Not Your Father's Founders (27 page)

West Barnstable, Massachusetts
September 24,1728–October 19, 1814
Drama Queen

Mercy was raised at a time when families were either fierce Tories or patriots. There was no in between. The Otis family was decidedly in the patriot camp.

Her father, James Otis Sr., was adamantly opposed to King George III's policies, and he was outspoken against Massachusetts' governor, Thomas Hutchinson. His feelings rubbed off on his three children.

Mercy Otis's father believed fervently in the value of a solid education, especially for his sons. That turned out to be an advantage for her. James Sr. hired the Reverend Jonathan Russell to tutor her brothers to prepare them for entry into Harvard. Reverend Russell allowed Mercy to sit in on his lessons and use his library. It was not a formal education for Mercy, but it gave her a background that she used later to needle the British and support the patriots.

Marriage did nothing to change Mercy's political views. In fact, it strengthened her patriotic fervor. She married her second cousin, James Warren (no relation to Joseph or John Warren), in 1754. As a result, she developed strong friendships with the anti-British leaders of the rebellion in Massachusetts—and their wives. One of the women with whom Mercy Warren was closest was the considerably younger Abigail Adams. She was both mentor and friend to Abigail.

The Warrens hosted many meetings of the radicals in their home. Noted leaders such as John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock sought her advice on what to do and how to do it. As a result, she became an activist, rather than just a listener, an unusual position for a woman at the time.

Mercy wrote a series of pamphlets, poems, and plays to stir the hearts and minds of the people of Massachusetts. One of her favorite targets was Governor Hutchinson, whom her father and brothers had criticized vocally for many years.

Mercy was aware that she was upsetting many Tories because of her writings. That did not deter her. She also recognized the dangers the patriots faced by openly defying the British and all they could lose. The potential perils did not force her to stow her quill in the inkwell and leave it there.

Warren continued to write after the war ended and the country had settled down enough to concentrate on creating the Constitution and Bill of Rights. She published two poems in 1790, known collectively as “Poems Dramatic and Miscellaneous.” They were “The Sack of Rome” and “The Ladies of Castile.”

Mercy Otis Warren's best-known work was the three-volume
History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution
, which she finished in 1805.

Warren started writing a history of the Revolutionary War while it was in progress, when the events were fresh in her mind. It was not a successful commercial venture for her. She was one of the few people who paid a price for the book.

Publication cost her the friendships of John and Abigail Adams, albeit temporarily, and upset friends and readers because of the way she portrayed some of the patriots.

Even though Mercy favored independence, she was not sold on the need for a U.S. Constitution. Neither was her husband. Warren resorted to her pen to campaign against the Constitution. She stated her objections in a 1788 document,
Observations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions
. Following the custom of the time, she signed it with a pen name, “A Columbian Patriot.” For a time, people believed that it had been written by Elbridge Gerry.

Once she learned that her protests were being ignored, she campaigned to have equal rights for women included in the Constitution. That fell on deaf ears, too.

Mercy's history book was her last significant publication. She continued her correspondence with friends and family between then and 1814, when she died. One of her final achievements was to mend her rift with John and Abigail Adams.

Mercy Otis Warren died at eighty-six. Death, however, did not silence her voice. It is still being heard through her numerous writings two centuries later.

Westmoreland County, Virginia
February 22, 1732–December 14, 1799
Four Bullets and Two Dead Horses

It was a common practice among wealthy Virginians in the early 1700s to send their sons to England to receive an education. George Washington was an exception. He was trained as a surveyor. He spent a large part of his young adult years surveying Lord Thomas Fairfax's land in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and fighting Indians in the French and Indian War.

Washington honed his military leadership skills during that war, which served him in good stead in the years to come.

By 1759, Washington had had enough of surveying and fighting. He went home to Mount Vernon to tend to his lands in peace and marry Martha Dandridge Custis. His marriage was peaceful; his domestic life was not.

Washington could not ignore the British tax and legislative policies aimed at the colonies. As a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, he was in a position to fight against them, which he did throughout the 1760s and early 1770s. The fight became literal in 1775.

Virginia elected George Washington as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. His stay was short. He took his seat on May 10, 1775. On June 15, he walked out as the commander in chief of the Continental Army after John Adams urged Congress to appoint him to the post.

Even though Washington had never commanded anything larger than a regiment, he found himself in charge of an army of sorts. Leading it into battle was one thing; keeping it fed and supplied was another. That became his biggest challenge throughout the Revolutionary War, starting at the siege of Boston.

Washington had his ups and downs after he arrived in Boston on July 3, 1775, to take command. He suffered a series of losses early in the war that made the patriots wonder if he was indeed the right man for the job. Washington had to fight political battles in addition to military skirmishes, though more than anything he longed to be home at Mount Vernon with a life free of strife and war.

Washington survived all the hardships of the war and finally vanquished his British opponent by following a simple strategy: Avoid direct combat with the enemy whenever possible.

Washington, like so many of his peers, was disappointed with the Articles of Confederation that had been drafted in 1776–77 as the nation's first Constitution. He came out of retirement in 1787 to oversee the national convention formed to write a new Constitution. Once again he got more than he had signed up for. In 1789 he was elected to the first of his two terms as president of the United States.

Washington's second stint as commander in chief—this time of a nation rather than an army—was no easier than his first. It was similar in one respect: The position required a great deal of on-the-job training.

One of the problems Washington experienced was the formation of an opposition party. He envisioned a strong republic governed by one independent party. But Jefferson helped form the Democratic-Republican Party, and Alexander Hamilton spearheaded the creation of the Federalist Party, which Washington supported but never joined officially.

Despite the emergence of the two-party system and the challenges it posed for his policies, Washington oversaw significant domestic and foreign growth for the United States during his two terms.

He kept the United States neutral in a war in Europe that began in 1793, opened western lands, initiated the construction of a national infrastructure, supported Alexander Hamilton's plans for a national bank and a viable system of taxation, issued the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation … and that's just for starters.

By the time Washington left office on March 4, 1797, he had set the United States on a course of stability and growth and created a foundation on which it could thrive. He earned his reputation as “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen”—although not everyone agreed.

Again, Washington retired. Again, his country called. His successor as president, John Adams, appointed him on July 4, 1798, as a lieutenant general and commander in chief “of the armies raised or to be raised for service in a prospective war.” He served in that capacity until December 14, 1799—the day he died.

Washington's death left a void in the United States that was hard to overcome. The country erected a monument in his honor in Washington, D.C., that stands as a testimony to all he did to support the United States. His reputation as the “Father of His Country” is monument enough.