Hero to Traitor: Benedict Arnold & Vice

They always say “learn from the past,” but looking at the vastness of history, this is a daunting task. This week, Gary is joined by guest Kirk Higgins, Director of Content, to look at the decisions of Benedict Arnold, a prominent American Revolutionary military hero who defected to the British side in 1780. How can looking at Arnold’s own virtues and vices teach us how we can make good decisions? 

Visit our episode page for additional resources:
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/podcasts/hero-to-traitor-benedict-arnold-vice

Transcript

Intro/Outro (00:02)
From the Bill of Rights Institute, Fabric of History weaves together US history, founding principles, and what all of this means to us today. Join us as we pull back the curtains of the past to see what's inside.

Haley (00:16)
They always say learn from the past. But looking at the vastness of history, this is a daunting task. This week, Gary is joined by guest Kirk Higgins to look at the decisions of Benedict Arnold, a prominent American revolutionary military hero who defected to the British side in 1780. How can looking at Arnold's own virtues and vices teach us how we can make good decisions?

Gary (00:44)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Fabric of History from the Bill of Rights Institute. I'm your current host, Gary Colletti. You may notice our normal host, Mary Patterson, is not with us today. She is in the middle of very important curriculum, writing, and content work at the Bill of Rights Institute that we hope you see and enjoy. But instead of that, my guest today is a very important one also from our content team. In fact, he is our director of content, Mr. Kirk Higgins. Kirk, would you mind saying hello?

Kirk (01:19)
Hello, Gary. Thanks for having me on.

Gary (01:21)
We really wanted you on for this episode because there's a big idea that is throughout a lot of the Bill of Rights Institute work that is fascinating for those who like history, for those who like narratives, and for those who like philosophical ideas, I'm talking about virtue and vice. These are big concepts that are really important when understanding the choices human beings have made in history. And so we wanted you here because it's something you think about quite a lot. Is that true, Kirk?

Kirk (01:57)
That is true, Gary. The Bill of Rights and Staff foundationally. We think about principles and virtues are kind of our two catchphrases. And when we're writing our content, we tend to look to those things in how we're framing up that content. So when we're thinking about principles, we're really thinking about first things, sort of fundamental truths, if you will, upon which other things are built and those are connected intimately, we think with virtues. So in other words, habits or ways that we go about living our lives within our communities and choices we make. And those are all revealed through studying history and seeing how we've interacted with each other and seeing when that's gone well and when that's not gone so well.

Gary (02:39)
Of course, I'm automatically hooked onto when things have not gone so well because as you're talking about the word choice and history and can we dive a little bit more into this big question about why it's important to study human choices in history? Yeah.

Kirk (02:56)
Well, I think it's interesting. You started by talking about abstract things and the idea that these principles and these virtues and vices are abstract meaning. It's hard to pin them down. It's hard to understand them, and they are but they only emerge. And I think that our understanding of them only emerges through actual scene examples. Right. So we're only able to identify these things after they happened in a sense because what we're doing is we're going back and we're trying to understand why things have unfolded the way they have, what we can do to sort of think about those things and how we can learn from them. Right. So moving forward, we can better understand both what did happen, but also what's happening to us, how we're moving through our own lives and experiencing things. And having those examples, those concrete examples along with sort of those abstract understandings can really help us put words to things that we would otherwise have difficulty understanding. And so at the Bill of Rights Institute, we do that through narrative. So narrative history, obviously, are sort of synonymous in a lot of ways. And they present their own challenges in many senses.

Kirk (04:09)
But being able to tell good stories and having the ability to look at those stories and then to begin to analyze them and pick them apart using these different understandings can help us give context and help us understand them in new ways and produce lessons so that we're actually acting on them and we're seeing them and understanding them and then translating that into our own experiences and then moving forward with our lives, sort of having a better understanding of not only what is happening, but also of ourselves, how we're behaving in these different situations.

Gary (04:44)
Can you give us maybe some examples of how you apply virtues and vice in the content that BRI creates?

Kirk (04:53)
Sure. Yeah. So an easy example is always looking to George Washington. And I only say that because George Washington has become, rightly or wrongly, sort of this marble man he's seen as this paradigm of virtue, which is challenging. Right. And pushing against that, kind of looking at his own behaviors, trying to find complexity. There's a lot of worth in that. There's a lot of worth in examining that closer. We actually recently did that on our Constitution Day broadcast in 2021, depending on what version of our future selves is listening to this. But that complexity is good. But so is sort of taking a look at Washington and seeing how it was that he became that sort of person we look up to. And so in writing about Washington, looking at his own way that he was self-governing, for example. So when Washington was keeping himself dedicated to the cause of the American Revolution, what about his character helped him to do that? How did he go about doing that? And the best way to do that is to look at specific instances in his life where that was important, where he made those choices.

Kirk (06:05)
And it's interesting. You can look at a specific instance. Right. So you can look at something like the Newburgh conspiracy where his officers came to him and essentially told him that they want to make him King, or at least we're going to attempt a coup to then put him on some sort of throne. And he famously says no. And he pulls his glasses out while he's reading a speech and says, not only forgive me for not only have I grown old, but I've also grown blind in the service of my country. And there's this poignant moment where he sort of shames the audience into seeing the sense of what they were all sacrificing them for another famous instance, him surrendering his Commission at the end of his service, surrendering his Commission back to Congress, centrally establishing that civilian government has control over our military forces. You can look at these individual moments, and they become really poignant and powerful, and we think about them and they stick on our minds. But then zooming out and looking at Washington's life as a whole, you can begin to see the habits that he developed. You can begin to see the group of things that he would do or how he went about thinking about acting about his own life and conducting himself in a way that made those moments what they were, that brought him to those moments where he was able to make those decisions which now have become these powerful moments in American history.

Kirk (07:23)
And doing that and examining a life in that way helps us understand how we can direct our lives to be better members of our own communities and better members of whatever group that we're a part of.

Gary (07:36)
Well, there's definitely a lot to unpack there. You use the term character, which I think is an interesting one. Right. Like you said, you need those individual moments and decisions, but not alone. You need to see a series of these decisions, and then you use the word habit. Right. And I think that's an important one. You've added an evaluative element that you mentioned phrases like leading a better life or doing better things, which also sounds like it helps to understand the opposite, to understand what something is by bad choices and things like that. And I love that you're starting with the lives themselves, with the narratives, a very common way of looking at history, but now applying this sort of lens or this consideration of saying when looking at a narrative, let's look at the choices and see if there are trends, perhaps if there are habits that are being made in which direction they go, it sounds like there's also a little more practical part of it. Right. You need the concepts to work with. Can you tell us a little more about your work with how you design which virtues and vices get applied or that you consider?

Kirk (08:47)
Sure. So the Build Rights Institute has always had a large list of virtues and principles. We've kind of trimmed that list down to a tidy nine different virtues, which is exciting. And I think it's important, too. And I just want to follow up on a point you made in the Evaluative piece. The fact that whether or not someone's action is better or worse, I think, is the point of a dialogue and a discussion and debate. And I think that's where that begins. It is an important piece. The idea that you can take seriously your life enough to work towards a better end is a separate, I think, conclusion from that. So in other words, I'm saying you want to be working on yourself. That's the idea of these virtues and Conversely, you can make bad decisions, that's the idea of the vices where those things are applied are really a question that should be discussed in a dialogue like you and I are having. So I think in outlining these virtues and vices, I think it's most important to remember we're not just assigning these to people and saying that absolutely, this is exactly how you should.

Kirk (09:52)
No one understands this person every instance, but we're instead saying, look, there are aims towards which we're pointing, and people fall on that spectrum of moving more towards a virtuous action or a vice and where they fall. And what that means is an important conversation to have because again, it helps us better understand behavior generally. And so I say all of that to get to why we chose these, which we follow an Aristotelian kind of an approach with the way that we think about our virtues, although our virtues are not exactly what Aristotle's virtues were. But we did this several years ago in a curriculum that we released called Heroes and Villains. And in that curriculum, we really detailed out what we were trying to go for. But the point of it is that we're looking at individual sort of actions or individual characteristics and virtues that one can practice and think about that really help in a civic context. So what we're talking about is civic virtues specifically. And so these are things that when you're living in a community, particularly a community that is self-governing like the United States is it requires both self-government in the public sphere so that people have a voice in their voting and there's representatives, but also that then requires you yourself to be self-governing in the sense that there's a way to act in your community that's better and that's worse.

Kirk (11:14)
And so trying to work towards doing those better actions, recognizing those fundamental principles that we talk about of equality and of justice and the recognition of others Liberty, recognizing those things and taking steps to ensure that we're promoting them and making sure that our actions are not inhibiting others from living their lives fully and having the dignity that they need. That's sort of the guiding framework for how we came up with our virtues.

Gary (11:51)
So I want to back up a little bit and say maybe getting into a specific example, I'm realizing recently I had a historical figure in my mind whose story has been told for generations, so much so that his name is synonymous with an idea that I would say falls in his category. I'm talking about being a Benedict Arnold. It's a phrase that may happen quite a lot if someone does something traitorous or betrays even young people. I remember it as a child myself, hearing the phrase while you're being a Benedict Arnold, and it was a really negative thing.

Kirk (12:29)
Benedict Arnold is one of these people that if you know American history, you're going to know John Adams, George Washington, and Benedict Arnold. I mean, you're going to know he's one of those big names, but the reason he is is very different than those other two I mentioned.

Gary (12:45)
So it is worth taking a very brief look at how he might appear in classrooms or textbooks. Your sort of general knowledge of Benedict Arnold tends to be pretty straightforward, right. So just as a recap of the story of Benedict Arnold, not his whole life, but just the key parts you're talking about around 1775, he is a dynamic figure in the militia, the Continental Army, however, in his great achievement, believes that he's been slighted. Over time, he starts feeling that others are being promoted beyond him, that he wasn't getting his due. There were reasons he was dismayed, and he continues with his career.

Kirk (13:36)
He was very well known, so he was important in early capture at Fort Ticonderoga, which is famous. There's later this famous scene where Henry Knox brings the cannons down from Ticonderoga and helps lift the siege at Boston, one of the first victories of the war. He then goes on to be a part of the invasion of Canada, which is ultimately unsuccessful. And he suffers a grievous wound, but it's still showing. He is at the center of things that are happening. Later, he's involved at the Battle of Saratoga, which people often point to is the moment when the French came in on the side of the American cause, which would eventually lead to independence, obviously several years later. But he's at the heart of these things. So it's not as if he's just a guy. He is an important player in all of this. And throughout knowing if you know anything about the American Revolution. It wasn't exactly smooth sailing from the standpoint of how it was being funded and how the troops were being taken care of. We have these famous stories from Valley Forge. And throughout all of this, Arnold is looking at himself and saying, look like I've done all this amazing stuff. Why am I not getting more recognition? He eventually gets passed over for promotion, which really makes him jaded. He begins hanging around. He's sort of an explosive personality. At different times. He tries to resign his Commission and gets talked back into staying.

Gary (14:56)
But the big moment that we're talking about is in 1780, where there's a plan attached to hand over the Fort at West Point, which again a major institution in American history. However, this plan is discovered and he is a traitor.

Kirk (15:16)
But when we're thinking about that treacherous action that he takes, we're really talking about a couple of our different virtues and vices here. It's his lack of integrity, for example, that leads him to make a choice that we see as treacherous. It's his failure to be responsible so irresponsibility, his lack of integrity being sort of self-deception, him seeing himself in a condition where he thought he ought to betray his own cause for the sake of personal profit. We see his own hubris, right. The fact that he thought he needed to be recognized in a particular way, all of these things sort of cloud his judgment, at least as history has judged him to be a traitor. They clouded his judgment and caused him to take an action that ultimately hurt himself and hurt the cause of American independence at the time. And all of this is then pointing toward this moment at West Point where he's now gets command of this Fort and wants to hand it over to the British in a deal because he thinks, look, the American cause has become corrupted. They're not actually saving us from anything. What would be better is if we go to the side of the British and put down this rebellion so that we can get rid of this corrupt, petty government that seems to be focused on the wrong things.

Kirk (16:35)
And so he attempts to do just that. But before he can do it, famously, a Major John André, who is a part of the British intelligence sort of service, is captured as he's carrying a message with final details for how they're going to capture not only West Point, mind you, but also General Washington, who is coming up there to visit. So the hope was this big final blow and they would capture Washington, sort of the figurehead of the American cause and this important Fort. And with those two things, the American cause would simply collapse. But that does not come to pass. Obviously, Andre is captured and eventually hung. Arnold escapes and goes and joins the British, ends up continuing to lead troops on the opposite side for the British, which is also horrific. He famously Burns a town not far from his own hometown in Connecticut and fights for the British and eventually ends up going and leaving what comes to the United States, but goes back to London, lives there for a while, comes to Canada for a bit, and then goes back to London, eventually dies. But the point being there's this moment where he's attempting to make this big thing and he thinks he's going to make a stand for a cause, but ultimately ends up that he is a traitor.

Gary (18:01)
Do you think from his perspective, his choices had any kind of consistency to them? Meaning that he thought he was doing the right thing at any point.

Kirk (18:12)
I think he certainly thought he was doing the right thing. But the right thing to what end, I think is where that gets complicated. He's doing the right thing, he thinks, because he's working against what he sees as sort of a bumbling corrupted legislature and government that can't support the brave soldiers who are pursuing the cause of independence. So he thinks by acting opposite of that, he is going to be sort of lauded as a hero, or is he thinking and this is the fun thing about history, or is he thinking, hey, I'm not getting the recognition that I need or that I shouldn't say, no, I'm not getting the recognition I deserve in an age, by the way, where that kind of recognition is seen as extraordinarily important, and because he is not receiving that, he takes an action in which he thinks that he will get his deserved recognition, or he's duped into thinking that and encouraged to think that by sort of other actors, Major John André being one of them and encouraged to do this for a tidy sum of money, which is always something that tempts us. And so he then is sort of pulled in this direction to make this stunning decision to turn against a cause for which he has truly sacrificed both his own money and his own body in pursuit of.

Gary (19:47)
Yeah, it sounds significant that later in life in post-1780, that it's not that he just disappears into the void, but rather goes toward Britain. Do you think that's significant?

Kirk (20:04)
Yeah, absolutely. And it's also significant how he's treated there. So you take these actions and suddenly you get a reputation. So he goes to England after again fighting against the very soldiers that he had served with, goes back to England and he's sort of treated with derision. He's sort of seen as someone who's not to be trusted, who did betray his cause. And that sticks with people. That to me goes back to that virtue of integrity or the vice of self-deception. Right. You think you're going to do something, but turns out when you don't hold up your commitments. Right. For unjustified reasons, people notice that and they begin not to trust that there is certain fabric within those kind of societal relationships that begins to break down. But now the big question is if it had succeeded, would he have also been treated that way? Which I think is also an interesting question.

Gary (21:03)
Yeah. Counterfactuals abound in the story of Benedict Arnold, of what would have happened had it worked out, what would have happened, if anything like that. But I think you hit a really important idea in that when studying these narratives when looking at the lies of choices, there's the difference between what the individual choice is and then what it meant, if that makes any sense. So the choosing one side over another in a war or you not usually are a traitor. You may be loyal to a side. Right. Nobody false you for that, but you use the word integrity, which I think is an important one to focus on. Right. If we're thinking about virtue and vice, anybody can look at this choice and say it's not that you were on a side, it's that you lacked integrity in the choices that were continuous. It wasn't one day it wasn't a moment of a choice. It sounds like, as you were saying, a series of choices that had motivations that built upon themselves and whose choices led to further choices he had, which sounds like part of why it's a really good application of the difference between an individual choice that we may have judged that could have gone differently had history gone differently, and the exhibition of why he's making choices and the meaning behind the choice and his awareness of even if he thought it was a good idea that it was a breakdown in his integrity.

Kirk (22:32)
Yeah, that's right. You're seeing him, and that's why it's helpful to kind of frame it around those different moments that he had throughout. So he's getting frustrated and he resigned his Commission early on in Washington has to talk him back into staying his frustration and getting passed over for promotion. All of these little things begin to show sort of the overall image of where it's sort of trending for Arnold. And again, it's not necessarily the treachery in and of itself that was a single his choice at West Point was a single choice, but it's all of that taken together that show him portraying the cause. Turning against one's own side is a big deal, particularly when you have committed so much to it, it becomes an even bigger deal. And I would say that's probably why that story of Benedict Arnold sticks with us so much. And why you mentioned that you learned it when you were young and in school is because it wasn't just a small little act of treachery. It was a significant thing and had potential significant consequences. But again, not because it was just that one single choice. It was all of his choices taken together that build toward that seminal moment.

Gary (23:54)
Are you aware of any moments in his life after all of this where contemporaries of his perhaps or others were acknowledging what he had done or who he was?

Kirk (24:08)
Yeah. Well, it's funny you say that another person in history who fascinates me is actually a Frenchman named Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, or who's more commonly just known as Talleyrand, who people famously know. He pops up in French history often throughout the French Revolution and then later into the Napoleonic era. He's very famous for being not loyal to anyone. He pops up in American history, most commonly in the XYZ affair, when he essentially solicited a bribe for the United States in order to even begin negotiations with France. So he's a colorful guy in and of himself. There's a couple of really good biographies about him that sort of play around with whether or not he himself was a trader. But what I love about Talleyrand's story is a singular moment that I think really puts this in perspective. So, Talleyrand, it's towards the beginning of the French Revolution, after he was for constitutional monarchy and then wasn't anymore, and then sort of going back and forth, decides that he needs to leave with other French nobility, these being the famous exiles. So he's on his way out of the country, his ship gets stuck in the English Channel because of bad weather.

Kirk (25:26)
And so he's in a town along the English Coast and he decides to or he stays at a Tavern and he's chatting with the Tavern keeper and he tells the Tavern keeper, well, I'm going to America. And the Tavern keeper says, well, good news for you, there's an American here. Maybe you can chat with them. Might be interesting. And so Tolerance sits down with this gentleman, has a conversation, and as they're trying to just kind of chatting back and forth, Talleyrand at one point ask, well, could you give me any letters of introduction? These used to be if I was going to go and meet Benjamin Franklin, I would need sort of a letter of recommendation, a letter of introduction to be able to meet with him. So Tolerance asks for this. And the guy says, well, no, sorry, probably not. I'm not really welcome there anymore. And it turns out that this person was actually Benedict Arnold, that he was sharing a conversation with this moment, I think is so powerful because it calls the question here is Arnold who has betrayed the American cause. This happened, I think, around 1793 or 1794. So it's after, obviously, the cessation of hostilities.

Kirk (26:32)
Arnold is back living in London at this point. But here's Arnold, who has made these choices, betrayed his cause, was a part of it. Talking with Talleyrand, who often changes sides and goes with political whims and whimsy. Talleyrand is known for changing sides, but not necessarily known as a traitor in every circle, but more sort of complex figure. But Arnold certainly is an absolute trader. In the particular biography, I was reading this and mentions it's interesting, Arnold is seen as a traitor even though he was going back to the side of the British, which is what the Americans were rebelling against in the first place, which one could look at the Americans and see them as being traders or the British cause. Right. So there's a lot going on there, but just this idea of these two men sitting down, having this conversation, I think says a lot about sort of the nature of integrity, the nature of what it means. These individuals' actions mean how is their understood interpreted by history and what we can learn from them?

Gary (27:40)
Yeah, I mean, not only is that a great, interesting story because you can imagine it right, it illustrates itself, this meeting, the significance of it, but also the context. You're right of the time period, what it means putting yourself in what it means to be for or against the geopolitics of the time. I think it's great. So it's not only an interesting human story of two men meeting in a Tavern, but those two men being significant historical figures. And I like your depiction of Benedict Arnold saying, yeah, they probably don't like me too much around there, like this almost self-awareness of the impacts of the choices that he made and his role in history. You don't often get somebody's self-awareness of their role in history from the person themselves. So that makes it a great story.

Kirk (28:35)
Yeah, I think that's right. And it's also interesting. Choices have consequences, and if they have consequences, they can have good consequences, they can have bad consequences. Which again, just going back to why we talk about virtue and vice so much, since they do have consequences, it's probably important to think about whether you're making better or worse decisions. And I think that's what the framework of our virtues and vices helps us to reflect on and to think about.

Gary (29:01)
No, I think that's great because it's like you read my mind, Kirk because that's sort of where I was thinking of going. That's where I think this conversation was going, where we started off with the abstract idea of virtues and vices. You mentioned Aristotle, you mentioned these big ideas, big concepts, and then said there's a value to looking at individual historical choices, moments, narratives. We then told the story of Benedict Arnold, but it really does set up, I think, a good template for not just his story, but narratives in general. How do you think Benedict Arnold's story is a good template for the way we think about applying principles and virtues and vices to the stories of history?

Kirk (29:54)
Yeah, I think it's great because it gives so much fodder to think about and debate and struggle with. So we've introduced a lot of complexity right into the conversation. He was a traitor to the American cause of Independence. The American Cause of Independence has this really long letter where they basically say why they're doing what they're doing. They pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. They do that because they know that they themselves are breaking away from a cause that they had previously been committed to, a cause that they had been loyal to. Right. What do you make of that? Well, it's complicated. Life is complicated. History is extraordinarily complicated. But in looking at these individual stories, you can begin to see behaviors where things kind of take a different tack. So Benedict Arnold is not going to find a lot of defenders in the United States. And again, it is because of his treachery, but it's also because of what builds up to that treachery. It's him being so frustrated that he himself isn't getting personal recognition that he himself isn't being supported in the way that he needs to. There's several famous moments where people are working in concert to sort of achieve improvements for the Patriot cause.

Kirk (31:07)
And Arnold says, no, I'm going to stand on my own and I'm going to do things individually and sort of use my own personality to make something happen in all of that sort of that pulling away that people would maybe characterize his behavior as petulant. Right. As being sort of like demonstrating this kind of hubris where he's only thinking about himself. He's not acting humbly. He is sacrificing for the cause, but he's not doing so in a way that is putting the cause first. All of those things sort of build-up to this moment. And having these virtues and vices devices can help us looking at devices can help us see where the virtues actually are because you're kind of seeing the absence of that virtuous action.

Gary (31:53)
You're exactly hearing what I was thinking.

Kirk (31:55)
Yeah.

Gary (31:55)
Keep going.

Kirk (31:56)
And all of that builds towards, I think, this understanding that we can look at his life and we can learn from it. Right. We can learn and we can sit and think about our own commitments. Maybe it's a sports team that we're on and maybe we need to show up on time and we keep running late. And that running late is causing everybody else to have to do extra wind sprints or something. Right. Like those choices have consequences. So we individually act with integrity, building those habits can hopefully build towards a future where we're making even bigger decisions that maybe have even bigger consequences in the long term.

Gary (32:31)
There's enough to untangle that, I think, is the delight in studying history, which is why I have to say, Mr. Higgins, it's been a delight having you here because you work with telling us these stories.

Kirk (32:44)
I think your point about talking about all these different stories just shows how many more stories there are to tell, and that telling these things from different perspectives, I think, continues to broaden our understanding of how these different habits and actions play out in our lives. So look to the Bill of Rights Institute for forever more stories that will be coming out in the near future.

Gary (33:07)
If I may, I think you've given us a lot to think about, not only in today's conversation but in all the work at the Bill of Rights Institute. So I wanted to thank you for joining us.

Kirk (33:15)
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. It's been a lot of fun.

Gary (33:18)
Great. Well, for those listeners out there, continue reading these stories or listening to the stories and tales of choices made and the great narratives, both real and perhaps fictional. But most of all, continue asking these good questions. Thanks for joining us. And we'll talk to you next time.

Intro/Outro (33:38)
The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exists in a free society. Check out our educational resources and programs on our website. Mybri.org any questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you. Just email us at comments@fabricofhistory.org and don't forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to stay connected and informed about future episodes. Thank you for listening.