Conclusion
POLITICAL PARANOIA AND
THE CINCINNATI CONTROVERSY
8
The paranoid disposition is mobilized into action chiefly by social conflicts that
involve ultimate schemes of values and that bring fundamental fears and hatreds,
rather than negotiable interests, into political action.
Richard Hofstadter1
WERE THE CRITICS OF THE CINCINNATI politically paranoid, seeing the world in
terms of conspiracy theory? In a 1963 lecture entitled “The Paranoid Style
in American Politics,” Richard Hofstadter analyzed a particular mode of
political expression that he described as having “qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” This paranoid style,
Hofstadter asserted, was a recurring and old phenomenon in American
political history, which he traced from the anti-Illuminati tirades of New
England clergy in the late 1790s through the anti-Masonic fears of the 1820s
all the way to the rabid anticommunism of the 1950s and 1960s. He found
that, while the targets and topics of conspiracy rhetoric changed over the
centuries, these “paranoid” outcries shared a number of characteristics that
made them part of a distinct political tradition.2
Hofstadter freely used the term “paranoid” to describe the mind-set of
such conspiracy theorists, although he used the term in a metaphorical
rather than a psychiatric sense. Unlike clinical paranoiacs, Hofstadter felt
that adherents of the paranoid style did not primarily fear that dark forces
were after them personally. Instead, conspiracy theorists dreaded that secret
manipulators were out to destroy “a nation, a culture, a way of life,” a
threat that did not only affect themselves “but millions of others.” The
“paranoia” Hofstadter found was political, not individual in nature, and
public instead of private.3
Notes for this section begin on page 192.
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The Society of the Cincinnati
Similarly, according to Hofstadter, adherents of the paranoid style did
not imagine a small group of plotters working toward a limited goal such as
personal wealth. Rather, they saw a wide conspiracy of powerful villains at
work, bent on nothing less than the subjugation of a nation, or indeed all
mankind. In the paranoid style, history itself seems to be driven by the forces
of conspiracy. “The distinguishing thing about the paranoid style,” Hofstadter pointed out, “is not that its exponents see conspiracies here and there
in history, but that they regard a ‘vast’ or ‘gigantic’ conspiracy as the motive
force in historical events.”
Hofstadter found common elements not only in the content and scope
of conspiracy theories, but also in their presentation and logic. He observed
that many propagators of the paranoid style strove hard to “prove” their
revelations through neatly compiled evidence, often in imitation of academic
discourse. In most cases, the authors assembled more or less indisputable
facts, until, at one point, a leap of imagination linked fact to fantasy. Apart
from that one step of bad logic or at least bad sense, the paranoid style was
highly coherent—much more so than more sensible explanations of historical events seemed to be, thus making conspiracy theory more attractive.
Hofstadter explained that the paranoid style—while present to some
degree throughout American history—surged in periods of social conflicts
that involved nonnegotiable convictions and fundamental fears, not simply
political interests that could be resolved through compromise. In the United
States, to Hofstadter, the paranoid style was a phenomenon of the political
fringe, “the style only of minority movements.” In principle, Hofstadter
acknowledged that the paranoid style was content-neutral. In practice, he
felt that it was pathological. “Of course, the term ‘paranoid style’ is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad
causes than good.” Hofstadter believed that conspiracy theories were
advanced by all sorts of radicals, a phenomenon of political pathology, a
threat to properly liberal politics based on consensus and compromise, and
thus a problem that needed careful watching.4
Obviously, not all the accusations against the Cincinnati fit Hofstadter’s
model of the paranoid style. Franklin’s comments, for example, were more
sarcastic than serious. Likewise, not every critical utterance against the Society meant to imply that the Cincinnati were a secret cabal planning to establish political dominance over the United States. Many critics simply feared
an institution that reminded them too much of European orders of chivalry;
others thought that the Cincinnati would become destructive only over the
course of generations. Such pessimism played an important role in the outcry against the Cincinnati, but it attacked the officers of the Continental
Army only for bad judgment, not for evil intentions.
Conclusion
187
However, many of the treatises against the Society did match several
aspects of Hofstadter’s paranoid style. The heated exaggeration and suspiciousness were certainly there, and the fears were of a political nature, not
personal. Allegedly, the Cincinnati intended nothing less than the total subversion of the American republic. To its critics, the Society was posing
behind a smoke screen of harmlessness and benevolence, with their talk of
fraternal organization and charitable activities. But the Society’s real goal,
the accusations ran, was to establish itself as the ruling class of America,
with all the trappings and privileges of a hereditary nobility, possibly with a
crowned head at the top. Given that the Cincinnati were innocent of these
charges, the accusations indeed qualified as conspiratorial fantasy.
Other aspects of the paranoid style surfaced in the accusations against
the Cincinnati, as well. In many ways, Burke’s pamphlet matched what Hofstadter called “paranoid scholarship.” Burke misrepresented the Society’s
institution, he quoted passages out of context, and he made a leap of imagination when he claimed that the rule of heredity ipso facto meant that the
Cincinnati were a hereditary nobility. Mirabeau’s version of Considerations
was rife with such phrases as “it cannot be doubted” and “I have proved”
when all he did was assert largely unfounded accusations. Gale’s speeches
and letters followed a similar pattern with his endless harangues and deliberate misreadings. Indeed, Gale’s criticism of the Cincinnati most resembled
the phenomenon that Hofstadter addressed.
Some of the critics saw subversion akin to what they accused the Cincinnati of as a motive force in history. Burke saw similar patterns in the history
of Rome, medieval Europe, and the English civil war.5 The anonymous
author of the 1788 series of articles in the Boston Gazette even drew a parallel between the Cincinnati and the ancient Druids. “Like the Cincinnati,”
he wrote, the Druids “were scattered throughout many independent states
and kingdoms; like them they were arranged into different Orders or Societies; like them they had a supreme assembly over all the rest, wherein
presided the Arch-Druid, or Grand President of the Order; like the Cincinnati they created to themselves a Patriciate, and conspired against their
country.”6 Linking such disparate and dubious historical assessments did
indeed resemble the politically paranoid mind-set that Hofstadter described.
Finally, what Hofstadter identified as the source of the paranoid style,
namely, “social conflicts that involve ultimate schemes of values” and “fundamental fears and hatreds” certainly existed in the Confederation Period.
For a number of reasons, the American experiment with republicanism
seemed on the verge of failure in the mid 1780s. The United States appeared
unable to get off the ground economically or politically; domestic instability
and foreign threats endangered the success of the revolution. This dire situ-
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ation was ideally suited for the scapegoating reflexes that Hofstadter saw at
the bottom of the paranoid style. Judging solely from these criteria, the accusations against the Cincinnati seemed to fit the model of the paranoid style,
revealing the Society’s critics as the first in a long line of politically paranoid
conspiracy theorists in American history.
However, in one crucial aspect Hofstadter’s model does not accurately
describe the accusations against the Cincinnati: the Society’s critics were
hardly marginal to the American polity. While individuals such as Burke or
Gale were not necessarily central figures in the early American republic,
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Elbridge Gerry, and many other antiCincinnati spokesmen definitely were. Surely, their opinions were not merely
those of a “minority movement,” as Hofstadter’s model would have it.
These prominent accusers of the Cincinnati were hardly dangerous radicals,
nor were they political crackpots. On the contrary, whatever their political
standing at the time, many of them came to be considered important icons
of American history, Founding Fathers of the United States. Yet regarding
the Cincinnati, their judgment was flawed and their rhetoric resembled that
of later, less reputable conspiracy theorists. How did this seeming contradiction come to pass?
Actually, belief in conspiracy was nothing new for the revolutionary
generation. In their analyses of eighteenth-century revolutionary ideology,
both Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood took note of conspiracy theory as a
popular and frequent mode of explaining adverse developments as the result
of malevolent plots against liberty. In his seminal work The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,7 Bailyn looked closely at the political
debates of the revolutionary era and found a widespread belief that the
British attempts at taxing the colonies were the result of an evil ministerial
intrigue. Bailyn noted a “conviction on the part of the Revolutionary leaders that they were faced with a deliberate conspiracy to destroy the balance
of the [British] constitution and eliminate freedom.” This was no fringe phenomenon: a belief in conspiracy was “almost universally shared by sympathizers of the American cause.”8
Bailyn maintained that the belief in conspiracy had “roots elaborately
embedded in Anglo-American culture.” At the bottom of the revolutionary
impulse, he found the widespread influence of English opposition ideology.
Fear of corruption formed the basis of that ideology; suspicion and distrust
were considered not only normal, but healthy and necessary stances in the
political realm. Radical Whig ideology convinced Americans that ambition
and power had posed a threat to liberty throughout history, and that ambitious men would conspire against the people if given a chance. Only through
constant vigilance could the destruction of liberty be averted. Bailyn pointed
Conclusion
189
out that “the configuration of attitudes and ideas that would constitute the
Revolutionary ideology was present a half-century before there was an actual
Revolution.”9 Accordingly, the belief in conspiracy was not an aberration, but
a fundamental element of the ideological origins of the American Revolution.
In his essay “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in
the Eighteenth Century,”10 Gordon Wood also found that the American revolutionaries believed in plots and conspiracies, asserting that “the one thing
about conspirational interpretations of events that must impress all students
of early modern Western history is their ubiquitousness: they can be found
everywhere in the thought of people on both sides of the Atlantic.”11 To
explain this phenomenon, Wood argued that the seemingly irrational belief
in conspiracy arose from the very philosophical assumptions that formed the
basis of Enlightenment thought and the age of reason.
Conspiracy theories, to Wood, were the result of a contradiction inherent in the eighteenth century. In this age, “unprecedented demographic and
economic developments” were “massively altering the nature of society and
politics.” Political responsibility became unclear as society grew increasingly
complex. It became more and more difficult to link the cause and effect of
political actions and their social consequences, let alone place individual
responsibility. And this was the crucial problem, since “at this very moment
when the world was outrunning man’s capacity to explain it in personal
terms, … the most enlightened of the age were priding themselves on their
ability to do just that. The widespread resort to conspirational interpretations grew out of this contradiction.”12
Enlightenment thought, Wood argued, demanded that any effect could
be traced back to its cause. Divine providence, fate, or coincidence could not
serve as such: resorting to these explanations just meant a failure to discern
the real causes. Enlightenment reasoning mandated that specific persons
were behind historical and political events; contingency, accident, aggregate
social forces, or the “stream of history” were either unacceptable or
unknown as patterns of explanation. Thus when perceived outcomes
clashed with the professed intentions of those held responsible, observers
were prone to see deceit and conspiracy at work. Ill effects, in the moral universe of eighteenth-century thought, were the result of ill intentions.
Upheavals such as the revolutionary crises in America, in which all sides
argued they were legitimately acting in good faith, resulted in charges of
conspiratorial plotting on both sides.
Conspiracy theory thus filled the gap between divine providence and
modern social history. Wood saw this not as an aberration, but as logical
step in a progressive development: “The belief in plots was not a symptom
of disturbed minds but a rational attempt to explain human phenomena in
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The Society of the Cincinnati
terms of human intentions and to maintain moral coherence in the affairs of
men. This mode of thinking was neither pathological nor uniquely American.”13 In the eighteenth century, conspiracy theory represented a reasonable, if ultimately unsuccessful effort to interpret the past and the present.
Bailyn referred primarily to the conspiratorial interpretations of the
events leading to American independence, but his reasoning was equally
applicable to the criticism against the Cincinnati. The accusations against
the Society attained such a prominent position because they were connected
to a number of central issues of eighteenth-century American political culture. From the English radical Whig tradition and their own experience, the
American revolutionaries had acquired a rampant distrust of all things military; the Cincinnati seemed a militaristic association. The same sources had
taught Americans to distrust power, and from the outside the Society
appeared well-organized and influential. Finally, the American Revolution
had disrupted long-held assumptions about social and political hierarchy
and had introduced a rhetoric of equality to the young republic. The Society
however, with its rule of hereditary succession and eagle badges, had violated the most basic consensus on equality in America. Indeed, the same revolutionary ideology that had once prompted Americans to accuse “designing
men” in England of plotting against liberty now prompted many to look
inward for similar threats.
Just as Wood described, the Society’s accusers sought to explain the
downfall of legitimate governments in history and the imminent failure of
the American republic. Enlightenment thought predisposed intellectuals to
seek personalized explanations for events that actually had structural causes.
Following that logic, the critics found planned malevolence and intentional
subversion at work; in other words, they identified conspiracy as the cause
of political disaster. In the mid 1780s, the Society of the Cincinnati seemed
the most likely threat to republicanism; thus, the Continental officers
became the target of those who wished to prevent the destruction of the
American revolutionary experiment with representative government.
From such a perspective, the heated and unfounded accusations against
the Cincinnati by otherwise respected American leaders appear in a different
light. As both revolutionary ideology and the dominant logic of causal
explanation predisposed Americans to think about political crises in terms
of conspiracy, the controversy about the Society was almost inevitable. For
those who lived through the turbulent 1780s, the success of the American
republican experiment was hardly a foregone conclusion, and for many, the
Cincinnati reasonably appeared a threat to the future of the United States.
As American history progressed and the republican system stabilized, conspiracy rhetoric grew more and more outlandish. But in the Confederation
Conclusion
191
Period it came naturally to many who were not at the fringes but at the center of political life in America.
The accusations against the Cincinnati diverged from Hofstadter’s paranoid style model in one more way: they did not become a pathology of the
American body politic. To be sure, the accusations were inaccurate and
unfair, and a number of Cincinnati expressed their extreme frustration at
being made the bogeymen of the postwar republic. In some cases, membership in the Society proved an obstacle at the polls, as the critics tried to
exclude the Cincinnati from positions of political power. Yet none of the
attempts to disfranchise members of the Society came to fruition: the Massachusetts legislature did not take action on the highly critical committee
report, the North Carolina motion was quickly tabled, and the rumors of
disfranchisement in Rhode Island proved to be false. While the Society’s
abortive reform of 1784 had a lot to do with staving off the more robust
efforts against the Cincinnati, it appeared that the American polity came to
its senses quickly enough to prevent substantial damage to individuals.
The grim fate of the French branch showed how easily anti-aristocratic
rhetoric could get out of hand, but in America no one went to the guillotine.
The controversy did not devolve into a full-fledged political pathology of persecution. However unfair their accusations were, at least the critics did not target a typical scapegoat minority such as Jews or African Americans. Instead,
they took on someone of their own size: the officers of the Continental Army.
And however disgusted these Cincinnati were at being labeled the undertakers
of republicanism, they possessed the prestige and influence to persist. Their
society almost became a casualty of the accusations, but the Cincinnati themselves did not. Compared to other conspiracy theories in the course of history,
the attacks against the Society proved comparatively harmless.
Moreover, the accusations against the Cincinnati did not grow out of
spite or greed, but out of a genuine commitment to republicanism and
American exceptionalism. The Society’s critics believed that the United
States carried a sacred trust to preserve the flame of liberty in a world dominated by arbitrary forms of government. Burke, for example, argued that if
the Society were to succeed in subverting the American republic, “our example too would serve to strengthen tyranny in Europe, by evincing that a people brought up under a monarchy, and accustomed to be governed by others,
are too degenerate to govern themselves in a state of liberty; and that after
all we have done, we still keep a hankering after the orders, titles and
trumpery we have been used to under royal government, where the people
are so bewitched, that abilities, virtue or wealth itself, are not such objects
of reverence as a star or ribbon.”14
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The Society of the Cincinnati
While good intentions never were a guarantee for equally good results,
the critics of the Cincinnati clearly were not radicals who threatened the liberal, consensus and compromise-based politics that Hofstadter so admired.
Indeed, while the controversy did nothing to help the young republic overcome its problems, many of the Cincinnati’s critics did contribute to the real
solutions of the Confederation Period. Whether as Federalists or Antifederalists, the same men who reviled the Society of the Cincinnati took part in the
political debates that shaped the new Constitution. Most critics of the Society
opposed the new political system, yet some, like Gerry, contributed both to the
document itself and to the political reservations that prompted the creation of
a Bill of Rights. Even comparatively radical Antifederalists such as Burke
embraced a position of loyal (if critical) opposition after ratification.
In the end then, the critics of the Cincinnati were not practitioners of the
paranoid style in American politics, even though their rhetoric was at times
heated and their accusations inaccurate. Their concern for the fate of the American republic was genuine, and they targeted the Cincinnati because they seemed
to fit a pattern of subversion that the ideology of the American Revolution had
taught them to expect. While the controversy about the Cincinnati resembled
later conspiracy theories such as the rabid anticommunism of the 1950s, no
witch hunt resulted, and American political culture suffered no lasting damage.15
Still, at the time, the debate about the Society of the Cincinnati was urgent
and serious. The creation of a hereditary military organization came as a shock
to many among the revolutionary generation who were deeply committed to a
form of government in which hereditary aristocracy should play no role. From
today’s point of view, the accusations were rife with hyperbole, as well as
unfounded. Yet to the critics of the Society in the 1780s, opposition to the
Cincinnati seemed a matter of the life or death of republicanism in America.
Notes
1. Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (New York: Knopf, 1965), 39.
2. The lecture was reprinted two years later in Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics.
3. Ibid., 4.
4. Ibid., 5, 7, 39.
5. Burke, Considerations, 10-11, 16.
6. Boston Gazette, 9 June, 16 June 1788.
7. Bailyn, Ideological Origins, 144-59.
8. Ibid., 145.
9. Ibid., 144.
Conclusion
193
10. Gordon Wood, “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series 39 (1982): 401-41.
11. Ibid.: 407.
12. Ibid.: 411.
13. Ibid.: 429.
14. Burke, Considerations, 7.
15. Hofstadter’s concept of the paranoid style has been challenged in a variety of ways. David
Brion Davis, “Some Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, AntiCatholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47 (September 1960): 205-33, argued that the anti-subversive movements of the 1820s through 1840s
were the result of the same motives as Jacksonian democracy and the reform movements
of the nineteenth century, and not simply a political pathology. Recently, a number of theorists have challenged the notion that especially present-day conspiracy theories are either
marginal or pathological, and that thus Hofstadter’s model does not apply. See Peter
Knight, Conspiracy Culture - American Paranoia from the Kennedy Assassination to the XFiles (London: Routledge, 2000); Mark Fenster, Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power
in American Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Timothy Melley,
Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Post-war America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 2000). Berndt Ostendorf, “Conspiracy Nation. Verschwörungstheorien
und evangelikaler Fundamentalismus,” Politisierte Religion, ed. Heiner Bielefeldt and Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1998), 157-87, explores the many ways in
which American political culture, religion, and conspiracy theory are intertwined.