Friday, January 26, 2007 11:39 PM CST
John Hancock: Power-loving patriot, popular with the masses
By HAL MALEHORN
John Hancock was the first American to sign the Declaration of Independence, and he did so with a big bold hand -- all the better (it was said) for King George to read it without his spectacles on.
An experienced handwriting expert, analyzing that signature’s oversize script, its open letters, its slightly uphill slant and its flourishes, might well describe John Hancock thus: a man with a huge ego and ambition, a man glorying in pomp and authority, and a man self-indulgent and promoting his own interests.
That same chirographic analyst might also suggest that John Hancock was a man who was often generous, who became fully committed to America’s independence, and who, though he was Boston’s leading aristocrat, had a heart of a democrat.
In all these aspects the analyses would be correct. In fact, John Hancock, more than any other patriot -- save Sam Adams -- was instrumental in fomenting revolution in Massachusetts.
Respected by his equals, he was elected to lead the Continental Congress. And, back home in later years he won the Bay State’s governorship six times, each term by an overwhelming majority. Along the way he sacrificed both an uncertain health and his great wealth to the cause of freedom. And, except for his early demise, he might well have been elected the second president of the United States.
John Hancock was born Jan. 12, 1737, in Quincy, Mass., the son of an impoverished parson. Upon the death of his father, the lad at 7 was sent to live with his Uncle Thomas, a childless merchant prince living in a mansion on Boston’s Beacon Hill. There young John learned to love luxury.
John was accorded the best education: training in the classics at the Boston Latin School, and matriculation at Harvard at age 13. There the college steward arranged the students in order of social rank; John thus stood first in his class, earning the right to the best chambers, to march in the academic vanguard, to sit in the very front at chapel, and to enjoy the choicest cuisine.
Though adopted into Boston’s leading family, John still had to undergo an apprenticeship in his uncle’s counting house. There John dressed as a dandy, adding dashes of lilac and lavender to freshen his garments. More important, he learned how to make money, and was soon part owner of a fleet of ships. Upon his uncle’s death, he became a millionaire.
Meanwhile, the Stamp Act passed by Parliament in 1765 imposed a heavy burden upon colonial merchants, who used reams of foolscap to record transactions. And although that oppressive statute was shortly repealed, it was the first measure to create a rift between the colonies and the Mother Country.
At first, Hancock had his qualms about resisting. But he eventually joined newly-formed patriots’ clubs, whose members included Paul Revere, Sam Adams and others demanding their rights as Englishmen.
And while Hancock was aghast at the mob action that brought on the so-called Boston Massacre in 1770, he did support the costly boycott of British goods. It was not long until King George’s representatives in America were describing Hancock as “one of the leaders of the disaffected.” Still, Hancock was reluctant to speak for complete independence.
Eventually, however, Britain’s economic squeeze on Hancock’s commercial enterprise, along with Parliament’s other high-handedness, changed his mind. Ultimately, he assured Bostonians that he would devote both his life and his fortune to freedom’s call.
In October 1774 (six months before the skirmishes at Concord and Lexington), Hancock was elected president of Massachusetts’ First Provincial Congress; this body filled the legislative void created by the British governor’s dissolution of his advisory council. The Provincial Congress shortly voted to recruit volunteers, soon to be called “Minutemen.”
In an effort to enlist wider support for the resistance, Hancock traveled to New York and Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress convened. Hancock was elected president of that body. The attention from the people who pulled his carriage through the streets, plus his election to high office, greatly appealed to Hancock’s vanity.
In fact, after Concord and Lexington, Hancock hoped his colleagues would appoint him (a military novice) to lead the Continental troops. But they wisely chose George Washington instead. Just as disappointing was Washington’s refusal to grant Hancock a position on his staff.
By the summer of 1776 it was clear that independence should be declared. Thus, an appropriate document was prepared and signed.
After that momentous decision there followed a whole new set of differences: Hancock contested with Sam Adams over leadership of the Liberty Party; and colonies wrangled over issues that were political, military and economic.
Returning to the Continental Congress in 1778 as a delegate, Hancock won an appointment as a general of the militia. This authority further inflated his ego. But the Hancock-led troops who ventured against the Redcoats in Rhode Island were soon in ignominious retreat.
As the war was coming to a victorious conclusion elsewhere, Hancock was chosen as a delegate to form a constitution to change Massachusetts from a colony into a state. And so, in 1780 that commonwealth came into being.
Hancock promptly won his first term as governor. The populace admired his sympathy for common people; they liked his vanity and showmanship; they respected his political acumen; and they appreciated his gifts of money for civic projects.
Five times more Hancock would thus be elected. During those years he completed one final public service: although he had reservations about the new U.S. Constitution, he worked hard to effect its Bay State ratification. Furthermore, he was chosen to head the new Congress in the years prior to the election of the nation’s first president; but, because of frail health, he could not serve.
Indeed, he died on Oct. 8, 1793.
Contrary to common belief, the other 51 patriots who had fashioned the Declaration of Independence did not sign it until August 1776. Thus, for a month John Hancock’s signature on that document stood all by itself. In terms of Hancock’s contribution to the nation he helped to found, his life work similarly still stands alone.
Hal Malehorn portrays Alfred Balch at Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.
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