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| Birth: | 5 Feb 1725 in W. Barnstable, MA |
| Death: | 23 May 1783 in Andover, MA (struck by lightning) |
| Sex: | M |
| Father: | James Otis, Sr. b. 14 Jun 1702 in W, Barnstable, MA |
| Mother: | Mary Allyne\Alleyne b. 1702 in Allyne House, Plymouth, MA |
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Individual:
"James Otis, Junior, was born at a place called Great Marshes, now known as West Barnstable, on the 5th of February, 1725. He inherited from his father and grandfather not only a large measure of talents but also a passion for public life which impelled him strongly to the study and solution of those questions which related to the welfare of the American colonies, and to the means by which their political independence might be ultimately secured.
The character and intellect of Colonel Otis of Barnstable were transmitted to other members of his family also. The daughter Mercy, oldest sister of James Otis, was married to James Warren who made his home at Plymouth. This lady had her brother's passion for politics--an enthusiasm which could hardly be restrained. She wrote and conversed in a fiery manner on the revolutionary topics of the day. Almost coincidently with the Battle of Bunker Hill she composed and published (without her name, however,) a biting satire on the colonial policy of Great Britain, calling her brochure "The Group." Fifteen years afterwards she published a volume of poems, mostly patriotic pieces, and finally in 1805 a brief "History of the American Revolution," which was considered a reputable work after its kind.
Samuel Alleyne Otis, youngest brother of James, outlived nearly all the other members of the family, and was recognized as a prominent political leader. He, also, had the strong patriotic and revolutionary bent of the family, was popular and influential, and was honored with a long term of service as Secretary of the Senate of the United States. In this capacity he participated, April 30, 1789, in the inauguration of
Washington, holding the Bible on which the Father of his Country took the oath of office. The other brothers and sisters were of less conspicuous ability, and were not so well known to their own and other times.
In New England in the first half of the eighteenth century the sentiment of education was universal. Among the leading people, the sentiment was intense. Colonel Otis, of Barnstable, was alert with respect to the discipline and development of his children. He gave to them all, to the sons especially, the best advantages which the commonwealth afforded. James Otis was assigned to the care of Reverend Jonathan Russell, the minister at Barnstable, who prepared the youth for college. By the middle of his fifteenth year he was thought to be ready for matriculation. He was accordingly entered as a freshman at Harvard, in June, 1739.
On attaining his thirtieth year Mr. Otis came to the event of his marriage. He took in union, in the spring of 1755, Ruth Cunningham, daughter of a Boston merchant. From one point of view his choice was opportune, for it added to his social standing and also to his means. From another aspect, however, the marriage was less fortunate. The Cunningham family was not well grounded in the principles of patriotism. The timid commercial spirit showed itself in the father, and with this the daughter sympathized. The sharp line of division between patriotism and loyalty had not yet been drawn--as it was drawn five years afterward. But it began to be drawn very soon after the marriage with serious consequences to the domestic peace of the family. It appears that beside this general cause of divergence, the staid and unenthusiastic character of Mrs. Otis rather chilled the ardor of the husband, and he, for his part, by his vehemence and eccentricity, did not strongly conciliate her favor. There were times of active disagreement in the family, and in later years the marriage was rather a fact than a principle.
The result of Mr. Otis's marriage was a family of one son and two daughters. The son, who was given his father's name, showed his
father's characteristics from childhood, and certainly a measure of his genius. The lad, however, entered the navy at the outbreak of the Revolution, became a midshipman, and died in his eighteenth year. The oldest daughter, Elizabeth, went wholly against her father's grain and purpose. Just before the beginning of the Revolution, but after the case had been clearly made up, she was married to a certain Captain Brown, at that time a British officer in Boston, cordially disliked, if not hated, by James Otis. Personally, Brown was respectable, but his cause was odious. He was seriously wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Afterwards he was promoted and was given a command in England. Thither his wife went with him, and Mr. Otis discarded them both, if not with anathema at least with contempt. The younger daughter of the family shared her father's patriotism. She was married to Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., a young lawyer of Boston, whose father was General Benjamin Lincoln of revolutionary fame. The marriage was a happy one, but ultimately clouded with honorable grief. Two promising sons were born, but each died before reaching his majority. The father also died when he was twenty-eight years old. The wife and mother resided in Cambridge, and died there in 1806.
The second period in James Otis's life may be regarded as extending from 1755 to 1760; that is, from his thirtieth to his thirty-fifth year. It was in this period that he rose to eminence. Already distinguished as a lawyer, he now became more distinguished as a civilian and a man of public affairs.
He caught the rising interest as at the springing of the tide, and rose with it until it broke in lines of foam along the shores of New England. He gained the confidence of the patriot party, of which he was the natural leader. His influence became predominant. He was the peer of the two Adamses, and touched hands right and left with the foremost men of all the colonies.
Of the speech which followed we have no complete record or wholly satisfactory summary. It is to John Adams, and to the notes which he made on the occasion, that we must look for our opinion of what was, if we mistake not, the greatest and most effective oration delivered in the American colonies before the Revolution. John Adams, then twenty-five years of age, passing from his notes of Thatcher's speech, says of the greater actor: "But Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classicalallusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him. American Independence was then and there born. The seeds of patriots and heroes, to defend the Non sine diis animosus infans, to defend the vigorous youth, were then and there sown. Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against Writs of Assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born. In fifteen years, that is in 1776, he grew up to manhood, and declared himself free."
Mr. Otis spoke for five hours, during which time with his rather rapid utterance he would perhaps deliver an oration of 30,000 words.
Otis in the next place went into fundamentals and discussed the rights of man in a state of nature. In this part, the argument ran in an
analagous vein to that of Rousseau in the Contrat Social that is, man in the first place is a sovereign subject only to the higher laws revealed in his own conscience. In this state he has a right to life, to liberty, to property. Here the speaker fell into the manner of Jefferson in the opening paragraphs of the Declaration. It is to be noted that Otis presented the truth absolutely; he including negroes in the common humanity to whom inalienable rights belong. Mr. Otis next took up the social compact, and showed that society is the individual enlarged and generalized. This brought him to the question before the court; for the conflict now on was a struggle of society, endowed with inalienable rights, against arbitrary authority and its abusive exercise.
It is from this point of view that the character and work of James Otis appear to the greatest historical advantage. There can be no doubt that his was the living voice which called to resistance, first Boston, then Massachusetts, then New England and then the world! For ultimately the world heard the sound thereof and was glad. The American Colonies resisted, and at length won their independence. The sparks fell in France, and the jets of flame ran together in a conflagration the light of which was seen over Europe, and if over Europe, then over the world. The Pre-revolutionist had cried out and mankind heard him. Resistance to tyranny became obedience to God.
We may regard his rational career as ending with the year 1769. In September of this year it was noticed that he had become excitable, and that his natural eccentricity was accented at times to the extent of rendering his conduct irrational. During the sessions of the Assembly, in the years 1770 and 1771, James Otis retained his membership, but the mental disease which afflicted him began to grow worse, and he participated only at intervals (and eccentrically) in the business of legislation. In May of 1770, a town meeting was held in Boston, and resolution of thanks was passed to the distinguished representative for his services in the General Assembly. This was on the occasion of his retirement into the country, in the hope of regaining his health. At the close, the resolution declared: "The town cannot but express their ardent wishes for the recovery of his (Mr. Otis's) health, and the continuance of those public services, that must long be remembered with gratitude, and distinguish his name among the Patriots of America."
From this time forth the usefulness of James Otis was virtually at an end. In the immortal drama on which the curtain was rising
--the drama of Liberty and Independence--he was destined to take no part. The pre-revolutionist in eclipse must give place to the Revolutionist who was rising. John Adams came after, not wholly by his own ambition, but at the call of inexorable History, to take the part and place of the great Forerunner. The patriot in dim eclipse became at times wholly rational, but with the least excitement his malady would return. In conversation something of his old brilliancy would return in flashes. For the rest, the chimes in that high soul no longer played the music of reason, but gave out only the discords of insanity. He was never reduced to serious delirium or to violent frenzy, but he was an insane man; and under this shadow he walked for the greater part of ten years, during which Independence was declared and the Revolution fought out to a victorious end. It was in this period of decline and obscuration that James Otis witnessed through the gathering shadows the rise to distinction and fame of many of the patriots whom he had led in the first campaigns for liberty. John Adams and Hancock were now at the fore battling for independence. Among those who rose to eminence in the immortal eighth decade was Samuel Alleyne Otis, who in 1776 was elected a representative in the great Congress of the Revolution. James did not live to see his brother become speaker of the House, but he witnessed in 1780 his service as a member of the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts. Afterward, in 1787, he was a commissioner to negotiate a settlement with the participants in Shay's Rebellion. With the organization of the new national government he became Secretary of the Senate of the United States, and served in that capacity until his death, April 22, 1814.
Strange, strange are the foregleams of the things to come! On one occasion he said to his sister, Mrs. Warren, "I hope when God
Almighty in his Providence shall take me out of time into eternity, it will be by a flash of lightning!" The tradition goes that he frequently gave expression to this wish. Did the soul foresee the manner of its exit? A marvelous and tragic end was indeed at hand. On the 23d of
May, 1783, only a few months before the Briton left our shores never to return but by the courtesy of the Republic, a thundercloud, such as the season brings in New England, passed over Andover. James Otis stood against the lintel of the door watching the commotion of the elements. There was a crash of thunder. The lightning, serpent-like, darted from heaven to earth and passed through the body of the patriot! Instantly he was dead."
Exerpts from James Otis, The Pre-Revolutionist by John Clark Ridpath
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