Harlow Giles Unger (1931–2025)

This is the real (as opposed to commonly taught) story of the Boston Tea Party and the network of greed, smuggling, bribery, and personal vendettas that provided the impetus to the American Revolution. Truly, if you want to believe in the sanctity of the pursuit of liberty and freedom from tyranny that allegedly motivated the Founding Fathers, this is a book you should avoid. Unger, a respected historian, documents in this carefully written history the way in which, as he writes: "…many show more were ready to sacrifice their honor as human beings – and the blood of innocents – by disguising their struggle for wealth as a quest for liberty for the common man.”

Unger reveals that the problem the Bostonians had with taxation issues and writs of assistance (or search warrants) was that they interfered with the huge smuggling operations which had been making them exceedingly rich. The purpose of the smuggling was to avoid paying any tax or duties to the Crown.

As an example, Unger points out that at the time of the passage of the inflammatory Molasses Act of 1733, rum was New England’s most popular drink. To make it, New England merchants smuggled an estimated 1.5 million gallons of molasses a year. They should have paid 37,500 pounds in duties for this molasses, which amounted to only three percent of their gross revenues. The proposed six-pence-per-gallon duty would have cut their gross profits from 1,200 percent to 1,161.5 percent! This is what caused Bostonians to get so incensed about their “natural right” to import cheap, duty-free molasses from the French, Spanish, and Dutch West Indies! (And it was so cheap, of course, because it was produced by slave labor.)

The Americans, it should be noted, still expected the British to support and protect the colonies, but just not with their money. Moreover, the colonists also wanted to retain the right to sell supplies to the countries with which Britain was at war, including France, even when Britain and France were fighting in America!

When the French and Indian War began in 1754 (started after an order to fire on the French by then twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington), the British, who lost thousands of men in America over the course of the next seven years, discovered that French forces were kept well-supplied in spite of being separated from their homeland by an ocean that was controlled by the British navy. Astonishingly, most of their supplies were British! The supplies were smuggled to Newfoundland by American merchants. As Unger observes, "Clearly, many merchants in Massachusetts had prolonged the war by smuggling essential goods to French forces, not only undermining the British military effort but depriving the British treasury of revenues to help pay for the war.”

This is the reason that William Pitt, in the British government, demanded that Parliament pass an act allowing customs officers to obtain writs of assistance to search and seize without specifying in advance specifically for what they were searching.

Parliament also hoped to stop the new practice of bribing customs officials to overlook the mislabeling of shiploads of molasses, a technique to ensure the shipments would be duty-free. The practice worked so well that colonists soon expanded their operations to include a wide range of other dutiable goods including tea. The ensuing wave of smuggling enabled the merchants to amass enormous wealth and power, while the British treasury suffered huge loses, and as Unger writes, “duty-free smuggling soon metamorphosed into one of the basic human rights afforded to all Americans.”

Meanwhile, at the end of the French and Indian War, colonists began to move west into land that was owned by Indians according to treaties made with the British. Both sides fought one another, and both demanded protection by the British. The French and Indian War had left the British government badly in debt, however, even while colonial merchants had reaped fortunes from it. Some 40,000 English were in debtor’s prisons and there were anti-tax riots across the country. The British Prime Minister felt he had no choice but to try and enforce tax collection in the colonies. There were, after all, some 10,000 British regulars guarding the western frontier, and the British navy protected the eastern coast. But Boston merchants, intoxicated by wealth and inflamed by the ideas of the new philosophers on the Continent such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau “(“Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains”) seized upon the idea of “natural rights” and ran with it. (Rousseau, Unger explains, was not talking about the right not to support the necessary sacrifice of some individual liberties in order to support the social contract, but colonists preferred a selectively understood version.)

And thus Bostonians ranted and raved about “taxation without representation,” even though in truth, Boston itself limited voting to “freeholders” – the wealthiest, most influential white, propertied males. Only about four percent of their own population was allowed to vote!

There were other complications. For instance, both Samuel Adams, Jr. and James Otis, Jr. (later declared insane), the two biggest agitators in Boston, had personal grudges against the British government fueling their passion. In fact, of James Otis, it was later said that he “provided the ‘spark’ that kindled the conflagration that eventually engulfed Boston.” Otis had earlier sworn that if his father was not appointed justice of the superior court in Massachusetts, “he would do all the mischief he could to the government [and] would set the province in a flame if he died in the attempt.” Samuel Adams had been humiliated when his father lost a great deal of money trying to make more, in a paper currency scheme. Young Sam was forced to endure a humiliating demotion in social rank at Harvard. He, also, was reported willing to “commit any crime” to overthrow the British government.

In the end, on top of everything else, the very issues for which the Tea Party leaders had fought were only made worse by their actions: "…the revolution they had helped foment not only failed to end taxation, it forced the new, independent state governments to tax more heavily than the British had proposed or would ever have conceived of proposing.”

The states now had to support their own governments and provide for their own defense. They couldn’t steal arms, ammunition, and materiel from the British. The states were soon facing bankruptcy and antitax riots.

John Hancock, the first governor of Massachusetts, resigned in 1785 rather than deal with the issue of a bankrupt state with no options but taxation. He had amassed a great deal of wealth and political power from smuggling operations during the French and Indian War. But he was one of the few of the Tea Party originals who tried to stay true to his principles [sic].

James Bowdoin, a rich friend of Sam Adams who helped write inflammatory pamphlets and “who seldom let facts stand in the way of his conclusions” was elected to succeed Hancock in 1785. He quickly intuited that there was no recourse but to raise taxes to cope with the enormous state debts from the Revolutionary War. He ended up coping with Shays’ Rebellion instead.

Sam Adams, the one-time arch enemy of taxation, served as governor of Massachusetts from 1793 until 1797. He now insisted taxes must be paid, declaring that “The man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.”

Discussion: I felt like I was reading a young adult novel. The greedy, rebellious kids learn that Mom and Dad weren’t so bad after all, and that their parents actually knew what they were talking about from time to time. But in this story, when the kids grew up, they got control of the teaching of the family history, and created myths to make themselves look good in spite of a lot of evidence to the contrary.

Evaluation: This is a “must read” for serious students of American history. Unger’s style is quite accessible and even though he goes into great detail, these are characters with whom most of us are familiar, so I don’t think the specifics are onerous. show less

Are You Smelling What I’m Stepping In?

Thanks to the blessing I have of working in the Young Adult Program with addicts 18 to 25, I am privy to the latest, hippest, and most advanced slang on the planet. True, I typically understand only 6 to 17% of it, but that’s not important now.
What is important is that my current favorite way to ask if someone understands the concepts, relationships, and theories I am espousing at the time is to inquire, “Are you smelling what I’m stepping show more in?” If nothing else I at least have their attention.

Lately, my attention has been captive to Harlow Giles Unger’s biography of John Quincy Adams. Speaking to a room of Nobel Prize winners, nominees, and their guests, President Kennedy said, “I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House. I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” The only possible challenge to JFK’s assertion is John Quincy Adams.

The list of achievements by John Quincy Adams, the staggering breadth of his expertise, places the horizon of President Adams’ accomplishments far past the vision all that followed him. Only one or two of President Adams successors in the Oval office could demonstrate a comparable range of knowledge, Theodore Roosevelt for example, but even then they remained in more shallow waters. While we have been blessed to have as our leaders great patriots and men with a searing passion for our republic, Adams’ dedication was born while just a boy as he saw first hand the awful grip of tyranny, and the horrible cost of freedom bought through 18th century warfare. Undress your understanding of the world to that of a third grade boy, and imagine what his heart must have felt as his eyes witnessed Bunker Hill.

His service began with observing the birth of our country, and those who labored as midwives including Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, not to mention his father, and the nation’s second president, John Adams. The life given in service ended when a stroke claimed him on the floor of the House of Representatives. Though no one knew it that day, he stood on the floor with a young Congressman from Illinois who would save the union from the cancer that could not be removed before it’s birth, and in rescuing the adolescent nation, become her greatest president.

Many argue about the merit of such high praise given to John Quincy Adams, but there are two facts which seem contested by none. The integrity of Mr. Adams was above question, and when an honest broker was needed to find compromise, all eyes, friend and political foe alike, turned to the trusted eyes of John Quincy Adams. The second fact, also not disputed by his contemporaries is that John Quincy Adams was possibly the most arrogant and caustic son-of-a-bitch to ever stand within eye sight of the White House. Most of the political failures he experienced were caused by his own patronizing and belittling attitude.

Governance and diplomacy each came with a structure, an understanding, a set a rules that gave cover to the disdain Mr. Adams so often expressed for lesser men, men lacking his intellect and skill like a mint covers bad breath. Without that cover the stench of his arrogance kept folks at `such a distance they could know little else about him. To tell a group of people who, less than 50 years earlier, inspired by words like “Give me liberty or give me death!”, were willing to stand against the most skilled military on the planet that Congress should not be "palsied by the will of our constituents" is just plain stupid.

Even then, Adams continued to find a place of service to his country, and to others regardless of the expense to his family, his reputation, and even his health. Mr. Unger’s work allows us to appreciate all aspects of Mr. Adams, even his arrogance, and acknowledge and understand the gifts of a man whose skill, intellect, persistence and love of freedom were given to in the fullest, even to his very last breath. show less

Full disclosure here – according to the family genealogist, Benjamin Rush was an ancestor (great-great-great-great grandfather on my mother’s side). Without that apparent connection, it’s doubtful that I would ever have heard of him, let alone been interested in reading this biography. Turns out he was a man of apparently limitless energy, considerable accomplishment, and (if one reads between the lines) capable of being a tremendous pain in the ass.

Author Harlow Giles Unger may be show more forgiven for waxing panegyrical in describing Rush’s accomplishments. Rush signed the Declaration of Independence (along with 55 other delegates), was involved in drafting the Constitution, and even suggested “Common Sense” to writer Thomas Paine for Paine’s pamphlet arguing for independence from England. He hung out with the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, maintaining frequent correspondence with most of them throughout his lifetime. In addition, Rush was a staunch abolitionist who supported equal rights for women, public education, and prison reform, but opposed capitol punishment. He railed against the production and use of tobacco and alcohol and was involved in the establishment of the African Episcopal Church. In his “spare time”, he practiced and taught medicine, running free clinics for the poor in Philadelphia, produced medical textbooks which remained standard references for decades, and instigated the treatment of mental illness as a disease, essentially inventing the medical specialty now known as psychotherapy. And found time to sire 13 children.

He was also incredibly stubborn and overweeningly proud of his medical achievements, clinging tenaciously to the ancient practice of bleeding and purging for virtually every medical condition while at the same time enthusiastically promoting the use of vaccination against smallpox, lashing out in print and in the lecture hall in support of his beliefs.

In addition to painting a vivid picture of this complicated man, Unger provides occasional side trips through the general history of colonial and post-colonial America. Perhaps the most stunning of these involves the oft-repeated tale of the terrible suffering undergone by Washington’s troops at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777. Most Americans have heard the story of the men literally going barefoot in the snow; few realize that much of the privation came about because supplies and provisions intended for the army were diverted by members of a largely corrupt quartermasters’ corps and sold on the private market.

The book’s 249-page length keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, and the extensive appendices provide plenty of trails for the avid amateur historian to follow. Readers interested in the early history of the nation will find it a worthwhile read – even without a family connection. show less

American history tends to emphasize the lives of a select group of Founding Fathers and largely ignore others. Benjamin Rush falls into the latter category, but as Unger documents, this neglect is unjustified.

Benjamin Rush was born on December 24, 1745, near Philadelphia. He completed medical training at the University of Edinburgh, and practiced for a while in London, where he became friends with Benjamin Franklin. When he returned to Philadelphia to work, his ties to Franklin helped him show more establish relationships with many leading thinkers in the American colonies.

Rush encouraged Thomas Paine to write the pamphlet, “Common Sense,” suggested the title to Paine, contributed ideas for its contents, and helped distribute it. Rush was one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, an act of treason at that time that could have gotten him executed.

In 1776 at age 31, Rush married 16-year-old Julia Stockton, with whom he eventually fathered 13 children, although four died shortly after birth. (One of his sons, Richard, born in 1780, later served in the cabinets of James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Zachary Taylor.) Since Rush was away a lot on either medical or political duties, much of what we know of his life comes from his voluminous correspondence with Julia.

During the Revolutionary War, Rush clashed with just about everyone in power over the need for better medical supplies and treatment of injured soldiers, but since George Washington couldn’t even get clothes or food for the troops, “luxuries” such as medical care inevitably fell by the wayside.

Rush was a devout Presbyterian, and his religious faith led him to join the abolitionist movement in Philadelphia, and to help raise money for the African Episcopal Church of Philadelphia.

Unger apprises us that Rush made a great deal of innovations in medicine in the early years of America, including a campaign to treat mental conditions as illnesses rather than crimes (Rush was later dubbed the “father of American psychiatry” by the American Psychiatric Association); a push for geriatric medicine; and encouragement of veterinary medicine, inter alia. He fought for better conditions in prisons, more sanitation in city streets, education for women, and free medical care for the poor. He was appointed to a professorship to the Philadelphia Medical School (which later merged with the University of Pennsylvania Medical School), and wrote the first American chemistry textbook (one of over 85 publications, not including letters and essays).

Rush met John Adams in 1774 and they became close friends, despite the fact that Rush was also close to Jefferson - Adams's ideological opposite, whom Rush met in 1775. Late in life, Rush convinced Jefferson and Adams to reconcile and to begin to correspond with one another again.

Unger spends a great deal of time in the book on Rush’s devotion to the practice of bloodletting for the treatment of just about anything, but especially yellow fever, which was particularly a problem in the hot Philadelphia summers. Rush drew an association between pools of stagnant water and the disease, but had no idea it was the mosquitoes drawn to the water that caused the malady; rather, he thought it was due to inhaling the bad air from the stagnant water. Nevertheless, by his advocacy for better city sanitation, he inadvertently helped eliminate some mosquito breeding grounds. But his obsessive push for bleeding as well as purging of the bowels through calomel (a mercury compound) garnered him vociferous opponents. This “depletion therapy” was based on his belief that all diseases were caused by friction between the blood and blockage of bile in the intestines. Rush was dogmatic, determined, and convinced he had been chosen by God to save people.

An article for the Lancaster Pennsylvania Medical Heritage Museum by Eli Schneck notes:

“His excessive bloodletting and heroic purges with calomel were so extreme that his patients died before they showed signs of mercury poisoning, leading him to believe that people were dying of the disease instead of prescription cure.”libel suit against Cobbett.

He thereby survived (however unjustifiably) the attacks on his credibility and continued to teach depletion theory as standard medical practice. Schneck writes:

“As a gifted lecturer and prolific writer, his theory of medicine spread across the United States and Western Europe. He influenced over 3,000 students at the College of Philadelphia Medical School over the course of his 40 years of teaching. His students and writings are responsible for the infamous heroic age of medicine where patients were bled and purged with a ferocity and horror never seen before in medicine.”

Thus, in 1799, when former President George Washington became ill with an acute respiratory illness, his death was hastened by the removal of over eighty ounces of blood (some 40% of the total blood composition) from his body.

Rush died on April 19, 1813, of “typhus,” which in those days was a rather generic term and could have been pneumonia.

Evaluation: Rush’s legacy is interesting and complex. Unger obviously admires Rush a great deal. But as Baylor Medical Professor Robert North opined:

“Benjamin Rush has been hailed as 'the American Sydenham' [Thomas Sydenham was an influential English physician in the 1600s], 'the Pennsylvania Hippocrates,' the 'father of modern psychiatry,' and the founder of American medicine. The American Medical Association erected a statue of him in Washington, DC, the only physician so honored. A medical school is named after him. He was a prolific and facile writer and a very influential teacher. Yet, the only enduring mark he has left on the history of American medicine is his embarrassing, obdurate, messianic insistence, in the face of all factual evidence to the contrary, on the curative powers of heroic depletion therapy. Rush's thinking was rooted in an unscientific revelation as to the unitary nature of disease, which he never questioned. He viewed nature as a treacherous adversary to be fought on the battleground of his patients' bodies.”

It is presumably because of his controversial medical career that his many contributions to the early political development of the country have been overlooked. Thanks to Unger, a prolific historian of the founding fathers, this omission may be remedied. show less