Episode 582: Founding Fathers – John Hancock

The lives of these men are essential to understanding the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in the securing of American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
On this episode of Newtsworld. As part of Founding Fathers Week,
I'm talking about the lives and legacies of our original
founders and the impact they've had in our country on
this episode of Newtsworld. John Hancock was an American founding father, merchant, statesman,

(00:23):
and prominent patriot of the American Revolution. He served as
President of the Second Continental Congress and was the first
and third governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and perhaps
he has remembered best because of his huge signature of
the Declaration of Independence. He also signed the Articles of
Confederation and used his influence to ensure that Massachusetts ratified

(00:48):
the United States Constitution in seventeen eighty eight. Hancock had
a fascinating life. He was the son and grandson of ministers.

(01:11):
Born January twelfth, seventeen thirty seven, he was sort of
destined to become a minister. However, his life changed when
Hancock was seven years old after his father died and
his mother, brother, and sister went to live with his
grandparents in Lexington, Massachusetts. Hancock's stay in Lexington, who was
brief as his grandfather sent him to Boston to live

(01:34):
with his uncle Thomas and aunt Lydia, who had no
children of their own. They wanted to him a better
schooling to prepare him for Harvard College. His uncle was
one of the richest merchants in Boston and lived in
a mansion on top of Beacon Hill. Hancock attended Boston
Latin School and graduated from Harvard in seventeen fifty four

(01:54):
at the age of seventeen. Instead of following his late
father and grandfather's footsteps, Hancock returned to his uncles to
work in his merchant business, and notice he was graduating
younger than many Americans today enter college. When his uncle
died in seventeen sixty five, Hancock, who was twenty seven
years old at the time, inherited his uncle's entire fortune

(02:18):
and the merchant business. Now, Hancock was actually more interested
in politics than in business, and in seventeen sixty five
he was elected as a Selectman of Boston when the
British government passed the Stamp Act. Initially, Hancock was not
opposed to the act, but after witnessing the protest in Boston,
he changed his mind. He then started participating in the

(02:40):
protest by boycotting the importation of British goods and that
made him popular with people in Boston. In seventeen sixty six,
Samuel Ladam has voiced his public support for Hancock, which
helped him get elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
And by the way, that must have been quite a
contrast between the oratory of Samuel Adams and the merchant

(03:03):
background of Hancock made him quite a pair as allies.
When Parliament passed the Towns Enact, colonists began smuggling goods
to avoid paying taxes, which caused British ships to illegally
search and seize ships. In April seventeen sixty eight, a
British customs agent illegally boarded Hancock's boat Liberty, and it

(03:25):
tells you a little bit psychologically about where Hancock's coming
from that he would name his ship Liberty. Hancock demanded
to see warrants authorizing the search, and when the official
was unable to produce the documents, he was asked to leave.
On May ninth, seventeen sixty eight, Hancock's ship came into
port with Madeira wine, and customs officials again visited his boat,

(03:48):
but this time they had the proper warrants. The ship
was loaded onto the dock, and Hancock paid the customs fee,
but the officials thought that his shipment of wine twenty
five casks, which was about a quarter of what the
ship could hold, seemed too small, and speculated that he
had smuggled some of the wine before coming into port.

(04:09):
A month later, on June ninth, seventeen sixty eight, Thomas Kirk,
the customs official who boarded Hancock's boat a month earlier,
changed his initial story and accused Hancock of offering him
a bribe. He claimed that Hancock offered him several casks
of wine if he told the British government that his
ship only contained twenty five casks, so that he could

(04:30):
avoid paying the fee. He insisted that he did not
take the bribe, but Hancock's captain, John Marshall, had threatened
him if he ever told the truth. John Harrison, the
official collector of the port, brought Kirk's statement to the
Commissioner's and wanted to place the King's mark on Hancock's
boat waiting for legal proceedings. Controller Benjamin Hollowell, however, urged

(04:53):
him to seize the boat instead, so Harrison enlicted a
crew another smuggler, Daniel Malcolm, and A handful of men
saw Harrison boarding the boat and argued that they should
at least wait for Hancock to arrive first. A fight
broke out between the men, but Harrington and his crew
still managed to bring Hancock's boat onto the side of

(05:13):
their boat, capturing it. Hallowell, Harrison and his son fled
the fight on the wharf with scrapes and bruises. An
angry crowd began to assemble. When word of Hancock's boat
being seized got out, A crowd of about three thousand
men began to search the city for Harrison and Hollowell.
When they couldn't find him, they shattered the windows of

(05:34):
their houses instead. The following month, a sub was fouled Onst.
Hancock for the sum of nine thousand pounds with the
smuggling of wine. Being unable to negotiate this himself, Hancock
enlisted John Adams to defend him in court. That's a
cousin to Samuel Adams. They were both deeply involved in
seeking freedom. In his defense, John Adams questioned the validity

(05:58):
of the case as it denied Hancock the right of
a jury trial, and according to Adams, it repealed the
Magna carta as far as America is concerned, degrading Hancock
below the rank of an Englishman. This is a theme
that goes through again and again with the founding fathers.
They saw themselves as Englishmen, and the British people had

(06:18):
come to believe that they had certain rights which the
government could not infringe on, and the right to trial
was one of them. Adams is weaving back into British
history to claim the rights of an Englishman, not of
an American colonist. Adams defense was successful, and on March
twenty fifth, the case was dropped and the record read,

(06:40):
quote the Advocate General praise leave to retract this information,
and says our Sovereign Lord, the King will prosecute no
further hero On September fourteenth, seventeen sixty eight, Hancock, with
Joseph Jackson, John Ruddick, John Rowe, and Samuel Palmerton, wrote
a letter in response to the Town and Acts quote,

(07:01):
you are already too well acquainted with the melancholy and
very alarming circumstances to which this province, as well as
American General, is now reduced taxes equally detrimental to the
commercial interests of the parent country. And her colonies are
imposed upon the people without their consent, taxes designed for

(07:22):
the support of the civil government the colonies, in a
manner clearly unconstitutional and contrary to that in which till
of late government has been supported by the free gift
of the people. In American assemblies or parliaments, as also
for the maintenance of a large standing army, not for
the defense of newly acquired territories, but for the old colonies,

(07:44):
and in a time of peace. The decent, humble and
truly loyal applications and petitions from the representatives province for
the redress of these heavy and very threatening grievances have
hitherto been ineffectual, being assured from authentic intelligence that they
have not yet reached the Royal ear. The only effect

(08:05):
of transmitting these applications, hitherto perceivable has been a mandate
from one of His Majesty's Secretary's of State to the
Governor of this province to dissolve the General Assembly, merely
because the late House representatives refuse to rescind a resolution
of a former House which implied nothing more than a
right in the American subjects to unite in humble and

(08:28):
dutiful petitions to their gracious sovereign when they found themselves aggrieved.
This is a right naturally inherent in every man and
expressly recognized at the Glorious Revolution as the birthright of
an Englishman. Let me point out that the Glorious Revolution
is of course the return of Protestant monarchy, as Willim

(08:48):
and Mary come from Holland in sixteen eighty eight. It's
a decisive moment in British history and leads directly to
the whole concept of natural rights. And what they're se
saying here is we're Englishmen. You owe us these rights.
You are stepping upon our natural right here. This is
all going to echo into Thomas Jefferson's Declaration Independence. Also,

(09:13):
notice there's this constant effort to draw a distinction between
the bad government and the good King. There's a very
important psychological goal here of trying to make sure that
people understand that they're loyal to the king, they're just
angry at the government. Now. Of course, the government and
king in England see it differently, because the government see

(09:34):
itself as the king and the king sees himself as
the government. And this is why historically it's very hard
to petition the King without looking like you're engaged in treason,
which is the refusal to be loyal to your sovereign. Hi,

(10:01):
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(10:43):
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go on to say, this dissolution your Sensible has taken place.
The governors publicly and repeatedly declared that he cannot call
another Assembly, and the Secretary of State for the American Department,

(11:05):
in one of his letters communicated to the Late House,
has been pleased to say that proper care will be
taken for the support of the dignitive government, the meaning
of which is too plain to mean misunderstood. In other words,
the British officials are now saying to the American colonists,
we will take care of things, We will raise money,
we will decide how to spend it. You have no rights.

(11:29):
They go on to say, quote the concern and perplexity
into which these things have thrown the people have been
greatly aggravated by a late declaration of his Excellency, Governor Bernard,
that one or more regiments may soon be expected in
this province. The design of these troops is, in every
one's apprehension, nothing short of enforcing by military power the

(11:51):
execution of acts of Parliament in the forming of which
the colonies have not and cannot have any constitutional influence.
This is one of the greatest distress to which a
free people can be reduced. Notice what they're saying here,
the very fact that the British ship concluded that they
have to oppress the Americans. They can't really negotiate with them,

(12:13):
they can't reason with them. So they're going to send
an army, and that army is going to, in fact
live in Boston and is going to impose the will
of the British government no matter what the local folks think.
This is the sort of thing which began to move
in a direction where suddenly they create the Committee of
the Boston Sons of Liberty, which included John Hancock, Sammuel Adams,

(12:35):
John Adams, James Otis. The group's amazing. This is the
beginning of real patriotism defining itself more and more and
more isolated from the British seventeen sixty nine, the Committee
of the Boston Sons of Liberty. Notice again, liberty is
a huge word in this period. Eighteen forty, an older

(12:57):
man was asked, why did you fight the revolution? They
were looking for this stamp act or the tax on
tea or whatever. He said, you know, we aim to
be free, and they aimed that we shouldn't. And that's
what it was all about. And that's why liberty is
such an important word here, because they're coming back again

(13:17):
and again the idea we are a free people. You
were about to take away our freedom, So in their
mind they've already got the freedom. They're not fighting for freedom,
they're fighting against the oppression which would take away freedom.
So this continues to move in the same direction. By
December seventeen seventy, the Massachusetts House represented wrote a letter

(13:39):
which Hancock again signed, to Benjamin Franklin, appointing him an
agent at the Court of Great Britain. This is the
first letter of Franklin, the only one known to have survived.
Franklin is asked by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to go
to London to represent them. He goes to London. He's
initially very well received. Gradually, the longer he's there, the

(14:01):
more he realizes he will never be an Englishman. They
will never accept him into their circle. He will always
be a colonist, no matter how bright he is, no
matter how renowned he is as a scientist, no matter
how wealthy he is. He just isn't them. Somebody once wrote,
Franklin left America as an Englishman and returned as an American.

(14:24):
This is the person who the Massachusetts House is asking.
Since you're already there anyway, would you also represent us?
And they explain them what they're worried about. Quote the
House representatives of this province, after appointing you their agent
at the Quart of Great Britain directed us to correspond
with you in the recess of the Court upon matters

(14:45):
that concern the interest of the province in general. There
is nothing that will more promote the true interest to
this party, as well as Great Britain herself, than a
happy settlement of the disputes that have too long subsisted
between the other country in the colonies. These are justly
tenacious of their constitutional natural rights and will never willingly

(15:07):
part with them, and it certainly can never be for
the advantage of the nation to force them away. Great
Britain can lose nothing that she ought to retain by
restoring the colonies to the state they were in before
passing the obnoxious Stamp Act, and we are persuaded if
that is done, they will no further contend. This. We

(15:27):
think it necessary early to inform you of as our
own opinion is. We have reason to think that there
are persons on both sides the Atlantic, whose interest it
may be to keep alive a spirit of discord, who
are continually insinuating the men of power, that such a
concession of the part of Great Britain would only serve
to increase our claims, and there would be no end
of them, which we believe and may even venture to

(15:49):
assure you, is that the least color of foundation and truth.
In other words, the founding fathers, generally speaking, and Hancock
was a key member of this, are not asking to
leave Great Britain. They're not moving towards independence. What they
want is their rights to be respected, their role to
raise taxes on themselves in the spirit of the Magna Carta,

(16:11):
to be accepted, to negotiate with the British government as equals,
and not in any way to move towards independence. Now,
the fact is, Hancock is faced with the Boston Tea
Party coming up. He's faced with growing public anger, and
there's actually not certain that Hancock was involved in planning

(16:33):
the Boston Tea Party, which is when a group of
Americans dressed as Indians broke into a British ship and
threw tea into the Boston harbor in order that it
not be available to sell because they did not want
to pay the tax on tea. Hancock the most he
said that we know publicly, he told the crowd, let
every man do what is right in his own eyes.

(16:56):
So he's not saying he's going to participate but he's
also not saying you shouldn't know it. And that very
same evening, the crowd went into the Boston Harbor addressed
as Native Americans boarded the ship dumped three hundred and
forty two chests of tea into the harbor. Tea back
then was expensive. So this is a substantial hit on
the East India Company and a direct defiance of the

(17:17):
British government. Now, Hancock never talked about it other than
this comment that night before it happened. Now though, also
as a part of this growing separation, there was an
annual commemoration of the Boston Massacre, which in seventeen seventy
one British soldiers who were rattled shot and killed several

(17:38):
Massachusetts colonists. And so Hancock was chosen on March fifth,
seventeen seventy four to read the third annual oration to
commemorate the Boston Massacre. So he really is beginning to
lay the case out here as a public figure. He
says in his oration quote, is the present system which

(17:59):
the British administration have adopted for the government of the
colonies a righteous government? Or is it tyranny? Here? Suffer
me to ask, and would to heaven, there could be
an answer, What tenderness, what regard, respect or consideration has
Great Britain shown in their late transactions for the security
of the persons or properties of the inhabitants of the colonies,

(18:22):
Or rather, what have they omitted doing to destroy that security?
They have declared that they have ever had, and of
right ought to ever have, full power to make laws
of sufficient validity to bind the colonies in all cases
whatever they have exercised this pretended right by imposing attacks
upon us without our consent. And notice this is not

(18:45):
the heart of it, Lest we should sow some reluctance
at parting with our property. Our fleets and armies are
sent to enforce their mad pretensions. The town of Boston,
ever faithful to the British Crown, has been invested by
a British fleet. The true troops of George third have
crossed the wide Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but

(19:05):
to assist a band of traders in trampling on the
rights and liberties of his most loyal subjects in America,
those rights and liberties which is a father he ought
ever to regard, and as a king he has bound
in honor to defend from violation, even at the risk
of his Unlet notice what he's now starting to say.
Hancock is saying, if you help enforce this law. Notice

(19:26):
the word he uses, band of traders. You are a
trader to America. You're a trader to our rights under
the Constitution. And therefore the division is getting deeper and deeper.

(19:57):
That year, he's elected as a delegate to the first
Continental Congress, called to bring together the colonies to talk
about what's going on. And he's also faced with the
fact that living in Boston is less and less safe
because the British could come and arrest him at any time.
So Hancock moves to his grandfather's home in Lexington, and
on April eighteenth, seventeen seventy five, doctor Joseph Warren got

(20:21):
news that British troops were heading toward Lexington. Warren sent
three writers, the most famous of them Paul Revere, to
warn people. Revere warned Hancock and Adams of the incoming
troops and suggested they flee before the British reached Lexington.
This is the first real moment of violence because what
had happened was the American militia had been practicing, and

(20:45):
this is one of the great differences in the courses
behind the whole notion of the Second Amendment and the
right to bear arms. The British Army was very good
at putting down peasant revolts. They'd put down revolts in England,
in Scotland, and Wales in Ireland, and so they marched
out of Boston, assuming this would be just like all
those other peasant revolts. But they had a problem. They

(21:07):
were now faced with a free people who had weapons
and who had been practicing, and also people who frankly
went deer hunting and generally actually provisioned their houses by
their effectiveness as hunters. The result was a disaster for
the British Army. They were shot at all the way
back to Boston. They took a substantial number of casualties. Suddenly,

(21:28):
what was then called the shot heard around the world.
The Americans stood up and said, if you try to
take our weapons, we will shoot you. Across all of
the colonies. People were shaken because suddenly this was a
real fight. This wasn't just words. The British Army had
attempted to do something which would have stripped the Americans
of their ability to be free. Shortly after that, Hancock

(21:52):
was elected President of the Second Continent of Congress. He
is a significant figure in the development of the ideas
and the movement that leads to American freedom. As President,
he presided during the discussion on the appointment of the
Commander in chief of the Continent Army. Now, this is
a very interesting moment in American history. They need an

(22:13):
army in order to stand up to the British. However,
that army is going to be in Boston. It's going
to be largely New England, and they have to find
a way to unite all of the colonies into this
fight and not just have it be a New England fight. Now,
one of the great moments of theater, there's a very
tall man walking around wearing the University the unit form

(22:37):
of a Virginia Militia officer, Colonel Washington, who says to everybody, Oh,
I don't know why you would think of me as
the commander. I'm not sure I could be the commander.
I'm not really sure I could do the job. But
he's the only guy at the whole place wearing a uniform,
and it's just one of those things about Washington, who's
very understudied but very strategic. So of course they picked Washington.

(23:01):
And now you have this Virginian going to Boston to
lead a largely new England army. Remember, the accents were
wildly different, and there was this whole sense of getting
used to each other. Washington does a brilliant job throughout
the Revolutionary War. Hancock takes the wealth he had inherited
and he'd grown with his own businesses, and he helped

(23:22):
fund the army. I mean, Hancock is genuinely putting his life,
his liberty, and his fortune to the fight for freedom.
He oversaw the Declaration of Independence on July fourth, seventeen
seventy six. In his most famous single moment, John Hancock
was the first to sign the document. He had a

(23:42):
large cursive signature and said, there, John Bull can read
my name without spectacles. He may double his reward when
he sang as John bullmant England. The King can see
clearly that Hancock has signed the Declaration Independance, and the
King then wants to double the reward for killing him.
That's fine, and that's where the term John Hancock meaning

(24:03):
signature comes from. Because he deliberately went out of his way,
almost as a propaganda act. Two days later, in July sixth,
Hancock writes Washington, instructing him to read the Declaration of
Independence to his troops. And this is an important thing
to remember about the American Revolution. This was an informed military.
Again and again Washington, who's a master at this, make

(24:25):
sure that they understand why they're fighting, They understand what
the situation is, and they are reminded that they have
a moral cause. That's a key part of it. Now.
I think Hamilton felt that this was a duty. They
were doing, working and doing everything they can as a team.
And so you have militia coming from all over, you

(24:47):
have people showing up on a regular basis, and you
begin to really see that there's going to be an
American force, not a Massachusetts force or Virginia force, but
a genuinely Amerrican force. Hancock stays as President of Congress
until seventeen seventy seven. When he resigns as president, he

(25:07):
had his chance as a military leader. He led five
thousand Massachusetts soldiers to attempt to recapture Newport, Rhode Island
in seventeen seventy eight. The mission ultimately was a failure,
but he went back home and in seventeen eighty he
helped frame the Massachusetts Constitution and was elected as the
first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Member, we are

(25:28):
still fighting at this point, and he's now the governor
of the commonwealth. Where you could argue the fight started.
In seventeen eighty eight, delegates elected Hancock to serve as
president of the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention. Unfortunately, he had gout,
which is a recurring eilment for Hancock, and which he
probably tried to solve by drinking port, which made the

(25:49):
gout worse. But he was prevented from attending the debates
until January thirtieth. At that point he did everything he
could to help make sure that the majority would be
in favor of ratifying the constitution. In fact, he felt
so deeply that on the morning of January thirtieth, wrapped
in blankets, he was carried into the convention and attended

(26:12):
the debates for the first time. He was absolutely in
favor of the new system. This is a quote from
Henry Van Shack, who was actually in attendance, who writes
Governor Hancock had come to the convention and declared himself
decidedly in favor of the system, which had an amazing
influence over a great number of wavering members. Ill health

(26:35):
had prevented the governor's attendants and convention before. The opposition
took advantage of this and industriously reported that his Excellency
was opposed to the Constitution and advised and to reject it.
There's room to conjecture that the Governor would not have
come out so soon if it had not been for
those reports, as he was extremely unwell at the time
he went out. A day later, on January thirty first,

(26:58):
Hancock read from a speech prepared by the Federal's Caucus
supporting the signing of the Constitution. And I think it's
very important to realize here's a guy who has personally
spent his money helping fight the war, who has taken
great risk, who has been persecuted by the British, and
he is committed to working on the Constitution getting it approved.

(27:21):
And at that point, I think he has had a
major role because Massachusetts, which is one of the biggest
colonies in both population and wealth, having endorsed the Constitution
is a major step in the right direction, and it's
not decisive. It's very likely if Hancock had come out
against the Constitution that it might have lost. It only

(27:43):
wins in the Massachusetts convention by one eighty seven to
one sixty eight, so there's a pretty narrow margin that
it wouldn't have taken much to have turned it into
a defeat. In seventy eighty nine, Hancock's a candidate in
the first US presidential election, but only received four electoral
votes out of total of one thirty eight. George Washington

(28:04):
garnered sixty nine votes. John Adams captured thirty six votes,
earning the two men the presidency and vice presidency. Back then,
you all ran on one ticket and the number one
or two people got to be president and vice president.
That changed after Adams and Jefferson had to suffer each
other and realized that it was crazy to have a
system where you were not elected as a ticket. After

(28:26):
the adoption of the Constitution, Hancock was elected for a
final time as governor, and he kept getting elected until
his death. On October twenty fourth, seventeen eighty nine, President
Washington and a tour of the Eastern States arrived in Boston,
where the whole town, minus Hancock, went out to greet him.
Hancock believed that his governor Washington should come to him. However,

(28:49):
soon after he realized this was a mistake, he visited
Washington and claimed that an illness kept him from arriving sooner.
On October eighth, seventeen ninety three, Hancock, while still in office,
died at the age of fifty six and received one
of the largest state funerals from his longtime friend Samuel Adams.

(29:10):
John Hancock is one of the people upon whom America stands.
It was his commitment, his courage, his belief in liberty,
his willingness to risk everything and literally to spend his
fortune to help us become free, which has helped make
America the country it is. And that is why he's
one of the immortals as we look at the Founding Fathers.

(29:32):
Thank you for listening. You can read more about John
Hancock and get links to my other Founding Father's episodes
on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is
produced by Gingish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer
is Guernsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The
artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special

(29:54):
thanks to the team at gingishtree sixty. If you've been
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