Noah Webster Speaks Out
on Politicians and Special Interests

Noah Webster (1758-1843) has long been known as "schoolmaster to America" for his Blue-backed Speller (1783) and as a lexicographer for his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. These achievements gave him a well-deserved national reputation but have over shadowed his voluminous political writings. Scholars need to look more closely at his essays and letters whose contents helped define the issues of the new republic.

In the 1830s, when in his 70s, Webster wrote a number of reflective essays, prompted by what he saw as the political mayhem brought by Andrew Jackson's ascension to the Presidency. Webster wrote about how his ideas of the Revolution and politics changed over the years. His ideas about politicians, like those of many of the founders, came from the classical republican tradition of ancient Rome. These republican ideas included objections to luxury, selfishness, and corruption. Man, Webster argued, was by nature a political being who rose in society by merit, not by birth. His greatest moral fulfillment came by participating in a self-governing republic. People attained freedom when they were virtuous - that is, when they were willing to sacrifice their private interests for the sake of the community, including serving in public office without being paid.

For Webster and other founders of the new nation, a politician had to be independent. He had to own his own land and could not be directly involved in the marketplace. If he was, he might enter politics to aggrandize himself, not for the classical disinterested reason of serving his country. A virtuous man sacrificed private desires and interests for the public good. In fact, Webster argued that only land-holding men over 45 could be disinterested enough to have the franchise.

George Washington, to Webster, was the consummate example of the disinterested politician. Like Cincinnatus of ancient Rome, Washington retired after his great military victories in the war. He did not make political gains out of his exploits. It was only when he was asked to return to be President, that Washington acquiesced. He did not seek out the position, and he saw his role as President as a sacrifice for the common good.

By the time Andrew Jackson became President in 1832, politics took on a distinct flavor of interests with which Webster had so much trouble. This next generation of politicians believed that they represented the interests of a specific group of people. If all the interests of the various groups were represented in government, they believed, then the interests of all would be served by this democratic government.

Webster viewed this type of politics as the politics of self-aggrandizement. In fact, in an article printed in the Commercial Advertiser, he went so far as to say that "Men have found that the chances of having a good magistrate by birth are about equal to the chances of obtaining one by popular election." For this comment, he was lambasted as a monarchist and people wrote rebuttals in area newspapers for as many as three years after publication of the article.

Webster clearly set himself with the founders who believed that if a man was dependent financially on someone, he could not serve the public good, but would only be concerned about his dependent relationship. It was only a man who had no economic interests and sought no economic advantage who could serve well.

- Dr. Tracey Wilson