Damnable Deficient

Colin Kidd

• 1776: America and Britain at War by David McCullough
  Allen Lane, 386 pp, £25.00, June 2005, ISBN 0 7139 9863 6

Their resolve fortified by the sturdy civic virtue of Cato and Brutus, and their idea of republican self-government indebted to Greco-Roman models, the founders of American independence deferred to the authority of the ancients, even as they embarked on a revolutionary political experiment. George Washington, for example, identified himself with Cato of Utica, whom the 18th-century British knew best through the medium of Addison’s popular tragedy Cato (1713). Lines from the play found their way into Washington’s letters and speeches, and, in defiance of Congressional resolutions against the attendance of public officials at plays, he had Cato performed at Valley Forge to inspire his troops. By inclination a foxhunting man, he was the least bookish of the leading founders, many of whom were much more deeply immersed in the classics. The selfless Cincinnatus, the reforming Solon, Cicero in his defence of the republican constitution – these were the cynosures of virtuous conduct for the founding generation.