Virtue, Valor, & Vanity: The Founding Fathers And The Pursuit Of Fame, by Eric Burns

Those who have read the writings of the Founding Fathers have often understood that they were definitely posing for history, seeking to present their best face in their letters and editorials and other writings [1]. The author of this intriguing and entertaining book takes a look at the view of the Founding Fathers and the context of their fame, their relations with their peers, the development of American celebrity culture as a whole, and the origins and models of celebrity that the Founding Fathers modeled their lives after, namely the heroes of the Roman Republic. The title itself hints at a tension within the mindset of the Founding Fathers, that they wanted to be remembered, wanted to serve the people at large and also serve themselves, and that they were concerned about whether the people at their time and long afterward would remember them and give proper credit to them for their deeds, even as they enjoyed the company and respect of other famous people.

In terms of its organization and structure, the book is divided into three parts, like ancient Gaul. The first part of the book looks at the beginnings of celebrity in the Roman Republic, specifically in the writings of Cicero, and turns his attention to the celebrity status of Benjamin Franklin in Paris as well as the way that Americans behaved at home regarding fame. The second and longest portion of the book examines the ingredients of renown: ambition, vanity, modesty, jealousy, image, and myth, aspects that sat in tension with each other. Some of the founding fathers were more noted for some qualities than others. For example, John Adams was a particularly jealous man, his envy of others and his insecurity throbbing in his eloquent and tortured writings to his wise wife Abigail and his loyal and patient friends like Benjamin Rush, who helped him reconcile with Thomas Jefferson. The third part of the book looked at the last days of various famous men: Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, before giving an epilogue about the death of a man who did nothing to deserve fame and was famous more or less for being famous, the pointless celebrity Button Gwinnett, whose name graces one of Georgia’s counties. The lives and deaths of the founding fathers established patterns of American culture that continue to this day in our own culture of fame.

There is a lot to praise about this book. The book is only slightly over 200 pages and deals with a massively important subject, namely the way that the Founding Fathers wrestled with the tensions between their high view of character and their devotion to public service on the one hand and their transparently open vanity and desire to be seen as important by peers, by the commonfolk, and to attain immortality in memory by having lived in such a way that one could not be forgotten. In addition, the book is highly quotable, both in that the author is in command of the relevant primary texts in Roman and colonial history and quotes well, but also that the author himself has a highly quotable and elegant prose [2] that makes the book easy to read, even if it contains a great deal worthy of thinking upon. After all, to the extent that any of us are 18th century men (or women), modeling our own thoughts and expressions on the elegance and erudition of our forefathers, we too have to wrestle with the same tension between our own overweening ambition and our desire to serve, between our humility and modesty and our own vanity and desire to appear to be wise and good, between our desire to avoid shame and embarrassment and our desire for positive attention and even perhaps the adoration of others. We live our lives in contradictions, seeking to be remembered yet at the same time disparaging the negative aspects of the fame we so diligently, if surreptitiously, seek.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/book-review-the-intimate-lives-of-the-founding-fathers/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/book-review-a-leap-in-the-dark-2/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/you-will-remember-me-for-centuries/

[2] See, for example, the following quotes:

“Yet Cicero was not indiscriminate in his quest for those sweets. He wanted them badly but, in his view, justly, for the right reasons, for what he believed to be the most virtuous of causes. He wanted to be known for his support of the issues he thought important to the success of the Roman republic. He craved admiration for his vision of the republic’s future. It is what we would today call enlightened self-interest, the realization by a gifted individual that he could satisfy the cultural and political needs of his community at the same time that he satisfied the needs of his own ego. For this reason, the men who created the American republic looked on him as one of their own. Dryden’s opinion notwithstanding, Cicero’s character didn’t suffer in the least (9).”

“[Quoting Thomas Jefferson’s Dialogue Between The Head And The Heart] Head:…To avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are forever exposing us, you must learn to look forward before you take a step which may interest our peace (38).”

“Franklin didn’t educate himself for a successful career, which would have been ambitious in the conventional sense. Rather, he educated himself because learning was a joy to him, and he wanted to feel that joy as deeply as he could, expressing it to others, asking for and refuting information, always with the goal of adding to his storehouse of fact and opinion.

Franklin didn’t invent the armonica, bifocals, the Franklin stove, the lightning rod, the storage battery, and swim fins to impress others and amass a fortune. Instead, he invented because of the satisfaction of solving problems whose solutions had not only escaped others but would benefit others, too, and the further satisfaction of sharing his devices and the reasoning behind them with all who wanted to know and had tried to work out similar problems before. Again: to add to mankind’s storehouse of fact and learned opinion.

Franklin didn’t experiment with electricity, magnetism, and refrigeration to earn a place in the pantheon of world scientists–another example of conventional ambition. He experimented because of the thrill of discovery, and he could not help but show off those discoveries, to discuss them with people of similar interests, and to encourage them to make use of his theories and move beyond them. The progress of science mattered more than his personal gratification. He was effusive, tireless, but not premeditated enough to be called ambitious. He was who he was: a uniquely gifted and voluble human being. He could be introspective at times, but there was so much to pique his interest, demand his energy, reward his devotion–so much other than himself, outside himself. Introspection may well have seemed to him a form of selfishness.

Franklin’s accomplishments, combined with his ebullient nature, could not help but make him famous. He might have seemed full of himself at times, but he was brimming with perceptions

[3] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/elite-competition-and-the-decline-of-deference-in-late-18th-century-america/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/09/12/book-review-give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/the-constitution-writers/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/the-heart-wants-what-it-wants/