Making a Patriot
Did Otis’ sacrifices succeed in making him a hero and a patriot? While he is not included in the traditional pantheon of American “founding fathers,” his contemporaries sought to preserve his legacy by acknowledging how his ideas and passion sparked the American Revolution.
As the new nation emerged, two voices close to Otis helped write the story of the country’s founding, making sure to include him in the tale. In 1805, Otis’ sister, Mercy Otis Warren, published History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution. She elevated James Otis as a martyr to the idea of America. Reflecting upon his death, she wrote: “My heart bleeds . . . with the painful detail of the sufferings & fall of a man whose genius & abilities display’d the extent of human capacity . . . he had sacrific’d his time, his fortune, his felicity at the shrine of freedom.”
Likewise, after retiring from public service, John Adams documented his perspective on the new nation and enshrined Otis as a patriot. Nearly 60 years after the Writs of Assistance case, John Adams memorialized his mentor’s argument with this famous quotation: “Then and there was the first scene of the first Act of opposition to the Arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the Child Independence was born.”
Portrait of James Otis, 1755
In the pantheon of America's Founding Fathers, Otis is usually the last to be mentioned. But between his influence in the Fourth Amendment, several State Constitutions, and the US Constitution, James Otis, Jr.'s role in the Revolution is greater than historians have typically given him credit for.
Echoes of Otis in the Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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Though it was ratified years after his death, the U.S. Constitution preserves Otis’ political legacy. The governing document, often seen as the framework of the nation, is based upon natural rights and government authority coming from the people—both ideas that Otis popularized in the 1760s. However, Otis’ most direct contribution isn’t as obvious.
The Fourth Amendment was part of the Bill of Rights, a series of amendments that listed the rights of citizens that weren’t directly named in the Constitution. Some politicians demanded the Bill of Rights be added before they would ratify the document, and those who agreed wrote powerful pieces promoting the amendments. Mercy Otis Warren, who anonymously published “Observations on the new Constitution,” advocated for protection from unreasonable search and seizure:
“I cannot pass over in silence the insecurity in which we are left with regard to warrants unsupported by evidence—the daring experiment of granting writs of assistance in a former arbitrary administration is not yet forgotten in the Massachusetts; nor can we be so ungrateful to the memory of the patriots who counteracted their operation.”
-Mercy Otis Warren, Observations on the new Constitution, 1788
Warren didn’t need to mention her brother by name; Her argument would have immediately called to mind the legal case that, although two decades old, was fresh in the minds of Americans.
The protection from search and seizure was included as the Fourth Amendment, and was directly inspired by Otis’ legal battle against the Writs of Assistance. The case's influence can be seen in the Virginia (1776) and Massachusetts (1780) State Constitutions, which both promised similar protections years before the federal amendment was ratified.
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Mercy Otis Warren, ca. 1800
Warren’s influence on the American Revolution and the founding of the nation cannot be overstated. She wrote widely-read political dramas in the 1770s, criticized the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in the 1780s, and became the first woman to write a history of the American Revolution in 1805.
Caning and Martyrdom
Almost as soon as Otis stumbled out of the British Coffee House on September 5, 1769, the radical faction began a campaign to turn him into a martyr. The very next week, Otis himself wrote to his adversary Robinson in the Boston Gazette, accusing the caning of being an assassination attempt. Robinson tried to defend himself: “In the evening we met at the Coffee-house, when I immediately laid aside my sword.—Did that look like assassination?” As the event worked its way through the news cycle, Otis’ and Robinsons’ factions battled for the dominant narrative, and the truth became muddled.
Years later, after those loyal to the Crown had fled Massachusetts, the radicals’ version became the truth. Historians began weaving together a national origin story, one based just as much in patriotism and drama as truth. One of these historians was Mercy Otis Warren, who took full advantage of her position as a respected intellectual to establish the story of her brother’s caning:
“The turpitude of design which at this period actuated the court [loyalist] party was clearly evinced by the attempted assassination of the celebrated Mr. Otis, justly deemed the first martyr to American freedom.”
-Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination, 1805
John Adams viewed Otis as a martyr as well, reflecting on his many sacrifices to the cause of freedom and independence:
“I have never known a man whose love of his country was more ardent and sincere; never one who suffered so much; never one whose services for any ten years of his life, were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770.”
– John Adams, 1818
Thomas Hutchinson, a chief Otis family rival, wrote his own history of colonial America while living in exile in London. At Hutchinson’s request, the third volume of his History of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, from 1749-1774 was published posthumously, once all those involved had died. In his original manuscript, Hutchinson devoted a lengthy section to Otis’ caning which was removed before publication. Perhaps Hutchinson didn’t want to elevate the importance of the event and risk portraying Otis as a martyr.
Portrait of Thomas Hutchinson (detail). ca. 1901
Despite their radically different political trajectories, the twilight years of Hutchinson’s and Otis’ lives share similarities, including the death of one of their children, isolation or exile from Boston, and loss of political power.
John Adams, 1792-1793
While Adams thought of James Otis as his mentor in his younger years, Adams went on to far surpass Otis in his political impact. Adams wrote the Massachusetts State Constitution in 1780, and served as the first Vice President and as the second President of the United States from 1797-1801.
An Imperfect Legacy: Patriot, Hero, and Distracted Person
For all their efforts to make James Otis a patriot and a hero, biographers had to (and have to) reconcile Otis’ genius with his mental instability. Today, we recognize and celebrate that both things can be true. Those who knew Otis, however, found it more difficult to accept; Adams and Hutchinson only made vague references to his mental state after 1769, choosing to avoid the subject altogether.
Warren, however, confronted her brother’s mental illness head on. In her History, she wrote that after his injury, “reason was shaken from its throne, genius obscured,” and the nation was forever deprived of his talents. Yet, in spite of his violent outbursts and embarrassing binges, Warren still believed her brother deserved to be honored. She did this by focusing on his life before his injury, lamenting what the nation lost, and asking us to remember Otis at the height of his influence. To Mercy Otis Warren, he was a patriot and a hero in the 1760s, and a “distracted person” at the end of his life.
With the benefit of two and a half centuries of reflection, we can celebrate James Otis, Jr. as a patriot, a hero, and a “distracted person.” When we accept all parts of Otis, we honor him more completely.