Benedict Arnold | The Politics of Betrayal | 5

Benedict Arnold is remembered as America’s ultimate traitor. But what did it mean to betray a country that was still being created? Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor untangles the messy reality of the American Revolution, when colonists were divided between Patriots and Loyalists, the survival of the new republic was far from certain, and the meaning of American identity was still being contested. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lindsay Graham?

  Hello, American Scandal listeners. The live show I've been telling you about for a few weeks has a new date, October 23rd at the Plaza Theater in Garland, Texas. This is my Days That Made America Tour, a thrilling evening of history, storytelling and music with me and a band live onstage. So if you're in the North Texas area or anywhere close, be sure to come out and see me live. And more shows will be announced soon. For information on tickets and upcoming dates, go to AmericanHistoryLive.com. That's AmericanHistoryLive.com. Come see my Days That Made America Tour live onstage. Go to AmericanHistoryLive.com.

• 0:45Lindsay Graham?

  From Audible Originals, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American Scandal.

• 1:08Lindsay Graham?

  Benedict Arnold is remembered as the ultimate American traitor, a Revolutionary War hero who turned against the cause, tried to hand West Point over to the British, and eventually fought against the country he was helping to create. But Arnold was more than a cartoon villain. He felt overlooked and humiliated by the Continental Army. He believed other men were being rewarded for achievements he deserved credit for. And by the time he switched sides, the American Revolution itself was far from the straightforward struggle between American and British that it's sometimes imagined to be. People were divided over the Revolution. Fathers and sons, brothers, husbands and wives, and even those who supported independence had very different ideas about what they were fighting for.

• 1:51Lindsay Graham?

  So how did people in this new and uncertain America decide where their loyalties belonged? What did it actually mean to betray a country that was still being created? And why, more than 200 years later, is Benedict Arnold's name the one we still associate most with treason? My guest today is Alan Taylor, a historian at the University of Virginia and Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose work focuses on early American history. We'll talk about Benedict Arnold, the messy reality of the American Revolution, and how we are still grappling with how to remember that period of American history. Our conversation is next.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Thank you to our partner, The Farmer's Dog, the official pet food of the NFL. Open a pack of The Farmer's Dog, pour it in the bowl, and you know exactly what your dog is eating. That kind of clarity is rare. That's because The Farmer's Dog makes real food for dogs. Real meat, fresh vegetables, gently cooked the way you would at home. Never ultra-processed. Every recipe is made with the same quality ingredients you'd find in your own kitchen. Their frozen fresh food is clinically shown to help support healthy aging in dogs. And it's not a luxury. It's simply the standard every dog should be eating. Long live dogs. Go to amazon.com/thefarmer'sdog and get 50% off your first box

• 3:15Speaker 01

  and see how real food can be a game changer for your dog. That's amazon.com/thefarmer'sdog for 50% off your first box.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  With the Spark Cash Plus Card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. And you get big purchasing power so your business can spend more and earn more. Stephen, Brandon, and Bruno, the business owners of Sand Cloud, reinvested their 2% cash back to help build the company's retail presence. Capital One, what's in your wallet? Find out more at CapitalOne.com/SparkCashPlus. Terms apply.

• 4:00Lindsay Graham?

  Alan Taylor, welcome to American Scandal.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  It's nice to be on. Thank you for having me.

• 4:05Lindsay Graham?

  So as we saw in our series, Benedict Arnold felt like he had been overlooked, embarrassed and betrayed, and that was why he turned on his country. But I'd like to know from you if you believe he was justified in feeling that way.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  I don't think he was. Benedict Arnold was a very self-absorbed man. He was a very talented field general, but very self-absorbed. And he had a track record of embezzling goods and of inflating expense accounts. And it came home to haunt him in the end. And for a long time, George Washington had screened him. But ultimately, when George Washington says this is too much and did rebuke him, then Benedict Arnold reacted very angrily.

• 4:48Lindsay Graham?

  Now, today in the United States, the mere name Benedict Arnold is synonymous with treason. Is that a legacy reflective of the damage he caused? I can ask another way. How far did he set back the Revolution?

• 5:01Speaker 03

  Well, potentially, he could have set it back. Because just recall that this is the guy who was probably the most celebrated battlefield commander. He had a reputation of reckless courage and of prevailing against very long odds in battle. So for this guy to be revealed as, in fact, a loyalist who was working with the British to betray George Washington, the Continental Army, is a great shock. Now, the damage is contained because the conspiracy is revealed in time where Benedict Arnold can't turn over the fortress at West Point with its garrison,

• 5:44Speaker 03

  but instead must flee himself. It's also contained because the Patriots do a really good job of demonizing Benedict Arnold and holding public spectacles where he is in effigy, held up for public abuse in order to rally the public, in order to get Americans to say, "I'm not going to be Benedict Arnold." And it's important to bear in mind that when he does this, it's 1780, and that's one of those periods where the Patriot cause is really lagging. They're losing battles in the South. There is hyperinflation in the country. There's widespread desertion from the Continental Army

• 6:26Speaker 03

  because Congress is failing to pay and supply these soldiers. There's a lot of bickering between the states. Congress is broke. So there's a real concern that Benedict Arnold's treason could be just a tipping point. But the fact that the Patriots are able to rally public support because of Arnold's treason turns that moment of treason into a real opportunity that the Patriots exploit.

• 6:57Lindsay Graham?

  How did they turn this around? Was there a figure that knew how to make this a public relations win?

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, there are really two figures. One is George Washington. And Washington, this is one of his finest moments, that he just really takes charge and refuses to let John Andre go. John Andre had been the British spy who was the go-between, and he'd been caught in the act of trying to help Benedict Arnold. And Washington just rallies his officer corps, many of whom, including Alexander Hamilton, sympathized with Andre as a fellow gentleman. And Washington said, "No, we're hanging him." And they did. So that's one moment of resolve that rallies the army, and then that appeals to the public. Now, the other figure is Charles Wilson Peale,

• 7:49Speaker 03

  who'd been an officer in the Continental Army. And he's a very talented artist. He's in Philadelphia. He stages this public theater in which Arnold is going to be represented as a papier-mache figure in league with the devil. And at the end of this, they will burn this float with these figures in effigy. It draws a huge crowd, and it gets lots of newspaper coverage. So Peale really contributes to rallying American people behind the Patriots. Now, not all Americans, because there's still about a fifth of Americans who are working very hard as loyalists to try to keep the empire united.

• 8:30Lindsay Graham?

  And did Arnold try to defend himself in the public eye at all?

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Well, one thing that is often left out of the story of Benedict Arnold is that as soon as he switched sides, he issues a public proclamation to justify himself. It's an act of propaganda, just as Charles Wilson Peale's theatrical performance in the streets of Philadelphia was an act of propaganda. Benedict Arnold's attempt falls flat. Of course, the Patriot newspapers are not going to reprint it, and Patriot forces are going to suppress it wherever they find copies of it posted up. So it never reaches that many Americans. Its failure is, of course, interesting. He's not making in that document a selfish case for why he's done this.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  He's trying to say that I actually have a principled reason for doing this. My principled reason is that the United States started out, not as the United States, but as the United 13 Colonies, fighting to resist Parliament's taxes. And then they went too far by declaring independence. And then they went way too far when they entered into an alliance with France, which is a Catholic country. And we have always been proud here, in the 13 Colonies, of being Protestants who are hostile to France and Catholicism. So he's trying an old fashioned appeal to the prejudices of the colonists, the anti-Catholic prejudices.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  And that doesn't work, partly because it doesn't reach many people, but also because at that point, most Americans were reconciled to the notion of, we need foreign assistance. The French are the people who can most help us. And we're just going to set aside this old anti-Catholic prejudice, at least for the moment, so that we can benefit from this alliance and win our independence.

• 10:22Lindsay Graham?

  So Arnold went on to fight for the British and had some success. After the war, though, he was viewed with suspicion. How is he remembered today in the UK?

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Well, I would say in the UK, he's not remembered at all. The British, for good reason, don't want to dwell in their schools and in their public memory on this lost war. And Arnold has really faded for them. There's a bit more memory in Canada, which is where he spent most of his post-war years, and where his children became, at a lower level, figures of some renown and respect. But in both Britain and in Canada, among genteel people, there was the notion that Arnold's just disreputable. He betrayed the cause he was in, and then he just did it for money, that he wasn't

• 11:17Speaker 03

  ever a sincere loyalist. That's kind of the public attitude that develops right after the war among people in Canada and Britain.

• 11:26Lindsay Graham?

  So we know that personal honor drove Arnold to his treachery. But even George Washington was driven by honor. He too felt snubbed when serving with the British in the French and Indian War, and he resigned. Tell us what honor meant in this period for Americans.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Well, I would agree that honor meritors a great deal to him. But it's linked to pride, and it's linked to greed. Arnold is not a George Washington. They're both honorable men. But Washington understands that a persona of self-sacrifice is essential to his honor as the leader of this cause. Arnold is not nearly so self-aware. Arnold is out to make himself more famous and to make himself wealthier through this cause.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Now, this is a hard cause to get rich by being an officer in the Continental Army, which is underfunded. He's doing the best that he can by engaging in forms of corruption on the side. And when he gets caught doing this, he's all outraged. How dare they challenge him, given how much he's given of his own body that's been severely wounded twice in combat for this cause? So he feels that he should be above investigation and above questioning. And when he finds out that's not true, he reacts with extreme anger.

• 13:02Lindsay Graham?

  I'm wondering if you could give us a portrait of how these two men came to be so different. How is it that George Washington has a feeling of duty and knows the importance of self-sacrifice, while his younger peer Benedict Arnold has almost the opposite?

• 13:18Speaker 03

  Well, some key things. One, Washington is from Virginia, and he is from the landed gentry. And he has married well, so he has quite a fine plantation, and he owns lots of enslaved people. And he's moved in the circles of the Virginia gentry. And he has made a conscious effort to learn their manners and their ways of speaking. And so he has spent years crafting a persona of self-discipline. Arnold, however, he's grown up in New England, and he is born into a family that has some prosperity, but his father goes bankrupt.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  So Arnold is a striver. He doesn't have the luxury or the time in order to master himself in the way that Washington had. He doesn't have the leisure of having a plantation with dozens of enslaved people to support him. He's a wheeler and dealer. And the revolution comes along, and he thinks, here is my chance to get ahead. So they're very different men in their circumstances, and because of that, they're very different men in their personalities.

• 14:36Lindsay Graham?

  So wealth is a huge advantage in this era. But is there something about Washington's personality, or perhaps his understanding of what this cause required, that also contributed to him rising to the occasion?

• 14:48Speaker 03

  Well, Washington's a pretty well-read man. He is also just a man of very solid, sound judgment. And he assesses people pretty well. And it is his job to lead people under very, very difficult circumstances. And it's not like he doesn't make any mistakes. He makes plenty of mistakes, particularly in his first 18 months as commander, and he loses a lot of battles. But he's a guy who learns from his mistakes. He's somebody who gets better the more he does this very, very difficult job.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  And he's a man who desperately needs the respect of others. And sometimes it doesn't work to his benefit, but usually it does. So it means that he has identified what the American people most need in a leader. And it is the performance of dignity, of selflessness, of persistence and resilience. Of course, he's making many decisions, and those decisions have to be good ones. But he's also performing a role, a very, very public role, in everything that he writes

• 16:08Speaker 03

  and everything that he says in a speech and all of his conversations. So he has to be consistent in this role of being the dignified leader of a new republic, engaged in a very, very difficult struggle for survival. And he pulls it off.

• 16:27Speaker 04

  There are books that change how you see the world, and there are books that change how you see yourself. In a new podcast series, A Great Book with Barack Obama, President Obama sits down with a series of surprising and sharp guests to explore six books that have shaped his life and perspective on the world. From Song of Solomon and the Fire Next Time, to All the Pretty Horses and Gilead, the president is joined by guests like Tom Hanks and Ta-Nehisi Coates to reflect on how these timeless stories shaped his thinking on everything from fatherhood to leadership.

• 17:12Speaker 04

  And discover together what they tell us about the world we live in and the world we want to create. Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of A Great Book with Barack Obama ad-free right now, plus access each audiobook discussed in the series. Download the Audible app today.

• 17:30Speaker 05

  Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redmond always believed. Sure, odd things happen in his childhood bedroom, but ultimately, he shrugged them off, until he discovered that he wasn't alone, that everyone who lived thereafter him also had bizarre experiences they couldn't explain. And it gets even weirder. It just so happens that his wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door. Is this ghost somehow connected to her murder? He decides to go where no son-in-law should, digging up a cold case and asking questions that nobody wants answered. Like, could his wife's great-grandfather have gotten away with the perfect crime?

• 18:14Speaker 05

  This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things that come back to haunt us. For the best bingeable series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can get all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 18:42Lindsay Graham?

  So Benedict Arnold's story illustrates how messy this revolutionary period was. It's easy to look back and think of it as a time of clear villains and obvious heroes with strongly held beliefs about freedom and democracy. It is more complicated than that. You mentioned it was a civil war several times. How did the colonists choose sides at that time? What were they motivated by?

• 19:04Speaker 03

  Well, in hindsight, we like to create the myth that this was a time of of clear choices and that Americans rallied against the British. And that's not true. This was a civil war in which Americans are on both sides. And the people who are fighting for the union of the empire, the loyalists, are just as sincere as the patriots. And it's a war, as I mentioned, in which things go badly for the patriots at many points. And when that happens, there are a fair number of people who say, you know, I think maybe I'm a loyalist after all. And then when the patriots stage a comeback, then a fair number of those people go, I was wrong about that.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  I'm really a patriot again. So the war is fought, as all civil wars are, for the hearts and minds of the civilian population. And the armies have an important role to play in that if they're successful, this is going to be very persuasive to many people in the civilian population. And if they're failing, then that civilian population is going to develop some doubts. But the patriots play their hand much better than the British do because the British don't fully trust the loyalists. And therefore, when they get into a particular region and have some success and winning

• 20:29Speaker 03

  victories there, instead of turning these areas over to the loyalists to manage, the British continue to impose martial law. And over time, this then ends up alienating many people who might have been loyalist supporters.

• 20:46Lindsay Graham?

  So at the time Arnold betrayed the American cause, the American country was barely a nation. So what did America mean to most people at that time?

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Well, your language is interesting, and that's a language that we tend to use. I don't refer to them as the Americans. I refer to them as the patriots who happen to be Americans, just as the loyalists happen to be Americans. So I would say there wasn't much of an America then. There were 13 different states that were loosely confederated, didn't much like each other, and they're banding together just for one purpose, which is to survive and win this war. And so when this war is over, it's all bets are off as to whether these 13 disunited states will be able to hang together in an enduring country. Many people, including Thomas Jefferson, thought probably not.

• 21:40Lindsay Graham?

  So what was the war's aims if not a new nation under the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence?

• 21:49Speaker 03

  Well, the war certainly does not begin for independence. It begins with 13 colonies resisting British measures, but just demanding of the British to withdraw the troops that had been occupying Boston and to rescind certain particularly very troublesome laws called the coercive acts passed by Parliament and to cease the practice of trying to tax the colonists for revenue. So these colonists will wage this war for about 18 months before they declare independence. They only declare independence because the British will not back down and compromise. So once they've declared their independence, then they've got to try to achieve it, which

• 22:32Speaker 03

  is going to be awfully tough because they're taking on the most powerful empire in the Atlantic world. And one of the things that pushes them together to form a confederacy is that they need foreign assistance, especially from France. And French officials say, we're not going to deal with 13 disunited states. You guys got to get your act together and form a country. And then we'll be in a position to loan you money and enter into an alliance. It's under that pressure that the colonists decide, well, we need to see if we can institutionalize our pretty ad hoc confederation of states.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  And so that's why they adopt the Articles of Confederation, which was our first constitution. And that constitution was so weak that it ended up failing and made it necessary for leaders of these states to try again and form a second constitution, which is the one that they come up with in 1787 and is our current constitution.

• 23:40Lindsay Graham?

  Looking back this far in history, it's very difficult to feel true kinship and understanding with our fellow Americans then. And it's hard to imagine the sacrifices that so many people made back then and the violence they endured. I was wondering if you could help for the modern American to understand what, if anything, could have been so rousing for the average person as the revolution was to colonists?

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Well, they were very different people than us, and we often lose sight of that. Or they just seemed such odd people, wearing odd clothes, that we put them up on pedestals and we can't really feel a kinship with them. I do think it's helpful to think of this as it was, as a civil war, because that means that people were facing difficult life and death choices. And they're wrestling with very important ideas, ideas that have been of lingering importance in our country.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  So the patriot cause is laid out very nicely at the start of the Declaration of Independence and also in a previous pamphlet written by Thomas Paine called Common Sense. And this is a rhetoric of, we're going to create a new kind of society where everybody who is free will enjoy equal respect, equal rights, and equal opportunity. That's very different from a colonial society, which was structured where there's a hierarchy, there are patrons and clients, and some people have more rights than other people do. That was the norm in the world of 1775.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  And so this is a very different kind of society that they're promising. Now, it's a pretty utopian society, and we could have a long debate over whether or not they were able to fulfill it in their time or whether we've been able to follow through on what they were promising in 1776. But I think that helps us to understand why many Americans are thinking, you know, yes, this could be a new start for a better kind of society achieved through this revolution.

• 26:01Lindsay Graham?

  You mentioned earlier how George Washington was very aware of public opinion. Another example of his public relations prowess was during the brutal winter at Ballyfordge, when he refused to commandeer food from the surrounding area because he was worried it would turn the people against the cause. How did he and other early American leaders manage to maintain the stamina to keep fighting despite all the difficulties facing them?

• 26:26Speaker 03

  Well, Washington's an extraordinary figure, but even he despaired at one point late in 1776 before he stages a comeback by winning the battle at Trenton. He wrote to his farm manager back in Mount Vernon and said, I'm going to be home pretty soon because I think this whole thing is about to collapse. His army was dissolving. It had become quite small. It's undersupplied. It's very cold. They're suffering. Congress is on the run. The British had been winning battle after battle in New York and in New Jersey. So things looked really bad. But Washington understands that he needs a victory in the worst way, and he manages

• 27:08Speaker 03

  to pull this comeback at Trenton and then follows up at Princeton, and then things start to look a whole lot roadsier. So despite this moment of doubt, Washington is fully committed, and he is going to stick it out. Now, Washington has to endure a lot because he's not just dealing with fighting the British. He's dealing with a Congress where there are many critics of his performance as a general. He's dealing with some backbiting among some of his junior officers and generals. He's dealing with states which are not following through and providing the supplies that his army desperately needs.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  And so to read his correspondence during the war is to see a man who is up against almost everything that could be going wrong. And he is the one key man who is managing to hold it together. And he does this despite the temptations that there must have been to say, you know, these states, Congress, I can't deal with them anymore. I'm just going to set up as a dictator. And he resists that. He shows that he is going to respect civil authority throughout this long, difficult war, and it is that above all else that makes Washington the essential figure to preserve this revolution.

• 28:33Lindsay Graham?

  Today, we're in a period when many Americans are questioning parts of our early history and looking more closely at the contradictions of the founding. And this has produced a backlash from those who cherish their American heritage. I was wondering how you reconcile a desire to, one, understand the country's history honestly, with the desire to have a history that gives Americans something to be proud of.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Well, I think it is something to be proud of if we're a nation that can look back on our history and see it honestly and can see where we have fallen short. I would be less proud of a country that said, "We're just going to deny everything that is disappointing to us. We're just going to say it didn't happen, or it's not important. And we're just going to create our history as bouncing from one triumph to another." There are countries like that in the world today. They're not admirable countries. I do think that this country has, in recent years, been much more open to an honest reckoning

• 29:36Speaker 03

  about ways in which we've not fulfilled the creed of the founders and in which the founders themselves were incapable of fulfilling that creed of equal opportunity for all. I do think that over time, the country has gotten better about trying to fulfill that and has gotten better about recognizing that it has been a long, hard struggle through many generations to try to realize the promise of the American Revolution.

• 30:06Lindsay Graham?

  One of the more recent attempts to reckon with our early American history was the 1619 Project, a very influential attempt to reframe the history of the United States and argue that 1619 was the real year of the country's birth and that slavery was fundamental to the country's founding. What do you make of that argument and the debates it spurred?

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Well, my initial response was that this is something that is a very helpful provocation to get people to think, you know, the country wasn't just born out of freedom, it's also born out of slavery, side by side, freedom for some, slavery for others. And the fundamental importance of that contradiction, I think, we should keep in mind. Now, the 1619 Project got some details wrong, and it was at its weakest when it, in its discussion of the American Civil War and Lincoln. So it exposed itself to criticism, and much of that criticism was sound. But the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater

• 31:11Speaker 03

  in the reaction against the 1619 Project. I do think that you can't have an honest history of the United States unless you recognize just how powerful a presence slavery was. It was legal in all 13 of the colonies at the start of the revolution, and it was still legal in most of those colonies, then once they became states at the end of the revolution. And so slavery is the kind of dominant social fact, and it has this distorting power within American politics on through the Civil War. And then after the Civil War, the problem

• 31:51Speaker 03

  of how is it that we can fully integrate millions of people who had been held in slavery and had undergone extremely degrading circumstances, how do we pull that off in our society? And that big question is a lingering question.

• 32:07Lindsay Graham?

  So one example of the backlash that I mentioned earlier actually comes from the White House, who says it wants to restore truth and sanity to American history, especially targeting the Smithsonian. Is this just a swing of the political pendulum, or does the White House actually have a point, that these efforts were politicizing American history?

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Well, there's always a range of views of the American founding. And there are some of them that are so hypercritical that I might not be on board with them. And there are others that are so thoroughly celebratory that I'm not on board with them. I do think that the great majority of historians are trying to understand a period of time of enormous importance to us throughout our history and to understand that this revolution is happening in a society that is committed to westward expansion at the expense of native peoples and is committed to protecting slavery. Not all people, but a majority of the political leaders had recognized that if they're going

• 33:10Speaker 03

  to have a union of these 13 states, it has to be one that not just tolerates slavery, but protects it because it's so essential to the societies and economies of many of those states. So recognizing that reality, those are just facts. Now, you can use those facts to say, well, everything is rotten about America. And I know there are some people who will say that, but there are very, very few. But the few who react in that particular way are very useful to people on the other side of politics who want to say, "We should have a history that's nothing but celebration of the United States."

• 33:51Speaker 03

  There is one political party that has decided that it has a monopoly over patriotism in the country, and they want to yell the loudest and insist that they will fend off anything that is critical of the United States, anything in our historical recounting, as well as anything that's said today.

• 34:18Speaker 05

  Do you really know the person sleeping next to you? Tanya Bales thought she did. She thought she'd married her soulmate. She was wrong. But just how wrong was shocking. You may know John Meehan from the Dirty John podcast, but there's one story you haven't heard. Now it's being told from the woman who knew him first. Tanya was John's wife for 10 years. She's the mother of his two daughters. In the podcast, The First Wife, she recounts the abuse she suffered from a man who was coercive and dangerous. This podcast has exclusive archival materials, interviews with people who knew them best, and long-held secrets that finally surface. What do you do when the person you trusted most was never real?

• 34:59Speaker 05

  Listen to The First Wife wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

• 35:16Speaker 06

  Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia spent her life exposing powerful people. Then, in 2017, she was killed in a car bombing. I'm Stephen Gray, and for the past nine years, I've been trying to find out who wanted her dead. That search took me to Malta through secret companies, organized crime, and eventually to one of the island's richest and most powerful men. Now, after years of waiting, his trial has finally happened. But when the verdict came in, the case took a turn that almost no one had expected. In a brand-new update to the multi-award-winning podcast, Who Killed Daphne?, I'm returning to Malta to find out how we got there and where the search for the truth goes next. Listen to the new episode of Who Killed Daphne? wherever you get your podcasts, and you

• 36:01Speaker 06

  can hear the full six-part investigation from the beginning, ad-free with Audible. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app and by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 36:22Lindsay Graham?

  Most of us, when we look back at history, sometimes try to imagine what we would have done in those circumstances. And perhaps most Americans would like to think that they would have been part of the revolution. They would have been patriots themselves. Do you ever consider which side you would have chosen personally?

• 36:40Speaker 03

  It's a good question, and it's an interesting one. I've been teaching the American Revolution for many years now, and I always tried to present all sides of this conflict in a fair way so that people can understand what a difficult choice it was that Americans faced. And over the years, there've been a growing number of people, I don't think through my influence, but I think just it's some sort of cultural shift, a growing number of Americans who have said to me, "You know, I think the loyalists really had some points. I might have been a loyalist." And I've spent a lot of time in Canada and talking with people who are descendants of loyalists or who have great respect for the loyalist tradition as it's influenced the

• 37:24Speaker 03

  development of Canada. And so, yes, I can understand the loyalist persuasion. They were basically the law and order conservatives of their time. But I would like to think, and again, this is self-serving, I would like to think that I would, you know, be a good patriot because I also find appealing the cause of a society committed to equality of opportunity and of rights. But I also have to be realistic enough to know that if I were in this difficult circumstance, and I might have thought, well, you know, I really like the patriots, but then the British and the loyalists got control of my community. What would I have done?

• 38:08Speaker 03

  Would I have been, you know, thinking, I got to preserve the farm here. I got to preserve my family. I'm going to just take an oath of allegiance now to the Crown again. The reality is that people were put into tough situations where they might like to put front and center their political choices, but they have to protect families and farms and shops. And they often are forced to make decisions that are very, very difficult for them.

• 38:39Lindsay Graham?

  I wonder if you could imagine a framework in which the average listener could use to understand which side they might have chosen and the actions they might have taken.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  Well, I think what the revolution is fundamentally about is the creation of citizens. Now, that kind of seems like, yeah. But remember that nobody was a citizen in the 13 colonies. They were subjects. They were subjects of the Crown. Now, as subjects of the British Crown, they have certain rights that the subjects of, say, the French or the Russian or the Spanish Crowns did not have. But still, to be a citizen is something even more demanding because the citizens of a republic, which is what the revolution creates as a republic, the citizens are the sovereigns themselves.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  It's not a monarch. It's not a king or a queen. It's the citizens who are the sovereigns in a republic. And that means that they are the ones who will govern this republic. Now, it will be filtered, be filtered through elections that will choose certain men, and it was only men at that time, certain men to govern society. But it is the sovereign people who are essential to choosing which of the men will lead these 13 republics confederated together in the United States. So I do think that Americans today are the beneficiaries of being citizens.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  But they also have responsibilities as citizens to protect the republic. And for me, that is the great result of the American Revolution. But the men who led this revolution and the women in their lives all understood that a republic is a fragile thing. It's not on autopilot. It won't always exist unless people value it, unless they cherish it, unless they protect it. And the way they do that is by taking very seriously their responsibilities as citizens, the sovereigns of the republic.

• 40:56Lindsay Graham?

  Do you think that people feel that sense of responsibility or are even aware of it?

• 41:01Speaker 03

  Well, I think there are a range of responses of Americans to the contemporary political situation. And there are lots of people who are just checked out. And they have many, many more diversions available to them than was the case even 20 years ago. But I also know many Americans who have doubled down on their efforts to try to protect the republic from threats that they perceive. So it's always going to be the case that many people are not fully engaged with the project of the republic. That was the case in the revolutionary generation where probably about two fifths of the people living within the 13 new states just wanted to be left alone.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  So I do think it's worth remembering that the republic has always been embattled, but it has endured. And it's endured because there have been just enough people who have been committed to keeping it going. And I would say we're at a moment now where we need more people committed to keeping the republic going in whatever way that they can be helpful.

• 42:06Lindsay Graham?

  Alan Taylor, thank you so much for speaking with me today on American Scandal.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 42:11Lindsay Graham?

  That was my conversation with historian and author Alan Taylor.

• 42:19Lindsay Graham?

  From Audible Originals and Airship, this is episode five of Benedict Arnold for American Scandal. In our next series, a fan favorite, the story of Boeing and its troubled 737 MAX airplanes, whose history of accidents and fatal crashes turned a once celebrated company into a cautionary tale.

• 42:45Lindsay Graham?

  American Scandal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham, for Airship. This episode was produced by John Reed, senior producer Andy Beckerman, managing producer Emily Burke, audio editing by Mohamed Chazib, music by Throm, sound design by Gabriel Ghul. Executive producer for Airship is William Simpson. Executive producer for Audible is Jenny Lauer Beckman. Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin. Head of Audible Originals North America, Marshall Louis. Chief Content Officer, Rachel Giatza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.