Dr. David Ramsay: Patriot, Revolutionary Historian, and Gun Victim

Dr. David Ramsay of Charleston was an active participant in and major early historian of the American Revolution. He also has the distinction of being the first of many American politicians to be assassinated. 

Ramsay was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1749, the son of Scottish or Scotch-Irish emigrants. He graduated from The College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1765. In 1773, he became one of the first recipients of the MD degree from the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) in 1773. [Image: A young David Ramsay, by Charles Wilson Peale]

Ramsay moved to Charleston, South Carolina the following year, upon the recommendation of his mentor, Dr. Benjamin Rush. The city and its environs was then one of the unhealthiest and wealthiest regions of British North America, and a magnet for medical men. After a slow start, Ramsay built a lucrative medical practice. 

He soon became involved in politics. When he arrived in Charleston, conflicts between the thirteen colonies and the British government were escalating towards war. Ramsay joined with the Whigs, or Patriots, as they later called themselves. He served in the state legislature during the War for Independence.

During the British siege of Charleston in the spring of 1780, he served as an army surgeon. After the British captured the city, they sent Ramsay and other Patriot leaders to St. Augustine, Florida. He remained there nearly a year, until he was released in a prisoner exchange. 

He went to Philadelphia, where he became a member of the Continental Congress. He served in that body until 1786, after which he returned to South Carolina. During the 1790s he served several times in the state senate. His hope of becoming a United States senator was dashed when his opponent accused him of being insufficiently supportive of slavery. 

Ramsay had opposed slavery when he first came to South Carolina, but he gradually modified his views on the issue. Without specifically endorsing slavery, he helped to justify it. 

In 1780, he wrote his mentor Rush that he had concluded that God had designed blacks for labor in hot, humid, and sickly South Carolina: "Providence intended this for a Negro settlement. Their constitution is undoubtedly better suited to the climate, and all planters tell us that their lands cannot be cultivated by white men...." 

In later years Ramsay blamed the enslaved themselves for their poor health rather than their living and working conditions. They carelessly exposed themselves to dangerous miasmas, knowing that an illness would gain them some time off from work and the attentions of a medical man. Why they would look forward to time off at the price of being ill, bled, and purged, he did not say. 

Ramsay's change of views on slavery was no doubt influenced by his social, familial, and political environment. As a physician active in revolutionary politics, he became acquainted with many local planters. 

In 1787 he married Martha Laurens, daughter of slave trader, planter, and politician Henry Laurens. She was Ramsay's third wife. The first two, Sabina Ellis (1775) and Frances Witherspoon (1783), had died within a year of their weddings. It may seem that Ramsay was a bit careless with his wives, but there is no clear evidence of that. 

His marriage to Martha Laurens lasted until her death in 1811 and produced at least eleven children. Through his marriage to Martha he became related to some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in South Carolina, families with names like Rutledge, Pinckney, Middleton, and Izard. Each of them, like his father in law, owed their wealth to the labor of hundreds enslaved Africans. [Image: Henry Laurens, c.1782, painted when he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, by Lemuel Francis Abbott]

After the Declaration of Independence Laurens penned a letter to his son John then in London, later published, in which he declared his dislike of slavery and his intention to work for its abolition. But he did no such thing, and only freed one of his slaves in his will. John Laurens, however, took his fathers' words seriously and remained committed to abolition until his death in one of the last skirmishes of the War for Independence in 1782. 

After the Revolution, Ramsay wrote several medical works. They remain useful to the historian of medicine and disease, but his medical ideas were highly derivative. He became an advocate of Benjamin Rush's heroic medicine, which recommended drastic bleeding and purging for most ailments. This medical regime sent many an unfortunate to an early grave. 

On the positive side, Ramsay was an early advocate of Jenner's vaccination for smallpox, and began vaccinating early as 1802. He predicted that a general use of the technique could eliminate the dreaded scourge from the earth. He was right, although the goal was not achieved until the late 1970s. 

It is for his historical works, not his political or medical contributions, that Ramsay is best known today. He wrote some of the earliest histories of the American Revolution. In 1785 he published a detailed History of the Revolution of South Carolina. It describes many events he was witness to or a participant in.  

He followed with History of the American Revolution (1789) and History of South Carolina (1809). A History of the United States appeared in 1816-1817, shortly after his unexpected and unusual death. In these works he took an increasingly nationalist position. [Image: David Ramsay in mid-life, by Rembrandt Peale]

In 1815, Charleston's legal authorities asked Ramsay to examine William Linnen, a tailor who had tried to murder his lawyer. Ramsay reported that Linnen was deranged and dangerous, but not guilty of a crime due to his mental condition. In making this claim, Ramsay was aligning himself with medical and legal ideas that were as yet not widely accepted. 

When Linnen appeared to have regained his sanity, the authorities released him. Linnen threatened Ramsay for calling him a madman, but Ramsay did not take the threat seriously. On May 6, 1815,  Linnen approached Ramsay on Broad Street, pulled out a pistol and shot him twice.

Onlookers carried Ramsay to his home, where he died two days later, insisting to the last that Linnen was "a lunatic free from guilt." Ramsay was buried in the Charleston's Circular Congregational Church. 

Ramsay was the first American politician to be assassinated, but many more would face the same fate, as America pursued its love affair with the gun. 

Further Reading:

Arthur Shaffer, To Be an American: David Ramsay and the Making of the America Consciousness, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991. 

Peter McCandless, Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2011, 2014. 

   

Abortion Rights and Mill's "Subjection of Women"

"All that was most striking and profound in what was written by me belongs to my wife." John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

In 1869, the British philosopher John Stuart Mill published an influential pro-feminist essay called The Subjection of Women. It remains highly relevant today, especially with the recent threat to abortion rights in the United States. [Image: Mill, 1873, by Frederic Watts]

Mill did not address the issue of abortion in The Subjection of Women. But he would almost surely have favored what today is called "reproductive freedom." In an earlier work, On Liberty (1859), he had declared the principle of bodily sovereignty: "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." Twentieth century feminists translated that into "Our Bodies, Ourselves."

It is significant that Mill acknowledged the influence on his ideas of his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, and also his stepdaughter, Helen Taylor. He was not lecturing women, but learning from them, and his message was directed at men more than women. [Images: Harriet Taylor Mill, unknown painter, National Portrait Gallery, and photo of Helen Taylor with Mill. Harriet died in 1858.]

In 1867 Mill presented a petition to Parliament calling for women's suffrage. He did so at the request of two women, Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Emily Davies. The first draft of the petition was written by his stepdaughter, Helen. It failed but got the issue into the political discussion at the highest level.  

What was Mill's message in The Subjection of Women? It was the then outrageous claim that women were very likely the equals of men in most spheres of life, and superior in some. And the world would be a happier place if women had equal rights to men. 

Mill rejected the traditional view that it was women's nature to be limited to the role of wives, mothers, and housekeepers, obedient to their male superiors. In fact, he denied that anyone could justify such limitations on the grounds of something as nebulous as women's natural constitution. What society considered "natural" was only what was "customary;" that is, what they were accustomed to.

Women had always been kept in an "unnatural state" of subjection to men, preventing their free development. Their "nature" had been "distorted and disguised." No one could predict what women's nature would be if they were "left to choose its direction as freely as men's." What society calls the nature of women is an "eminently artificial thing -- the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others." 

If "artificial" restrictions on female development were removed, it might be found that there would be no "material difference" in their "character and capacities" compared to men. The only way to find out would be to remove the restrictions, to let women choose their own way, and see what happens. 

Such an "experiment" was not a mere intellectual exercise. It would materially affect the future of humanity. The subjection of women suppressed the talents of one-half of the human race. Who could tell what women, freed of traditional restraints, might do to improve the world? No one could find out what anyone was capable of except by letting them try.

The existing relationship between men and women was one of power. Men had it, women were subject to it. Fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands -- all had the power to control the women in their lives. 

Mill likened marriage to the master-slave relationship. Chattel slavery had been abolished, but the law left married women in bondage to their husbands. He admitted that wives were generally treated better than slaves, but argued that their legal position was, if anything, worse than that of a slave. Wives had virtually no protection for their property, their aspirations, or their bodies. The law treated them as children, or worse, imbeciles. [Image: Suffragette Poster, c. 1910]

Defenders of the status quo objected that good men did not abuse their power over women. Mill conceded the point but insisted that laws and institutions needed to be designed for men who were not good.

Women had no power and no legal protection from abusive husbands. The law in effect, left "the victim still in the power of the executioner." It was "contrary to reason and experience" to expect that women in such a position would be safe from "brutality."

Mill did not spell out what he meant by brutality, but it is not hard to imagine the possibilities, given our current experience of spousal abuse, both physical and psychological. 

Mill's arguments in The Subjection of Women are rooted in utilitarianism, a philosophy he had learned as a child from its founder, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and his own father, James Mill. 

Bentham had famously argued that human laws and institutions should be judged according to the principle of utility. They should be favored or rejected according to the extent to which they promoted "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."  

Mill rejected parts of Bentham's philosophy and made it more human. Bentham had tried to develop a calculus of happiness ("the felicific calculus"), to determine mathematically what would contribute to the greatest happiness. It did not work, but it did lead one of Bentham's disciples, Charles Babbage, to develop the principle of the computer.

Mill centered happiness in the mind of the individual. It was not possible for anyone to decide what was best for others. There was "no means by which anyone else can discover for them what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone."

In On Liberty, Mill argued that society has no right to limit individual freedom except to prevent harm to others (The Harm Principle). Would Mill have argued that abortion should be prohibited because of the harm to the fetus, or allowed because forcing a woman to carry a baby to term violates the principle of bodily sovereignty, and may harm the woman? 

Because he never directly addressed this issue, we can never know. But I'm confident he would have been on the side of pro-choice. 

Further reading: 

J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869) and On Liberty (1859). See also his Utilitarianism (1863), for a full discussion of his philosophical outlook. 

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Canaletto Does London, 1746-1755

Giovanni Antonio Canal, or Canaletto, the handle he painted under, is renowned for his lavish portrayals of Venice, where he was born and spent most of his life. Even his name evokes the watery avenues of his native city. 

Canaletto is far less known for his "English Period." He spent nine years in London, arriving in 1746, and painted more than 50 London scenes. Many of them, like his Venetian paintings, focus on water, in this case the mighty Thames. 

He painted several scenes of the river from the terrace of Old Somerset House, the palace of the Somerset dukes. Here are three views from the house. The first two look east towards the City of London and St. Paul's Cathedral. The third looks west towards the seat of government at Westminster and its famous abbey. 

 

 

Another Thames vantage point Canaletto painted from was the first Westminster Bridge, which was under construction when he arrived in England. The bucket hanging from the arch provides a nice touch.

He also pained the whole bridge when it was completed in 1750. The painting here features the grand opening celebration, with the barges of the dignitaries. 

To the East of London, he did several paintings of Christopher Wren's Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich, constructed between 1696 and 1712. The buildings later served as the Royal Naval College, and are now part of the University of Greenwich. The Painted Hall has recently been restored and is a must see. James Thornhill's masterpiece, it took nineteen years to complete.  

Canaletto did more than water scenes. Here is his stunning painting of Westminster Abbey, highlighting a procession of the knights of the Order of the Bath.

He left us a fine view of a former great aristocratic residence, Northumberland House, along with the equestrian statue of the ill-fated Charles I to its right. The statue remains where it was, but the house was demolished in the 19th century. The view here is looking up the Strand, the main thoroughfare connecting the City of London and Westminster. 

Another long-gone building he painted was the rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens, a great Georgian pleasure palace. The huge fireplace is at the centre. An orchestra plays at the right, while aristocrats and other wealthy folk promenade.

Canaletto painted several scenes of the famous Horse Guards. The first one here is the Old Horse Guards from St. James's Park, followed by the New Horse Guards that was constructed while he was in London and is still there.  

Below is a view of Whitehall, the seat of government, and the Privy Guards from Richmond House. 

Canaletto returned to Venice in 1755. He left behind a marvellous collection of scenes of Georgian London, then the largest city in the world. Of course, he completely ignored the world of the less fortunate, the crime, slums, and brutality that was the lot of many Londoners. His London is wealthy, even opulent, and the sky is always blue. 

Canaletto died in 1768 in his native city. Below is an engraving of the artist.