Rebellion, that the dangers provoked by an intentionally powerless government frightened the ruling class, including, of course, the members of the Hartford Wits. And so, correct as Beers’ assertion may be, they would first have to revise the American creation narrative in order to complete the separation so completely sought by the Declaration of Independence. At the same time, these poet-patriots would also have to recast European prejudices as to the inferiority and unsophistication of the American colonists.
The composition of the Hartford Wits was made up of as many as ten men, yet for the sake of clarity, the unit will focus on four poems, Joel Barlow’s The Vision of Columbus; David Humphreys’ Poem Addressed to the Armies of the United States of America; John Trumbull’s M’Fingal; and The Anarchiad, a collaborative effort by the brightest lights of the Hartford Wits. These works will help move the narrative that arcs across two historical periods of early America, namely the revolutionary, and Federalist eras. The most important work of the the colonial era was undoubtedly Joel Barlow’s The Vision of Columbus. And yet, Columbus’ place in the early American narrative was markedly different than it is today.
New Countries Need New Myths
Prior to the Revolutionary War, the colonists assumed themselves to be English citizens in good standing, hence, based their national identity on all that was British. They were proud of the English blood that flowed in their veins and of the good fortune that that entailed. Therefore, in the colonists’ founding narrative, the most important explorer of the New World was the English explorer, John Cabot.25 From their pre-Revolution perspective, it was unthinkable that anyone but an Englishman would have played a part in the discovery of these new lands, and certainly not some popish wanderer who may have chanced upon the land while sailing under the Spanish flag. In short, although images of Columbus are so prevalent across present day United States, back then erecting a monument to him any place in the colonies would have been as absurd a proposition as today placing a statue of the Prime Minister of Australia on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Yet, after winning their independence in the war with England, this loose collection of 13 disjointed, squabbling states was in desperate need of a new national narrative. Separation from England meant much more than a cutting of political ties; cultural and historical ties also must be severed. In doing so, a persistent embarrassing misconception could also be addressed, namely, the notion that America was inferior to Europe and therefore had nothing of cultural value to offer to the world.
This outlook was largely based on European prejudices towards all things American, both indigenous and colonial. Moreover, this view was propagated by the French naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who incorrectly theorized that biological degeneration was an inevitable outcome of hot, humid climates, and, given the absence of large mammals such as the elephant in the North American continent, inhabitants of the Americas must be, by default, inferior to Europeans.26 By the same token, colonists had long harbored the suspicion that they were seen by Europe as insignificant provincials. This understandably fostered a sense of inferiority which fueled a competitive nature already present in the Founding Fathers, especially since, as members of the American aristocracy, they had aspirations of being seen as great men of renown and culture. With America’s emergence as an independent nation, to fully separate from England would require a new narrative, one that predated the British entry to the New World. What was needed was a way to dispel these misconceptions, and more importantly, replace Cabot with Columbus as the icon of European presence in the New World.
In 1787, as the tercentennial of Columbus was approaching, Joel Barlow, with the help of the other Wits, published his epic poem, The Vision of Columbus. Retelling the history of the Americas, it sought to remove the idea of English primacy in the New World as completely as the revolutionaries had toppled the statue of King George III in New York City. Lehman proposes that:
Joel Barlow also attempted to create a national mythology around a hero...he chose an Italian explorer. His epic poem The Vision of Columbus, first written in March 1780 and later revised as The Columbiad, featured Christopher Columbus as an ancestor and a herald of the Americans of the 18th century.... In 1828, Washington Irving would champion Columbus as part of American tradition with his three volume biography, yet another myth that later authors built on the foundation of the Wits’ ideas.27
Although at the time, a new poetics focusing on romanticism was emerging under the masterful pairing of Wordsworth and Coleridge,28 Barlow endeavored to write a traditional epic poem in the hopes that this time-tested form would lend credibility and dignity to his work. His decision would prove to be a successful one.
In The Vision of Columbus, Barlow conceptualized a conversation between Christopher Columbus and Hesper, an angel representing the west and the logical culmination of cultural and political advancements that had started with western movement from ancient Rome and Greece and had further developed with each iteration as it spread westward across Europe and then to the Americas. Downcast, and confined to a Spanish prison cell after his third voyage, Columbus is transported by Hesper to a mountaintop in North America to observe all the greatness yet to come from his “discovery” of the New World. The visions his vantage point affords begin with the magnificence of the Aztec and Incan empires (conveniently predating and supplanting England’s presence in the Americas), and extend through the Revolutionary War and the ensuing rise to greatness that Barlow (and the other devotees of the “Rising Glory School“), believed awaited this burgeoning nation.29 The notion of the Rising Glory school of thought was that history had a predictable nature to it, hence the rise and fall of governments and empires. The Wits embraced this idyllic notion to bring the devout, hard working culture of the Connecticut Valley to the entire nation.30 Barlow’s epic was a tremendous success, both across the colonies and in Europe. In fact, according to Steven Courtney, “George Washington bought twenty copies, Benjamin Franklin bought six, and King Louis XVI of France, to whom Barlow had dedicated it, bought twenty-five.”31 But the most important effect of The Vision of Columbus’ success was that many cities began erecting statues in Columbus’ honor. Of these, the most notable was in New York City, where an obelisk dedicated to Columbus featured uniquely Barlowian images such as Hesper and Columbus bursting forth from the prison cell.32 According to Pencak, et al,:
The year 1792 offered Americans a rare opportunity to develop the Columbian theme, to define themselves, as all centenary years since have emerged as invitations to employ the symbolic Columbus in the service of particular notions of Americanism. A number of celebrations occurred throughout the republic…In New York, Pintard’s Tammany Society … erected an illuminated shaft or monument to the memory of Columbus…From its base – a globe emerging out of clouds and chaos – a pyramidal shaft arose, depicting on its four sides mythologized scenes from the Admiral’s life…The “Genius of Liberty” (or Barlow’s angel) ultimately appears before the dejected Columbus and cheers him – pointing to the Tammany monument itself, “sacred to his memory, reared by the Columbian Order,” and allowing him to see the glorious legacy of his discovery, which America now embodied. 33
To illustrate the impact of The Vision of Columbus, an excerpt depicting Hesper’s emancipation of Columbus follows:
The growing splendor fill'd the astonish'd room,
And gales etherial breathed a glad perfume;
Mild in the midst a radiant seraph shone,
Robed in the vestments of the rising sun;...
The Seraph spoke; and now before them lay
(The doors unbarr'd) a steep ascending way,
That, through disparting shades, arose on high,
Reach'd o'er the hills and lengthen'd up the sky,
Op‘d a fair summit, grac‘d with rising flowers,
Sweet odours breathing through celestial bowers,
Led by the Power, the hero gain'd the height,
A touch from heaven sublimed his mortal sight,34
In The Vision of Columbus, Barlow manipulated representations of Native Americans and Native American history to refute European claims to cultural supremacy, to advance American nationalism, and to create a distinct, independent American source for Enlightenment ideals.35 The net effect of Barlow’s poem was to shape an entirely new American identity by changing its founding narrative to one that had a completely non-English perspective.36
With deeply religious overtones, this hymn of praise, across the expanse of nine books, is the ideal setting for an epic narrative. Yet this account would be a completely new creation story that went to great lengths to predate the arrival of the Englishman in the New World. According to Danielle Conger:
As Robert Richardson has noted, Barlow hoped "to show that America need not look to Europe or to antiquity for gods, heroes, law or civilization; he aimed, deliberately, to write a poem that would show that there was an American myth adequate to the American adventure.37
As foundational a work as it was, The Vision of Columbus, which Barlow later nearly doubled in length and recast as The Columbiad, was not the last word that the Hartford Wits would have to say on the conflict between this emerging nation and their English oppressors. David Humphreys would also boldly join the fray.
Answering the Call
David Humphreys continued to climb the ranks of the Continental Army until arriving at a zenith as a trusted member of George Washington’s inner circle, on near-equal footing with Alexander Hamilton, a position of which, understandably, he was quite proud. He always found time for self-reflection and poetry. It would be difficult to fault him if occasionally into his prose the scent of hubris mingled with his love of his Commander in Chief and friend. As Howard noted, “Humphreys became a good staff officer, one of very few poets whose writings Washington would read, and a great and persistent admirer of his superior. The appointment was the most influential single event in his life.”38 For example, of his adoration both for Washington and self,
Let others sing his deeds in arms,
A nation saved and conquest’s charms:
Posterity shall hear.
‘Twas mine, return’d from Europe’s courts,
To share his thoughts, partake his sports,
And soothe his partial ear.39
In 1780, he penned a verse aimed at encouraging his fellow soldiers in the Continental Army with the dual-edged sword of patriotism and ambition: love of country on one side, promise of land in the Ohio territory on the other. According to Howard:
The work was called, with conscious dignity, A Poem Addressed to the Armies of the United States of America, and its three hundred and fifty lines were designed to inspire the American troops “with perseverance and fortitude, thro’ every species of difficulty and danger, to continue their exertions for the defense of their country, and the preservation of its liberties.”40
Humphreys goes on to detail the situation before England recast the colonists from sons to slaves, and then in his two discourses first exhorts his fellow soldiers to advance the fight for independence, then to draw upon the hope of better days that said independence shall produce.
The concluding lines from the poem illustrate not only Humphrey’s patriotic call to arms, but the aforementioned notion of America’s:
And oh may heav’n! when all our toils are past,
Crown with such happiness our days at last
So rise our sons, like our great fires of old,
In freedom’s cause, unconquerably bold...
And thou Supreme! Whose hand sustains this ball,
Before whose nod the nations rise and fall,
Propitious smile and shed diviner charms,
On this blest land, the queen of arts and arms:
Make the great empire rise on wisdom’s plan,
The feat of bliss, and last retreat of man.41
Lehman and Nawrocki observe that, like Barlow’s Vision of Columbus. this poem too, was well received and sold numerous copies on both sides of the Atlantic.42 In fact it was reprinted in Paris in 1786,43 and in 1804, his collected works were published “with a list of subscribers headed by their Catholic Majesties, the King and Queen of Spain, and followed by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and numerous dukes and chevaliers.”44
One has to admire the patriotic spirit of Humphreys and his continued production despite the rigors of war. In fact, he, Barlow and Dwight all served in the Continental Army. Of those in the inner circle of the Wits, John Trumbull was the lone holdout from military service. However, as Bulwer-Lytton’s well-known adage would prove, for Trumbull, a pen would prove to be a mightier weapon than any sword could hope to be.
Join or Die
John Trumbull’s reputation as a poet and satirist comes predominantly from his epic poem, M’Fingal. While at Yale he enthusiastically embraced the satire of the meteoric English poet, Charles Churchill.45 He also closely studied the satirical masterpiece by Samuel Butler, Hudibras. According to Leon Howard, “His most intimate friends were aware of of his talent for verse satire and his considerable skill ‘in the Hudibrastic.’”46 Yet Trumbull seemed somewhat reluctant at the outset. Adds Howard, to Trumbull:
Satire was justified under three circumstances: preservation of one’s self against personal injury, the protection of innocence against open malevolence or secret slander, and the defense of the public good against the vices of particular individuals.47
To the political observer, the question may arise, why was satire the chosen genre for so much political rhetoric? According to Annie Russell Marble, it is “because this form was then - and has been ever since one of the most effective weapons in literature.”48 It also was extremely effective because, in setting the argument at a typical town hall meeting, Trumbull was able to bring the war down to a level to which his entire audience could relate, much like what Thomas Paine accomplished with Common Sense. Trumbull’s time in Boston under John Adams’ tutelage brought him into the center of the political storm that was brewing in New England.49 It was here that in publishing one of his first works, “An Elegy on the Times”, he put himself squarely in Adams’ vision as an emerging talent to cultivate for the future of the cause. The following year, at the urging of Adams, John Hancock, and other patriot leaders, Trumbull began writing his magnum opus, M’Fingal. Marble suggests that Trumbull carefully crafted his characters:
M’Fingal, the Loyalist is a well-conceived and sustained character...In contrast was the character of Honorius, the staunch Whig, generally considered a portrait of John Adams...Honorius speaks boldly regarding the arrogance and injustice of England and her declining power.50
One gets a sense of Trumbull’s playful, yet effective satire in these lines from Canto One of M’Fingal:
—For ages blest, thus Britain rose,
The terror of encircling foes;
Her heroes rul'd the bloody plain;
Her conqu'ring standard aw'd the main;
Unharrass'd by maternal care,
Each rising province flourish'd fair;
Whose various wealth with lib'ral hand,
By far o'er-paid the parent-land.
But tho' so bright her sun might shine,
'Twas quickly hasting to decline,
With feeble rays, too weak t' assuage,
The damps, that chill the eve of age."
"For states, like men, are doom'd as well
Th' infirmities of age to feel;
"Thus now while hoary years prevail,
Good Mother Britain seem'd to fail;
Her back bent, crippled with the weight
Of age and debts and cares of state:
For debts she ow'd, and those so large
That twice her wealth could not discharge;
And now 'twas thought so high they'd grown,
She'd break, and come upon the town;
Her arms, of nations once the dread,
She scarce could lift above her head;
Grim Death had put her in his scroll,
Down on to the execution roll;51
Trumbull deftly bestows the name Honorius on the Whig protagonist to suggest that the Tory, M’Fingal, then must be less than “honorable.” Leon Howard theorizes that Trumbull actually created two protagonists, one for each side of the argument.52 In so doing, Trumbull gained credibility by satirizing both sides of the political aisle, although the Tories bore the brunt of Trumbull’s scorn. Trumbull’s gift for satire made M’Fingal the most popular poem of the Revolution, enjoying a run of more than thirty editions.53
Pick Your Poison: Too Much or Too Little Government?
Up to this point, this discussion has focused on the individual contributions of the Hartford Wits, yet their collaborative efforts produced some of their best work. Of these The Anarchiad is certainly worthy of notice. After Barlow replaced Cabot with Columbus on the pedestal of territorial prominence with The Vision of Columbus, Trumbull dismantled the Loyalists with M’Fingal, and Humphreys rallied the troops in his Address to the Armies of the United States of America, the end of the Revolutionary War would bring fleeting moments of tranquility, but lasting peace seemed yet another thing.
In writing in the Pleiades of Connecticut, an article from 1865, F. Sheldon noted:
The times looked gloomy. The nation, relieved from the foreign pressure which had bound the Colonies together, seemed tumbling to pieces; each State was an independent sovereignty, free to go to ruin in its own way. The necessity for a strong central government to replace English rule became evident to all judicious men…The Hartford Wits had fought out the war against King George; they now took up the pen against King Mob, and placed themselves in rank with the friend of order, good government, and union.54
It was in these uncertain times that the Hartford Wits stepped forward to produce their best collaborative political satire.
The years following the war found David Humphreys on diplomatic service in Europe. While there, he came across The Rolliad, a mock epic that savagely satirized the British government.55 When he returned to America in 1786, he came home to a country with astonishingly different attitudes. Gone was the optimism of a new day of freedom, replaced instead by pessimism and uncertainty about the government’s ability to protect its citizens’ natural rights of life, liberty and property. In light of this upheaval, Jefferson’s cautionary words from the Declaration about a nation “exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within” rang especially true.
After over a decade of economic inactivity due to the Revolutionary War and the preceding taxation struggles, the confederacy’s inability to settle its debts both to its soldiers and to foreign creditors was foremost on many minds.56 Moreover, the intentional weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation provided too little structure for the thirteen states who, like an adolescent for the first time out from under their parent’s control, were now ill prepared to experience unlimited freedom without a strong centralized government. In these turbulent times, Washington’s fears were understandable, that “the Articles were a recipe for anarchy in postwar America, destined to dissolve his legacy of American independence into a confused constellation of at best regional sovereignties, vulnerable to the predatory plans of hovering European powers,”57 seemingly waiting for this experiment in self-government to fail miserably. Washington wasn’t alone in his apprehension. For many of the aristocracy, anarchy seemed a very real threat.
This fear would come to bear as Humphreys was travelling from Mount Vernon to his home in Connecticut.58 A group of desperate farmers, in an all-too-familiar situation of having to forestall the loss of their property at the dispassionate hands of the taxman, took part in a protracted rebellion across western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays. Pressed back into military service, Colonel Humphreys commanded a regiment of federal troops to put down the uprising, which, after going on for nearly half a year, had caught the wary attention of many of the upper class. As similar protests broke out on a much smaller scale in Maine, New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, those who had amassed a fortune started to realize just how much they had to lose.59 Although Shays’ Rebellion disbanded at the first sign of federal troops, the die had been cast and much greater attention was given to what up to then had been merely a philosophical question as to the viability of the intentionally weak system of government under the Articles of Confederation.
Commenting on Washington’s views on the fragile state of the union, Joseph Ellis comments:
There is no question that Washington wanted the newly independent United States to become a republic in which consensus rather than coercion was the central political value. But he wanted that republic to cohere as a union rather than as a confederation of sovereign states. In his capacity as commander in chief, he could testify that the confederation model nearly lost the war. And if it persisted in its current form, he believed it would lose the peace.60
Amid famine, exposure and disease in a brutal winter at Valley Forge, Alexander Hamilton had witnessed first hand the folly of a government lacking the ability to decisively act. Regarding Hamilton’s post-war sentiments about the intentionally weak Articles, Ellis adds “By overcorrecting out of fears of despotism, they had carried the country in the opposite direction, which now verged on anarchy. This fear of political power per se had reached epidemic proportions.”61 Ellis further explains:
…(James) Madison had insisted that Shays’ Rebellion constituted just that crisis, interpreting the insurrection as symptomatic of looming anarchy or dissolution of the current confederation into a series of smaller sovereignties.…Madison stressed the horrific consequences that would ensue if and when the confederation imploded. “The question whether it is possible and worthwhile to preserve the union of the States must be speedily decided some way of other,” he wrote to (James) Monroe. “Those who are indifferent to the preservation would do well to look forward to the consequences of its extinction.”62
Luckily for Madison, help was on the way, but only if enough interest could be generated among the states and the people. Madison, Hamilton, and, to a lesser extent, John Jay, took the lead in propagating public support for a convention to examine what could be done to strengthen the Articles, or better yet, replace them with an entirely new political structure, featuring a strong central government. To do so would amount to essentially staging a second revolution, this time among a populace that was lukewarm on the idea at best. The three men accomplished this through the publication of a series of newspaper essays that would later become known as the Federalist Papers, as well as through other methods of more personal persuasion and social intercourse.63 Convincing Washington to attend the convention lent credibility to the proceedings, which helped convince the other undecided states that they should attend.64
Some of those attending the Constitutional Convention were more afraid of the loss of personal freedoms under too much government than they were of the instability of too little government. These detractors, known collectively as the Antifederalists, would become increasingly more vocal, especially as the Constitution was set before the states for ratification. Those in support of stronger centralized governance were called Federalists who counted among their number, most of the more recognizable and trusted men in America. They therefore had the upper hand and could rally the upper class. However, for the Federalist cause, much of the heavy lifting in swaying public opinion would be done by the Hartford Wits. In light of the ensuing struggle for the future direction of the nation, both sides could see that public opinion would need to be shaped, and that their efforts would help further define the emerging American identity.
Lehman and Nawrocki suggest that, in support of the Federalist cause:
The Wits began to get involved, collaborating on a long satire called The Anarchiad: A Poem on the Restoration of Chaos and Substantial Night. They were worried that the new obsession with individual freedom would lead to a breakdown of society in which “every rogue shall literally do what is right in his own eyes.” And where would this lead? Back to tyranny as it so often does.65
Recalling from his time in England the impact of the satirical poem, The Rolliad, Colonel Humphreys proposed using a similar strategy to lampoon those obstructing the ratification of the Constitution. He enlisted the help of his friends, Barlow, Hopkins, Trumbull and others to accomplish this. They brought to focus the dangers and inconsistencies of life under the old Articles while trumpeting the advantages of the new Constitution, all the while taking “a prophetic view of the stormy future, if thirteen independent states should divide this territory between them.”66
A few excerpts from The Anarchiad follow, highlighting some of the rhetoric employed by Humphreys, et al. In response to the perils stemming from such lawlessness as Shays’ Rebellion, the poem begins with the character, Chaos, harkening back to a figure mentioned in the close of Alexander Pope’s masterful satire, The Dunciad:
Lo, THE COURT FALLS; th’ affrighted judges run,
Clerks, Lawyers, Sheriffs, every mothers’ son.
The stocks, the gallows lose th’ expected prize,
See the jails open, and the thieves arise.
Thy constitution, Chaos, is restor’d,
Law sinks before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand unbars th’ unfathomed gulf of fate,
And deep in darkness whelms the new-born state.67
And in Federalist verse that echoes with Join or Die, the rallying cry of the Sons of Liberty, the poem paints this vibrant picture of centralized government:
But know, ye favor’d race, one potent head
Must rule your States, and strike your foes with dread,
The finance regulate, the trade control,
Live through the empire, and accord the whole
Ere death invades, and night’s deep curtain falls,
Through ruined realms the voice of UNION calls;
On you she calls! Attend the warning cry:
YE LIVE UNITED, OR DIVIDED DIE68
It is unfortunate that the Hartford Wits have faded somewhat from the purview of modern historians because it is difficult to fully ascertain the effectiveness of The Anarchiad as well as their other individual works in swaying public support for ratification of the Constitution. However, returning to correspondence of the times, their impact takes on a surprisingly higher degree of importance, not only with regard to ratification, but more importantly in creating a new American identity. Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, a secondary member of the Wits, wrote in regard to The Anarchiad, that in Connecticut, the poem had “given a considerable check to a certain kind of popular intrigue in this state.”69 Moreover, Humphreys, in correspondence with Washington, relates “I would have sent you several of the late papers …which contained performances written by Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Barlow, & myself, in a style and manner, I believe somewhat superior to common newspaper publications: but the demand has been so uncommonly great for those papers (in which The Anarchiad had been published) that there is not a single one to be obtained. In some instances, the force of ridicule has been found of more efficacy than the force of argument, against the Anti-federalists…It was pleasant enough to observe how some leading Men, of erroneous politics, were stung to the soul by shafts of satire.”70 Frank Landon Humphreys speaks of the success that The Anarchiad enjoyed because it “…was extensively copied. It at once attracted attention and was read by men of all political parties.” To this end, “The Anarchiad more than served its turn. It did much to hearten the supporters of good government and to render the views of its opponents ridiculous.” Humphreys reported its effectiveness in a letter to Washington “Pointed ridicule is found to be of more efficacy than serious argumentation.”
It is at this juncture of American history that the American identity begins to take on a sense of unity, as for many citizens the perception of the term “United States” evolves into a singular, rather than a plural noun.71 And yet, in choosing to emulate the mock epic that had proven so effective in English politics in the first decades after the Glorious Revolution as the form for their poetic satire, the Hartford Wits had unfortunately chosen a genre that was already on the wane in Europe. Somewhat ironically, while seeking to make the greatest impact, they greatly hindered the credibility of The Anarchiad, and most of the Wits’ individual bodies of work, both for European readers and for those of the modern age. To quote Eric Lehman, “unfortunately, almost all literature based on politics becomes of the moment rather than immortal, personal rather than universal.”72
Passing the Baton
And so, in closing, returning to my original preoccupation with why history has forgotten the Hartford Wits, and whether, reconsidered for their political rather than artistic contributions, they might occupy a more prominent place among modern scholars’ considerations, it is helpful to see the Wits as the fledgling country’s first literary movement. Eric Lehman astutely observes:
Although they seem obvious choices for American Literature classes or anthologies, as either early examples of satire, or simply as the literature of the Revolution, few teachers or editors follow a scrupulous model of literary progression. They usually skip directly from Jonathan Edwards’s sermons and Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography to the 19th century as if the years between were too full of debate and violence to produce literature other than the “creative nonfiction” of Thomas Jefferson.73
In fact, Lehman also notes that Trumbull’s M’Fingal was once a common piece of satirical verse taught in classrooms for the better part of 50 years, until eventually being replaced by Longfellow’s Hiawatha.74 Clearly, American literature did not go on hiatus during the most formative years of our founding. In fact, the Wits were merely the first wave in a succession of American literary contributors. Following on their footsteps was the Knickerbocker Club, which today rings a bell a little less muffled than that that harkens from Hartford, but still far from the top of most historians’ minds. When one considers that this secondary literary movement featured such luminaries as James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving, they emerge much more fully from obscurity, leaving the Wits far in the shadowy past.75 The reasons for the Wits‘ fall from prominence are many.
First, while we can all agree that as each successive generation of educators comes forth, the content that supports the subject matter changes to accommodate their personal tastes, these substitutions should not supersede the historical record. Perhaps an appreciation of the Hartford Wits as the first wave of American poets and writers might help to introduce their works back into the conversation.
As noted before, to those looking solely through the artistic lens, dismissing their poetry as tedious or unsophisticated is easily done. Yet Annie Russell Marble correctly asserts that their contributions were not offered in the spirit of works of art:
the style is often crude and bombastic. The beginnings of aesthetic culture in the later Colonial decades seemed to have suffered a serious interruption. The verse of the Revolution was inspired by no devotion to the fine arts, but rather was a vile weapon for the ridicule of enemies and the encouragement of soldiers in the wearisome conflict.76
Perhaps part of the problem lies in the personal responses of educators and historians when encountering the poetry of the Wits, especially given the length and structure of the mock epic, which has long since faded from prominence. Lehman acknowledges:
I have to admit that most of the Wits’ poetry is simply not to my personal taste…the question should be, not why don’t we like the poetry of the Wits today, but why did the people of that time appreciate it? How did it influence others? What were its successes and failures? How does it shine a light on past and future literature?77
Once sensible questions like these begin to be posed in today’s classrooms, a more accurate light to be shone not just on the Wits, but the true political tenor of these crucial times will emerge. Moreover, in shifting the conversation from the Language Arts to the History classroom, they may finally be seen as lesser known but every bit as influential Founding Fathers. Our students can only benefit from historical inquiry on this scale.
Another point of consideration, touched upon earlier, is the fleeting nature of political satire in that it must speak to the times in which the intended audience is living. And yet, as Lehman and Nawrocki put it, “Unfortunately, almost all literature based on politics becomes of the moment rather than immortal, personal rather than universal.”78 Because political writing has such a limited shelf life, to fully grasp its intent one has to delve deep into the record to bring meaning to the barbs and references contained therein. However, again, the effort expended can bring new meaning to our students’ understanding of the past.
And so, even though, regrettably, some modern critics may wish to overlook the cultural and historic contributions of the Hartford Wits, this unit will hopefully, in some small way, begin to turn the spotlight back towards a more favorable and appreciative treatment of these early poet-patriots. It is hoped that students will come to a better appreciation of these passionate men who, despite their perceived lack of poetic sophistication, more than made up for this with a patriotic zeal that would help stoke the fires of the early independence and Federalist movements and forge a new American identity far removed from the Colonists’ perceived modest beginnings as insignificant English provincials. Perhaps Marble most deserves the final word: “In a survey of this dawning literature, we must confess that it was immature as well as sincere, that the crudities of form often hide the true merit.”79
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