Talk:Newburgh Conspiracy

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This conspiracy is cited in the novel The Postman as leading to the foundation of the Society of Cinncinatus/Cincinatti (sp, sorry). Is it mentioned at all in any other fictional works? Could we expand that into a "The Newburgh Conspiracy" in fiction section? --A Dude

Conflicting Terms

In Horation Gates' article, it is stated that although Gates' aides were connected via rumors, Gates was not directly connected to the conspiracy. On this article, it clearly starts off by stating that he was behind the whole thing.

Relocate anachronistic Pension Act of 1832 discussion to that article

The entire paragraph devoted to the pension act of 1832 belongs with the article devoted to that act. The 1832 Pension Act is only tangentially related to the Newburg address. The Newburg address is an example of Washington’s deft mastery of the fluid chaotic passions of the day, lifting the focus from personal self-interest to the general welfare, and his gift for fixing his countrymen’s affection on the infant nation.

When the address was given commissioned officers, not enlisted men, had been promised pensions that the penniless Continental Congress had no prospect of funding. In 1882 they had an empty promise when Washington secured their renewed affection and loyalty. Months later the officers got IOU’s for lump sum payments instead of pension that Congress couldn’t redeem for another 8 years.

The discussion of previously enslaved persons who had enlisted in the Continental Army receiving pensions under an act of Congress 50 years after Washington’s Newburg Address, and others who did not, belongs in the article about the pension act. Refer to that article in the context of the 1782 pensions if there’s a sound reason why pensions granted 50y later to a different group of people are somehow germane. The connection between the the Newburg Address and those pensions is through an expansion of the context from officers commissioned by the Congress to enlisted soldiers and then displaced 50 years into the future. That future might not have included a constitutional republic at all if Washington had been less adroit handling the nascent uprising in Newburg. The British Army in New York City 30 plus miles south along the Hudson River might have been handed the victory they couldn’t find in the field, at the least it would have . In short, it’s tenuously tied to the circumstances at best and completely unrelated to why the Newburg Address is an historical event.

In 1832 even the drummer boys of 1782 were over 65. On average they were more than twice their generation’s median life expectancy of 36 years. The few veterans of the Continental Army still living were rapidly dying out altogether. The 1832 pensions were more about keeping any destitute veterans from marring celebrations of the 50th anniversary of victory than an overdue commitment to support for the war’s veterans.

The detour describing the runaway slave of a loyalist who worked for the Continental Army as a wagon driver being denied a pension while freed slaves who enlisted as soldiers received pensions, was dramatic but uninformative. It needs more from the scholars to rise above mere provocative speculation. It appears to be trying to view the pension denial as of a piece with the Dred Scott decision holding a runaway slave not to be free in a state that forbade slavery. There are some problems with that. Dred Scott was 1857, a generation later. A runaway slave was prohibited from aiding and abetting a rebellion exactly like every other British subject, the offense was punishable by death. The pivotal distinction is whether the pension administrators treated all employees like wagon drivers who didn’t wear a uniform or carry a weapon equally. If this was the only drover or other civilian employee applying for a soldiers pension in 1832 there’s no reason to question their motive for denying a soldier’s pension to a non-combatant civilian employee. PolychromePlatypus (talk) 23:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)