Clinton Rossiter
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Clinton Lawrence Rossiter III (September 18, 1917 – July 11, 1970) was an American
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
and
political scientist Political science is the science, scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of politics, political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated c ...
at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
(1947-1970) who wrote ''The American Presidency'', among 20 other books, and won both the
Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, ...
and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for his book ''Seedtime of the Republic''.


Background

Rossiter was born on September 18, 1917, in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. His parents were Winton Goodrich Rossiter, a
stockbroker A stockbroker is a regulated broker, broker-dealer, or registered investment adviser (in the United States) who may provide financial advisory and investment management services and execute transactions such as the purchase or sale of stocks an ...
, and Dorothy Shaw. Clinton grew up in
Bronxville, New York Bronxville is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States, located approximately north of Midtown Manhattan. It is part of the town of Eastchester. The village comprises one square mile (2.5 km2) of land in its entirety, a ...
, as the third of four siblings: Dorothy Ann Rossiter, William Winton Goodrich Rossiter (William also attended Westminster and Cornell University), Clinton, and Joan Rossiter. He was raised to give priority to family and social expectations. He attended Westminster preparatory school in
Simsbury, Connecticut Simsbury is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 24,517 at the 2020 census. The town was incorporated as Connecticut's 21st town in May 1670. History Early history At the beginning of the 17th century, the ...
and graduated
Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...
from
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in 1939, where he was also a member of the
Quill and Dagger Quill and Dagger is a senior honor society at Cornell University. It is often recognized as one of the most prominent societies of its type, along with Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key at Yale University. In 1929, ''The New York Times'' stated t ...
society. In 1942,
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
awarded him a
doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
for his thesis ''Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies''.


Career

Immediately after American entry into
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Rossiter joined the
United States Naval Reserves The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...
and served for three years as a
gunnery officer The gunnery officer of a warship was the officer responsible for operation and maintenance of the ship's guns and for safe storage of the ship's ammunition inventory. Background The gunnery officer was usually the line officer next in rank to the ...
, mostly on the in the
Pacific Theater The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
, reaching the rank of
lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...
.James Morton Smith; "Recent Deaths", ''The American Historical Review''; Vol. 76, No. 3; Jun 1971, pp. 959–61 Rossiter taught briefly at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
in 1946, moving to Cornell University in 1947, where he rose from instructor to full
professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
in eight years. He served as the chair of the Government Department from 1956 to 1959, when he was named John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions. During the 1950s, Rossiter served as series editor for "Communism in American Life," published by the
fund for the Republic The Fund for the Republic (1951–1959) was an organization created by the Ford Foundation and dedicated to protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties in the United States. In 1959, the Fund moved from New York City to Santa Barbara, ...
, a nonprofit organization funded by the
Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
. He spent the 1960–1961 academic year as
Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions The Pitt Professorship of American History and Institutions was established at the University of Cambridge on 5 February 1944 from a sum of £44,000 received from the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press in 1943 and augmented by a further £5,0 ...
at
Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.


Personal life and death

He married Mary Ellen Crane in September 1947. They had three sons (all Cornell graduates): David Goodrich Rossiter (1949), Caleb Stewart Rossiter (1951) (Caleb also attended Westminster), and Winton Goodrich Rossiter (1954). Years later, his son would state that his father suffered a lifetime of debilitating
clinical depression Major depressive disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive low mood, low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. Introdu ...
. He could no longer extract himself from it and overdosed on sleeping pills. External events had much to do with the last stages of this depression. His beloved Cornell was convulsed with racial conflict, including the infamous armed seizure of the student union building in April 1969. Rossiter became prominent as a moderate voice among the faculty, urging some understanding of the
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
students' frustrations but was branded a traitor by others on the faculty, some of whom (such as
Allan Bloom Allan David Bloom (September 14, 1930 – October 7, 1992) was an American philosopher, classicist, and academician. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon, and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell Universi ...
) refused to speak to him again. Rossiter died in his Ithaca home on July 11, 1970 at age 52. ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reported that his son Caleb Rossiter discovered his father's body in the basement of their home. The cause of death was ruled a suicide by the Tompkins County
medical examiner The medical examiner is an appointed official in some American jurisdictions who is trained in pathology that investigates deaths that occur under unusual or suspicious circumstances, to perform post-mortem examinations, and in some jurisdictio ...
and widely reported.


Legacy

For two decades after Rossiter's death, the academic mainstream in
political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
moved away from Rossiter's documentary, interpretative style, towards a quantitative, data-driven approach. However, in the 1990s and the early 21st century, political scientists have rediscovered the substantive and methodological concerns that Rossiter brought to his work and have found a renewed appreciation for his scholarly works. In particular, following the events of
9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
, Rossiter's first book, the 1948 ''Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies'' (reissued in 1963 with a new preface), was reprinted for the first time in nearly forty years. In that germinal study, Rossiter argued that constitutional democracies had to learn the lesson of the
Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...
to adopt and use emergency procedures that would empower governments to deal with crises beyond the ordinary capacities of democratic
constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princip ...
governance but to ensure that such crisis procedures were themselves subject to constitutional controls and codified temporal limits. His ''1787: The Grand Convention'' is still hailed as among the very best accounts of the
Federal Convention The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention fr ...
and the making of the Constitution. Although much has changed in American politics since 1970, especially the meanings of important (but constantly changing) terms like "
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
" and "
liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...
", his book on that ideologically-charged subject remains a classic articulation (along with
Louis Hartz Louis Hartz (April 8, 1919 – January 20, 1986) was an American political scientist, historian, and a professor at Harvard, where he taught from 1942 until 1974. Hartz’s teaching and various writings —books and articles— have had an importan ...
's "The Liberal Tradition in America") of the integrity that words like liberalism and conservatism still have. His edition of ''
The Federalist Papers ''The Federalist Papers'' is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. The co ...
'' continues to be used as a standard text in high schools and colleges, but in the late 1990s, the publisher of that edition replaced Rossiter's introduction and analytic table of contents with a new introduction by Charles R. Kesler and a table of contents derived from
Henry Cabot Lodge Henry Cabot Lodge (May 12, 1850 November 9, 1924) was an American Republican politician, historian, and statesman from Massachusetts. He served in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1924 and is best known for his positions on foreign policy. ...
's 1898 edition. Rossiter's article, "A Revolution to Conserve," has been used to introduce generations of high school students to the origins of the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
. His 1964 monograph, ''
Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795. Born out of wedlock in Charlest ...
and the Constitution,'' studies the evolution and current relevance of Hamilton's political and constitutional thought, and his 1953
Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, ...
-winning ''Seedtime of the Republic'' investigates the roots of American thinking about politics and government in the years leading up to the American Revolution.


Major publications


Books

* ''Constitutional dictatorship : crisis government in the modern democracies''; Princeton : Princeton University Press; (1948); Republished New York, Harcourt, Brace & World (1963); Republished Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press; (1979); Republished New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers; (2002)
online
** Review:
Hans J. Morgenthau Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations. Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition o ...
,
American Journal of Sociology The ''American Journal of Sociology'' is a peer-reviewed bi-monthly academic journal that publishes original research and book reviews in the field of sociology and related social sciences. It was founded in 1895 as the first journal in its disci ...
, vol. 54, no. 6 (May, 1949), pp. 566–67cited by: Bernd Greiner, ''Konstitutionelle Diktatur. Clinton Rossiter über Krisenmanagement und Notstandspolitik in modernen Demokratien,'' in Mittelweg 36, 22, No. 1, Februar/März 2013 (bimonthly) : ''Even in (West-)Germany, students of
Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
and
American studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory. Sch ...
got
trained Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. I ...
in the Universities up to the 70s by this study of Rossiter.'' (transl. from the German)
* ''Documents in American Government''; New York, W. Sloane Associates; (1949) * ''The Supreme Court and the commander in Chief''; Ithaca, Cornell University Press; (1951); Republished New York, Da Capo Press; (1970); Republished Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press; (1976) * ''Seedtime of the Republic : the origin of the American tradition of political liberty''; New York: Harcourt, Brace; (1953)
online part 2
* ''Conservatism in America''; New York : Knopf; (1955) Republished Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; (1982) ** second revised edition published as ''Conservatism in America; the thankless persuasion''; New York: Knopf and New York: Vintage Books (1962); Republished Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press; (1981) * ''The American Presidency''; New York: Harcourt, Brace; (1956
online
* ''Marxism: the view from America''; New York: Harcourt, Brace; (1960
online
* ''Parties and politics in America''; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press; (1960) * ''The American Presidency''; New York: Harcourt, Brace; (1956); Republished New York: Harcourt, Brace; (1960); Republished New York: Time Inc. (1963); Republished Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; (1987) * ''The Federalist papers; Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay''; New York New American Library (1961); Republished New York: Mentor;(1999) * ''The three pillars of United States Government: the Presidency, the Congress, the Supreme Court''; Washington, Distributed by U.S. Information Service; (1962) * ''The political thought of the American Revolution''; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World; (1963) * ''Six characters in search of a Republic: studies in the political thought of the American colonies''; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World (1964) * ''Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution''; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World; (1964
online
* ''1787: the grand Convention''; New York: Macmillan; (1966); Republished New York: W.W. Norton, (1987
online
* ''The American quest, 1790–1860: an emerging nation in search of identity, unity, and modernity''; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1971
online


Articles

* "The President and Labor Disputes". ''
The Journal of Politics ''The Journal of Politics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of political science established in 1939 and published quarterly (February, May, August and November) by University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Southern Political Science Assoc ...
'' Vol. 11, No. 1; Feb 1949, pp. 93–120. * "Instruction and Research: Political Science 1 and Indoctrination"; ''The American Political Science Review''; Vol. 42, No. 3; Jun 1948, pp. 542–49 * "The Reform of the Vice-Presidency"; ''Political Science Quarterly''; Vol. 63, No. 3; Sep 1948, pp. 383–403 * "A Political Philosophy of F.D. Roosevelt: A Challenge to Scholarship"; ''The Review of Politics''; Vol. 11, No. 1; Jan 1949, pp. 87–95 * "John Wise: Colonial Democrat"; ''The New England Quarterly''; Vol. 22, No. 1; Mar 1949, pp. 3–32 * "Constitutional Dictatorship in the Atomic Age"; ''The Review of Politics'', Vol. 11, No. 4; Oct 1949, pp. 395–418 * "What of Congress in Atomic War"; ''The Western Political Quarterly''; Vol. 3, No. 4; Dec 1950, pp. 602–06 * "The Political Theory of the American Revolution"; ''The Review of Politics''; Vol. 15, No. 1; Jan 1953, pp. 97–108 * "Impact of Mobilization on the Constitutional System"; ''Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science'', Vol. 30, No. 3; May 1971, pp. 60–67


See also

*
Fund for the Republic The Fund for the Republic (1951–1959) was an organization created by the Ford Foundation and dedicated to protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties in the United States. In 1959, the Fund moved from New York City to Santa Barbara, ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rossiter, Clinton 1917 births 1970 suicides American political scientists Cornell University alumni Cornell University faculty Westminster School (Connecticut) alumni Academics of the University of Cambridge 20th-century American historians University of Michigan faculty Drug-related suicides in New York (state) 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers Bancroft Prize winners United States Navy personnel of World War II United States Navy officers United States Navy reservists 20th-century political scientists