Legal rights: was Order of Americans of Armigerous Ancestry

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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24 February 2008 22:01
 

eploy;54680 wrote:

It’s interesting, however, that the US founding fathers saw fit to keep such lineage groups like The Society of the Cincinnati, SAR, DAR, as private bodies.  Surely the founding fathers would have wanted to promote public service & historcial preservation, but even they questioned making these hereditary societies part of the state.


The only lineage society any of the founding fathers had occasion to think about was the Society of the Cincinnati. It was quite a few years before any other would be formed.

 
eploy
 
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eploy
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24 February 2008 23:59
 

Fred White;54681 wrote:

The only lineage society any of the founding fathers had occasion to think about was the Society of the Cincinnati. It was quite a few years before any other would be formed.


Yes, quite true.  Oooppps!!!  :oops:

 

Still The Society of Cincinnati is the "crown jewel" of American lineage societies and the US founding fathers set a good precedence for America’s treatment of later hereditary societies.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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25 February 2008 01:09
 

eploy;54684 wrote:

Still The Society of Cincinnati is the "crown jewel" of American lineage societies.


Nice of you to say so!

 

Actually, there are a few older ones and some of the founders belonged to one or more of them,  namely the Welsh Society of Philadelphia, the St. Andrew’s & St. George’s of Phila. and NY, and the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Phila. But I’m not sure these organizations had yet taken shape as lineage societies in the contemporary sense. Rather, I think they were mutual aid societies and social clubs based on ethnicity. It’s worth remembering that the Cincinnati, too, began in part as a mutual aid society because there was a lot of ambiguity about whether or not officers were going to be able to get back pay, bounty land that had been promised, etc.. Some were in serious financial arrears from being away from their farms and businesses for so long. There was fierce debate about the status the Society should be allowed, and some—Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, et al—were very suspicious that it would metastasize into a home-grown nobility, perhaps with some justification. The French Society (which went under the name "The Order of the Cincinnati") arranged for Louis XVI to be their patron, and apparently, all petitions for membership were to be passed by him in the same manner as the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, which probably contributed to the perception that the Society was old wine in new skins, so to speak.

 

One thing I wanted to add about exclusivity is that there is at least one lineage society—The Order of First Families of Virginia—whose membership requirements rely not only on descent from relevant propositi (which would yield an annual bevy of qualified applicants), but on social qualifications that are so strict as to be obscure. For instance, you simply cannot approach them or make any noise whatsoever about wanting to join. They have to approach you, and are unlikely to do so unless you already happen to be in their circle. And there are definitely others to which admission is "by invitation only," though the invitation might be obtained with varying degrees of difficulty. The Cincinnati, by comparison, are pretty open to new members in my experience. The problem is that only one person at a time can represent a given propositus and membership descends by male-preference primogeniture. So if you want to join, you have to not only have an eligible ancestor, but one who isn’t already represented and for whom their isn’t a senior claim that can be identified. But supposing you can check those boxes and produce the necessary proofs, the social requirements aren’t that rigorous. An existing member has to endorse you, another couple of "gentlemen of prominence in the community" (basically your doctor,your lawyer, your priest, or what have you) have to write letters of reference, you have to write an essay explaining why you want to be elected, and you probably do have to be in an occupation that’s at least somewhat genteel, but that’s about it. There are many organizations—country clubs, cotillions, etc.—that are much more exclusive from the purely social point of view. One thing that’s kind of cute about joining the Cincinnati is that, if you’re joining on an ancestor who did not bother to join himself, you have to remit the equivalent in today’s dollars of a month’s pay for a Continental Army officer—because of the mutual aid aspect! You never know when they might have to help you out!

 

But actually, they will help you out if you’re really distressed, I think—help your kids get through college if you die prematurely, etc. Please forgive me for adoring them.

 
eploy
 
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eploy
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25 February 2008 04:23
 

Fred White;54686 wrote:

Nice of you to say so!

.... Please forgive me for adoring them.


It’s not just me who says this…  I recall that The Society of the Cincinnati receives pride of place in federal parades ahead of members of the Aztec Club, etc, that as an organization they are received by US presidents personally, and a few other minor privileges.

 

Actually I like these societies as well but am glad they remain as they are:  private bodies that receive some government recognition/acknowledgement.

 

It is a shame that heraldry in the US is not given comparable recognition.

 
Michael Y. Medvedev
 
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Michael Y. Medvedev
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25 February 2008 04:33
 

eploy;54688 wrote:

It is a shame that heraldry in the US is not given comparable recognition.

It is up to the current and future generations of the US heraldists to provide, gradually but effectively, American heraldry with such recognition!

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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25 February 2008 06:37
 

eploy;54688 wrote:

It’s not just me who says this… I recall that The Society of the Cincinnati receives pride of place in federal parades ahead of members of the Aztec Club, etc, that as an organization they are received by US presidents personally, and a few other minor privileges.


I wouldn’t take these supposed privileges too seriously.  A lot of them are extrapolations from how the Cincinnati were dealt with in various and sundry public events at one time or another, but there’s nothing official about them.

 
eploy
 
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25 February 2008 08:01
 

Joseph McMillan;54690 wrote:

I wouldn’t take these supposed privileges too seriously.  A lot of them are extrapolations from how the Cincinnati were dealt with in various and sundry public events at one time or another, but there’s nothing official about them.


I am not really disturbed by any of the "privileges".  Even I acknowledge that they are quite minor.

 

What saddens me is that the founding fathers and most modern Americans seem to accept only one paradigm for heraldry:  the rigid English/Scottish model as championed by the likes of Fox-Davies.  They seem to forget or take no heed of other paradigms like private assumption & mere registration which have existed for centuries in the rest of Europe.  Perhaps as a result, the founding fathers saw fit not to recognize or offer any protection whatsoever for private heraldry.  IMO, this is a shame.  Heraldry has shown itself over many centuries that it also can be very egalitarian (i.e., anyone can adopt arms).

 

The founding fathers had no qualms about recognizing private hereditary societies (actually just Cincinnati, but they did set a precedence) presumably on the basis of free association.  Later lawmakers then created special legal structures like nonprofit corporations and associations that made these associations more formal and even offered tax benefits, etc. Nothing wrong with this.

 

It would be nice if lawmakers would offer a comparable legal structure for recognizing arms.  Perhaps this would require educating lawmakers as to the benefits of private heraldry.  Some guidance might be obtained from Canada (e.g., why we should promote private heraldry) & South African model (for non-honors mechanism for registering all arms).  Of course, this will never happen and heraldry will indefinitely retain its mistaken & unnecessarily elitist aura in the US.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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25 February 2008 09:16
 

eploy;54691 wrote:

What saddens me is that the founding fathers and most modern Americans seem to accept only one paradigm for heraldry: the rigid English/Scottish model as championed by the likes of Fox-Davies.


I don’t think the founding fathers necessarily thought much about it at all.  Those who had arms used them; those who didn’t either made up their own, borrowed someone else’s, or didn’t use heraldry at all.  It doesn’t seem to have a been a point of discussion for most of them, although some (see John Adams on repainting the family carriage and George Washington turning down William Barton’s proposal for a federal heraldic office) were concerned about a populist backlash against heraldry, as some people (not the founding fathers themselves, apparently) saw it as part and parcel of the whole royalist, elitist thing.  Not surprising—that was the only model people knew—but we can’t conclude that the FFs themselves felt that way.


Quote:

They seem to forget or take no heed of other paradigms like private assumption & mere registration which have existed for centuries in the rest of Europe. Perhaps as a result, the founding fathers saw fit not to recognize or offer any protection whatsoever for private heraldry. IMO, this is a shame. Heraldry has shown itself over many centuries that it also can be very egalitarian (i.e., anyone can adopt arms).


Washington actually wrote that he saw no contradiction between heraldry and republicanism.  But he was conscious that some people did, and there was certainly no reason to provoke a divisive squabble over something petty.  They had enough going on getting the Constitution accepted.  Anyway, the federal government as originally designed was only concerned with a limited range of responsibilities.  Personal issues like personal heraldry would have been way beyond what the FFs would have thought as appropriate for federal involvement.

 

Besides, the whole structure of heraldic regulation truly was part of the absolutist trend of the Tudor and Stuart period to regulate all aspects of British life.  Also, remember that the English Revolution of 1688-89, which informed the political philosophy of most of our founders, was largely a repudiation of the sweeping exercise of the royal prerogative.  It was after the ouster of James II that the heralds’ visitations came to an end and that the Court of Chivalry ceased sitting.  The College of Arms continued to exist, but not as a very respected body (see what Blackstone had to say about heraldic law in his Commentaries).  It would have been quite out of character for the FFs to recreate what they probably saw as an obsolescent institution when there was the easy alternative of simply leaving private heraldry to the private sphere of life.


Quote:

The founding fathers had no qualms about recognizing private hereditary societies.


Actually, they did, or at least some of them.  Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, for example, were strongly opposed to the hereditary nature of the Cincinnati and what they saw as its aping of the practices of European chivalric orders.  Indeed, it was the uproar over the Cincinnati that was largely responsible for Washington’s refusal to endorse Barton’s proposal for a heraldry office.

 
Charles E. Drake
 
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Charles E. Drake
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25 February 2008 11:47
 

Moving this thread and re-titling it was appropriate.  It has evolved far beyond discussion of the OAAA.  I find it interesting that a discussion of this organization raised so many hackles.  Perhaps there is some sensitivity about the nature of arms?

Lest anyone misunderstand, I believe that it is legal and appropriate for Americans to assume arms.  Furthermore, there is a strong tradition worldwide for arms to be assumable. As many of you have pointed out, when arms were first invented, they were freely assumed, and only became regulated much later, and then only in a few jurisdictions. Many American colonists assumed arms, probably more than had inherited them or had them granted.

 

However, there is also a strong tradition associating nobility and heraldry.  When those early arms were assumed it was by the upper classes.  It was the upper classes who wore armor and needed identification. It was also the upper classes who needed a seal for signing documents.  Later arms were assumed more often by the upwardly mobile social classes, such as the merchants, who not only emulated the older nobility, but who were moving into the same social strata.  Even in colonial America, where arms were assumed it was usually the upper classes who did so.  None of my humble farmer ancestors had any thought of heraldry—it never even entered their radar screen.

 

In the British Isles, the nobiliary or aristocratic aspect of heraldry became codified in law, and this still exists today, even if mostly unenforced.  Although the United States draws on the cultures of many nations, it can be argued that the British influence is the strongest for historical reasons.

 

In some countries, even though a shield could be assumed, the helm and crest were considered nobiliary additaments.  Although it is true that heraldry is everywhere in Europe, in my experience these are not depictions of personal arms, but often they are royal arms, or the arms of cities, counties, cantons, or districts, often derived from the former ruling nobility. The personal arms that I do see on plate, china, gravestones, church monuments, and houses are the arms of the aristocracy.  If I were to ask some mates at the pub about their coats-of-arms they would probably chuck me out into the street.

 

In this country heraldry is still associated with the aristocracy in the minds of most people.  I would contend that this is not just due to ignorance, but due to the factors I outline above.

 

So I believe that we have two parallel traditions, which might be called the assumptionist and the devisalist, or perhaps the democratic and the aristocratic, existing side by side.  I believe both have historical validity and that we should consider calling a truce—while continuing to educate the public that the former is as valid as the latter.

 

Quickly putting head down….

 

Charles

 
Michael Swanson
 
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25 February 2008 12:08
 

Charles E. Drake;54695 wrote:

...  If I were to ask some mates at the pub about their coats-of-arms they would probably chuck me out into the street.  ...


Pity.  We don’t want that here.  In Switzerland and all over Continental Europe, such a conversation is possible at the local pub without violence.


Charles E. Drake;54695 wrote:

So I believe that we have two parallel traditions, which might be called the assumptionist and the devisalist, or perhaps the democratic and the aristocratic, existing side by side.  I believe both have historical validity and that we should consider calling a truce—while continuing to educate the public that the former is as valid as the latter.


Another interpretation is that Continental Europe evolved its heraldic practice with an increasingly enlightened sense of equality, but the British did not.

 

I am almost completely convinced (after recent discussions) that the strong influence of the British heraldic system in the US is the reason that heraldry suffers in the US.  If we move forward, I think we need to move British heraldry below other heraldic systems in educational emphasis, perhaps as a relic of old thinking.  Perhaps arms acquired through a British grant, since they are a product of an aristocratic system, should be termed illegitimate in the USA for educational purposes.

 
George Lucki
 
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25 February 2008 12:15
 

Charles,

I am in agreement with you. I don’t believe there was really a powerful armorial tradition of the use of arms anmong the lower classes in a historically stratified European society. Even where it was legislated (as it was for a time in France) it did not take and it seems few of the arms continued in use. Simply put there was little need for these families to bear or use arms. The largest complement to the use of personal arms by the nobility were the landed gentry, burgesses (merchants and officials) and churchmen. There are some examples of tradesmen using arms or ams-like devices as trademarks or property marks but by and large the use of arms was not egalitarian or democratic but reflected social stratification.

That said, I remain in favour of the broad use and broad assumption of arms. Why? Because in some ways arms reflected the political class of such a stratified society and today’s citizens represent that political class. Really there is no higher political status in a modern democracy than citizen - and the whole of the citizenry are in that sense like the nobility of former times. Like the electors of the HRE, the citizens of teh United States elect their emperor-president albeit for a shorter term and more rarely father then son. smile

But of course as I have suggested before - assuming arms is trivial - the key is to have that tradition taken up by further generations and the creation of new family traditions of the use of arms. Unless grandchildren carry on the tradition the arms that people assume will be lost - simply pretty designs.

 
Dohrman Byers
 
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25 February 2008 12:24
 

I’ve noticed that, in this long and interesting discussion, there’s been no mention of ecclesiastical heraldry. The creation and use of coats of arms is virtually binding custom among Roman Catholic bishops and dioceses in the United States. A bishop’s coat of arms may not be well done, but he always has one. The Catholic system is based entirely on free assumption, heredity playing no part. The Holy See promulgates regulations regarding the display of arms by churchmen, but it does not actively regulate this practice, neither granting or registering arms assumed nor even bothering to enforce its own regulations concerning their display. Here, however, is a system of venerable antiquity, approved and supported by the highest authority, but caring not a whit for the opinions of would-be heraldic regulators of any sort.

 
Dohrman Byers
 
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25 February 2008 13:22
 

Having said what I did about the ongoing tradition of freely assumed arms in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, I should also note that the common notion that coats of arms are pretentious, associated with monarchy and aristocracy, does weigh on the practice of heraldry in the Catholic Church in the US. While every bishop has a coat of arms, very few among the lower clergy exercise their right to assume arms. While every diocese has a coat of arms, very few parishes adopt them. (Let us not speak of what passes for coats of arms among our schools!)

The influence of British armorial usage on the attitudes of American Catholics was brought home to me a few years ago, right in my own back yard. Three neighboring parishes were being merged into one under a new title. I suggested to the pastors that one way to create a new identity would be for the new parish to adopt a coat of arms. (I proposed a design.) The pastors liked the idea, but submitted it to the committee of parishioners managing the transition. The committee rejected the idea, choosing instead a bland, abstract, commercial-style logo. Most telling, however, was the stated reason for not adopting a coat of arms. They felt it was "too Episcopalian." That left me wondering what they thought of the pope, the bishops and the dioceses.

 
Michael Swanson
 
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25 February 2008 13:36
 

How do we, as an American heraldic educational society, help Americans transition from the British mindset to a Continental European mindset?    Perhaps we should emphasize the Continental European approach over the British in education and examinations.  And thus, more weight should be given to non-British cultures.

 
Chris W.
 
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25 February 2008 16:08
 

I would like to weigh in on the value of arms in comtemporary America (since we have strayed so far afield in this topic!)

I think there is a great value in families adopting arms—or even a non-heraldic symbol, logo, design or flag. Such a common symbol promotes family unity, and a strenghtens a sense of common identity.

 

Part of the problem with doing so is that American culture and society, in my estimation, has become less interested in symbols and tradition to begin with. The emphasis on the material and concrete has perhaps eclipsed what is "real."

 

 

Chris