I want to thank everyone who took the time to venture through this journey. I budgeted a few hours of research each day and an hour of writing time. I typically take years to write a work like this, but I wanted to start the year in high productivity mode. The fact that you endured my self-editing is a blessing, and I am grateful, especially to those who pointed out my mistakes.
The Legacy of Commodore Stockton like all historical figures is twofold. The physical impact on our lives, and the lessons to be learned by his life choices.
He has certainly left his mark on America. It is popular practice today to erase historical figures, not to celebrate them, or to admonish them for their obvious faults. I believe as Stockton did, that no man is perfect, but that we must learn from the past, with all its triumphs and ugliness. If I were to admire only perfect people, I would admire no one.
Physical Legacy
The Conquest of California: Robert helped to bring about the largest economy, the most strategic, and the third-largest landmass of any state in the Union. Stockton was the primary mover and his gambit without specific orders to commit ground forces led to a relatively easy conquest of the territory. The city of Stockton California honors the Commodore for his contribution to the state.
The Annexation of Texas: Stockton’s influence behind the scenes helped both the Republic of Texas seek annexation and he helped trigger hostilities which eventually led to statehood. Texas is the third-largest state by landmass and second in GDP.
Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, parts of Wyoming & Kansas, Washington and Oregon: Stockton and many members of the armed forces of the United States played a role in the victory in the Mexican-American War, which led to the surrender of these former Mexican territories. Tensions aroused by the California campaign encouraged British negotiations around the Columbia River, where the Oregon territories and British Columbia were split.
Morven: The house was sold to the Commodore’s nephew and eventually preserved. The Morven Museum at the corner of Stockton and Bayard in Princeton is an early American learning center where visitors can learn about the family.
Flogging: Corporal punishment was routine discipline in the Navy. Stockton never wavered in his opposition to the practice and tossed the whip overboard on his first command. When he was elected to the Senate, he worked to permanently ban the punishment in our armed forces.
A horse and buggy in Crescent Park 1886 (M.C. Morris Collection, Library Company Philadelphia)
Sea Girt: The farm and the estate was sold off by Stephen Thurlow and his brother Paul as a resort community along with Spring Lake in the early 1870s. Through their connections and investors, they brought the train lines from NY and Philadelphia to this area. Benjamin Linfoot designed two wings for the Beach House, and from 1875 until the Late 1880s, it was one of the finest resorts on the coast. Its managers included LU Malltby (of Maltby’s Baltimore), George Boldt (of the Bellevue in Philadelphia and then the Waldorf Astoria in NY), and Richard Canfield (The Casino at Saratoga Springs). By 1922 Mrs. Stokes built a new hotel on the site, the modern Stockton Hotel which entertained guests until 1965. The town preserved the seaside track as Crescent Park, a gem of a maritime forest and the streets Morven and Stockton are a nod to the Commodore. At Rod’s tavern, on Washington, parts of the building were the cottage where Maria Stockton slept, and the Sea Girt farm became the National Guard camp which featured the presidential campaigns of Woodrow Wilson & Franklin Roosevelt, and still trains law enforcement and National Guard troops today.
Naval architecture: The screw-driven propeller was brought to market by Stockton’s efforts with President Tyler. Its revolutionary design would change the way ships battled and was a key early proof that the end of wind-guided naval ships was on the horizon.
Liberia: Without the brash efforts of the Commodore, the Liberian experiment would have failed at its outset. The country is still poor but enjoys freedoms above many of its African neighbors.
Caribbean Slave trade: Robert and other pirate hunters significantly limited the barbaric slave traffic in North America.
Barbary Slave Trade: Robert played a key role in Stephen Decatur’s stopping Mediterranean piracy, enslaving captured sailors, and ending tributes paid to the Ottoman Empire by America and weaker nations. 160,000 slaves were liberated during this campaign.
Spring Lake: John Potter Stockton returned to the Senate from 1869-1875 and then served as State Attorney General until his retirement. He did not leave the shore when his father sold the Sea Girt Estate. His son Jack Potter Stockton enjoyed the life of a gentleman, summering in the town next to Sea Girt and he was a fixture at the Bath and Tennis, winning championship after championship. His son Henry Haines Stockton, was even better. Haines has the distinction of wearing the first pair of tennis shorts in a professional match.
These lasting points of history do not include the town of Princeton, the University, and the Theological College, all of which were established by Stockton’s ancestors.
His life choices
Richard Stockton’s statue in the Capitol representing New Jersey (Public domain by Architect of the Capitol)
Some of Stockton’s traits are laudable and were effective for him. He took daring calculated risks, particularly when there were holes in his orders, which he could interpret to his advantage. Disciplined and self-assured, his men rarely complained and he commanded a room with his oration. He did not drink, was loving to his family when he was home, and was publicly adored. His patriotism and belief in the forces for freedom sparked during the Age of Enlightenment was a big part of his outlook.
We must be careful in our analysis of motivations. At times Stockton appears as an enigma, fighting the slave trade and supporting his slave-owning in-laws, and owning slaves himself at his Georgia sugar plantation. Preaching ‘Goodwill toward men” and then picking a fight with a weak Mexico. He lauded the Hawaiians and the American Indians, pointing out their disadvantages, and encouraging others to be kind to them. But he referred to the people of West Africa as “savages”.
He wanted to extend slavery until the Southern states were good and ready to abandon it, but he did not acknowledge that the North profited from the agricultural slave economy of the South, nor did he view freed slaves as suitable citizens.
In assessing his words, and we have plenty, Stockton appears to put one moral law above another. His steadfast belief was that the freedom-loving Christian founders of America had God in their corner. In his eyes the Constitution was inviolate. He also, being a man of his word, applied this logic to the entry of slave states into the Union. We took them in that way, therefore it was wrong for us to force their capitulation on the issue. As a military man, he also knew that the splitting of the nation would lead to massive death and destruction.
British Author C.S Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:
“There is none of our impulses which the Moral Law may not sometimes tell us to suppress and none which it may not sometimes tell us to encourage. It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses — say mother love or patriotism — are good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are bad. All we mean is that the occasions on which the fighting instinct or the sexual desire needs to be restrained are rather more frequent than those for restraining mother love or patriotism. But there are situations in which it is the duty of a married man to encourage his sexual impulse and of a soldier to encourage the fighting instinct. There are also occasions on which a mother's love for her own children or a man's love for his own country have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness towards other people's children or countries. Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses.”
“Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the 'right' notes and the 'wrong' ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.”
In that context, Robert Field Stockton became out of tune with his moral choices as he aged. Was he steadfast or stubborn? The difference is subtle. If you close yourself off to outside opinions and stick to your beliefs, you are stubborn. If you stick to your beliefs until and unless another superior truth is revealed by a trusted source, then you are steadfast.
He was not alone in his opinion. The Democrats, Southern Whigs and New Jersey in particular were much slower to demand change on behalf of enslaved people. Abolition was a new concept. When Stockton was born in 1795, slavery was still practiced by every European nation and most other areas of the world for thousands of years. It was not until Robert’s adulthood that Britain was the first major nation to ban the practice throughout its empire. And it came about by over one hundred years of determined pressure by religious groups like the Quakers who were viewed as radical and dangerous in their disregard for authority.
Another factor Stockton worried about was slave assimilation. By his nativist stance, we know Robert was not even comfortable with Irish Catholic’s impact on American life. A fresh memory of the violent slave revolt in Haiti impacted people’s fears of what suddenly liberated slaves were capable of. The French plantations grew 60% of Europe’s coffee and 40% of its sugar under brutal conditions. Former slaves who outnumbered their white counterparts 10-1 killed 4,000-5,000 people in a genocidal retaliation in 1804. This gives context to his Colonization Society approach as a safety valve for the eventual freedom of enslaved people.
There are revealing comments to revisit in his unrehearsed speech at the church in Hawaii (Episode 15),
This appears to be a partial confession. “How can it be, that in seeking happiness- the great object of all of our lives- man involves so many fellow men in misery? It is because man disregards the whispering of God in his ear which tells him what happiness consists in.”
While he has ideals, he admits he often does not live up to God’s ”whisperings”
After speaking about men, “surrounded by wealth”, and “commanding all”, who “are not so happy as the humblest peasant” Robert adds one more lesson from his life:
“One word more. I believe it is the most benevolent man who is happiest. Were I to look abroad in the world an example of happiness, I would look for the most benevolent man. The man that can forgive his enemy, that can conquer the proud feelings of the human heart, that could return good for evil, that is the man I envy.”
Thank you again for your time and attention. If you have thoughts about the Commodore, drop me a note. There is always more to learn from one another.