Jeremiah Wynkoop -- I.
Jeremiah Wynkoop -- I.

An Alleged 'Manuscript'

    In 1927 Carl Becker-a first rate historian who also had a rare flair for storytelling--gave a lecture on "The Spirit of '76" which has become something of a classic.
    More effectively than economic analysis or philosophical argument, this dramatized chronicle showed the slowly changing viewpoint of middle class merchants in Revolutionary times and why they finally lined up with the radicals.
    In his introduction, Professor Becker protested to the students at the Robert Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government that he didn't have "any clear notion of what was meant by the phrase 'Spirit of '76.'" But he told them he had managed to fulfill the assigned topic by rummaging among some old papers.
    "I came upon an old and imperfect manuscript," he declared solemnly, "which seemed providentially designed to throw some light on this obscure subject. The manuscript bore the date of 1792, but who may have written it I was unable to determine. There are obviously some pages missing, and the tale ends suddenly as if never quite finished. But such as it is I have transcribed it, and I give it to you for what it may be worth. The title of the manuscript is 'Jeremiah Wynkoop.'"
    With the permission of the Brookings Institution, The Christian Science Monitor is reprinting Professor Becker's imaginative and illuminating essay. It appears in three parts, of which this is the first. 1

Bell Ringer.

Understanding Our Freedoms 8

    With this page we begin a three-part analysis of the Spirit of '76 as seen through the eyes of Jeremiah Wynkoop, fictional merchant of the pre-Revolutionary period who symbolizes the stiffening resistance of the middle class and commercial elements to British domination.
    Meanwhile Bettina Barwell and the Garden City Reading Club continue their study of Sam Adams and his times--although not without some irritation arising among club members.

'Let Britain Repeal the Stamp Act.

'Let Britain Repeal the Stamp Act, as She Must Do,
and the Populace Will Be Quiet Enough'

Jeremiah Wynkoop -- I
__________

Illustrations by Gene Langley

                                                                                           New York City.
    During the war of independence I not infrequently heard zealous patriots say that Mr. Wynkoop was not as warm in the cause as he should be....
    I suspect that, in recalling the desperate days of the war, we are likely to invest the so-called spirit of '76 with a glamor which it did not have at the time. Be that as it may, I knew Jeremiah Wynkoop as an honest man and a genuine patriot. I was his closest friend, intimate enough to know better than most the difficulties that confronted him and the sentiments that determined his conduct.
    And so I think it worth while, now that the man is dead, to set down a plain tale of his activities and opinions from the beginning of the quarrel in 1763 to the final breach in 1776. This I do, not only for old friendship's sake and as a justification of Mr. Wynkoop, but as a contribution to the history of those troubled times; for Jeremiah Wynkoop was fairly representative, both in his station in life and in his opinions, of that considerable class of substantial men who did as much as any other class, and I think more than any other class, to enable these states to maintain their liberties against British tyranny.
    Born of rich middle class parents of genuine Dutch-American stock, Jeremiah was educated at Kings College, then recently established. In fact we both entered the college the year it was founded, and graduated with the first class in 1758. Jeremiah then spent two years in the office of William Moore reading law, a profession which he nevertheless abandoned for the trade.
    Taking over a profitable business upon the sudden death of his father, he rapidly achieved a notable success in commerce, chiefly in West Indian ventures, and was already known, in 1765, as a leading merchant in New York, where he had offices near the wharves, and a town house, inherited from his father, on the Bowling Green.
    But Jeremiah, being much given to study and the reading of books, preferred to live away from the distractions of the city, and had in fact for some years resided in the country, out Greenwich Village way, where he possessed a fine estate which had come to him as part of the generous dowry of his wife, the

Jeremiah Wynkoop.

daughter of old Nicholas Van Schoickendinck, a great landowner in the province.
    Mr. Wynkoop was much given to the reading of books, as I have said....

*     *     *

    The ancient civilization fascinated Jeremiah more than most of us, and I recall that he devoured every book on that subject which the college afforded, and many others which he bought or borrowed. "The Parallel Lives of Plutarch" he knew almost by heart, and was never weary of discanting on the austere morality and virtuous republicanism of those heroic times. For Jeremiah a kind of golden age was pictured there, a lost world which forever disappeared when Caesar crossed the Rubicon....
    But the story of modern times fascinated Jeremiah as much as the story of the ancient world because all its significance seemed to lie in the slow and painful emergence from that long mediaeval night, through the recovery of the wisdom of the ancients, the progress of natural philosophy, and the struggle for political liberty....
    All the significance of history appeared to Mr. Wynkoop to lie in the age-long conflict between truth and error, between freedom and oppression. And for this reason he opined that the central event of modern times was the struggle of the last century between the English people and the Stuart kings.
    With the history of that heroic time he was entirely familiar, and in a less degree I was too. Our heroes were Pym and Eliot, and John Hampden, imprisoned for refusing to pay a twenty shilling tax. Cromwell we admired as the man of iron who had forever laid the ghost of the Divine Right doctrine, and whose mistakes were later corrected by the liberal Whigs who called in Dutch William to replace the last of the Stuarts.
    We knew the great charters of liberty--the Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights. We knew our Milton, the man who defended the authority of elected magistrates, and erected an impregnable bulwark against the denial of free speech. We knew our Grotius, who had discovered in right reason the foundation of civil and international society.
    Above all we knew our Locke, and especially his second discourse on Civil Government, in which he so eloquently defended the Revolution of '88 as an act of reasonable men defending their natural rights against the usurping king who had broken the original compact.

*     *     *

    Much as Jeremiah admired England as the home of political liberty, he was thoroughly American, and it was always his idea that America had played a most notable part in the great modern struggle against the oppression of Church and State.
    He used to find great satisfaction in recalling that our ancestors, at the hazard of their lives and fortunes, had braved the terrors of the new world in pursuit of religious and political liberty; that they had persisted, often at the point of failure, in the desperate determination to transform the inhospitable wilderness into a land fit for human habitation; and he would point out that they had succeeded beyond any reasonable expectation, so much so that these thirteen colonies were now the most fortunate and the freest countries in the world--thirteen communities living in peace and content, happily without kings, neither burdened with an idle aristocracy nor menaced by a depraved populace, with a press uncensored, and many religious faiths deprived of the power of persecution and long habituated to the spirit of toleraion.
    For my part I used to complain sometimes that after all we were only "provincials," remote from the center of things. I used to express the wish that fate had set us down in London, nearer Piccadilly and the Beefsteak Club. But Jeremiah would have none of such repining. Provincials we might be in a geographical sense, he would say, but spiritually we were at "the center of the world, in the direct line of those heroes and martyrs who since the beginning of time have done battle for the dignity and happiness of mankind against the leagued assailants of both."
    Here some pages are missing in the manuscript. It goes on as follows....
    As I recall those early years, I must confess that we were somewhat perplexed, had a little the air of groping about in the dark for the precise provisions of the British Constitution. The spirit of the British Constitution we knew was to be found in the Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. Rights were indeed of its very essence; and to Mr. Wynkoop at least it was incredible that there was not to be found in it an adequate guarantee of the rights which Americans ought to enjoy....

*     *     *

    The Stamp Act, presenting the question more clearly, did much to clarify our ideas on the matter of American taxation; and certainly Mr. Wynkoop was never in doubt as to the unconstitutionality of that famous measure. In those days I was much at Mr. Wynkoop's house, and I remember one day in November, 1765, sitting with him and his father-in-law, old Nicholas Van Schoickendinck, discussing the state of the nation. Even old Nicholas had been startled out of his customary complacency by the furious excitement occasioned by the Stamp Act.
    "The Act is unconstitutional, sir," Mr. Wynkoop had just declared, somewhat dogmatically it must be confessed, and for perhaps the third time. "There can be no question about what I think. It is not only contrary to precedent, but is destructive of British liberty, the fundamental principle of which is that Englishmen may not be taxed without their own consent. We certainly never gave our assent to the Stamp Act."
    "I won't say no to that" old Nicholas remarked. "And if we had done no more than to protest the measure I should be well content."
    "Little good protests would have done, sir. We protested before the bill was passed, and without effect. Mr. Grenville would not hear our protests, and now he finds the act virtually nullified. I can't say I regret it."
    "Nullified!" Old Nicholas exclaimed with some asperity. "A soft word for a nasty business. Mr. Grenville finds his law 'nullified,' you say. But in getting the law nullified we get half the windows of the Broad Way smashed too, and Governor Colden gets his chariot burned. For my part I don't know what Mr. Colden's chariot had to do with the devilish stamps--it wasn't designed to carry them."

*     *     *

    "Very true, sir, I admit. And regrettable enough, all this parading and disturbance. But if Ministers will play with oppression the people will play with violence. Similar incidents occurred in England itself in the last century. Let Mr. Grenville beware of playing the role of Strafford. God knows I am no friend of rioting. I have windows too. But a little rioting may be necessary on occasion to warn ministers that legislative lawlessness is likely to be met by popular violence."
    Mr. Wynkoop had perhaps a little the air of talking to convince himself rather than old Nicholas. Old Nicholas at least was not convinced.
    "Tush!" he exclaimed irritably. "That's a new word, 'popular.' You young fellows have picked up a lot of precious democratical phrases; I must say. Who are 'the people' you talk so loosely about? Another word for 'populace' or I miss my guess. Don't delude yourself by supposing that it was hatred of the stamps that made them break Mr. Livingston's windows and burn Mr. Colden's chariot. They hate Mr. Livingston and Mr. Colden because they are men of substance and standing.
    "It is not windows they aim at but class privileges, the privileges of my class and yours, the class that always has, and I trust always will, govern this province. The bald fact is that a mob of mechanics and ne'er-do-wells, led by obscure fellows like John Lamb and Isaac Sears who have hitherto doffed their caps and known their places, are now aiming to control the city through their self constituted committees. Sons of Liberty, they call themselves; sons of anarchy, in fact.

*     *     *

    "I wish as much as you to preserve our liberties. But I warn you that liberty is a sword that cuts two ways, and if you can't defend your rights against ministerial oppression without stirring the 'people,' you will soon be confronted with the necessity of defending your privileges against the encroachments of the mob on the Bowling Green." ...
    "You don't associate with Mr. John Lamb, do you? You ain't one of the Liberty Boys who erect poles and break windows, I hope."
    Mr. Wynkoop laughed off the sarcasm.
    "Certainly not, sir. I don't know the fellow Lamb, never saw him in fact, although I am told, and believe, that he is an honest, worthy man. The danger you mention has of course occurred to me, but I think you probably, exaggerate it. Let Britain repeal the Stamp Act, as she must do, and the populace will be quiet enough."
    We sat until a late hour. I took but little

Nicholas Van Schoickendinck.

part in the discussion, enjoying nothing better than to listen to the good natured wrangling of these two friends. During the course of the evening each repeated, many times over, his former argument, all without rancor, but all equally without effect. Except in opinion, they were not divided....
    Again something missing from the manuscript.
    Mr. Wynkoop was therefore immensely relieved when the British Parliament finally repealed the hateful measure, thus at once justifying his conduct and restoring his confidence in the essential justice of Britain. He had now I recall, rather the better of the argument with Old Nicholas (the two were forever disputing) and pointed out to him ever so often that a little firmness on America's part was all that was needful to the preservation of her liberties.
    For two years he went about his business and pleasure with immense content. I dare say he easily forgot, as men will do, the distasteful incidents of the Stamp Act struggle, and allowed his mind to dwell chiefly on its satisfactions. He often spoke of the principle, "No taxation without representation," as being now fully established; often expressed his gratification that, by taking a firm and sensible stand, he and his substantial friends had brought Britain to recognize this principle....
    Mr. Wynkoop would not take the Declaratory Act seriously. It was, he said, no more than a bravely flying banner designed to cover a dignified retreat from an untenable position; and he had no fear that Britain, having confessed its error by repealing the Stamp Act, would ever again repeat it.

(To be continued.) 2


Sources:

    1. Anonymous, "An Alleged 'Manuscript'," The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Mass., Wednesday, 6 June 1956, p. 9.

    2. Becker, Carl, [With Illustrations by Gene Langley,] "Understanding Our Freedoms 8, Jeremiah Wynkoop -- I," The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Mass., Wednesday, 6 June 1956, p. 9.

Created July 13, 2005; Revised July 13, 2005
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