Thanks Allen Weingarten, well-written sentiment, with which I sympathize.

There is every likelihood that writer Jeff Riggenbach does agree with you as well. Jeff Riggenbach writes:

There would seem to be little room for doubt that John Lilburne was a man of principle, not a mere spokesman for an organized interest. As Leonard Levy memorably put it in his book on the Origins of the Fifth Amendment, “While others supported civil liberties to gain their own freedom and denied it to their enemies, Lilburne grew more and more consistent in his devotion to the fundamentals of liberty.” Supporting civil liberty to gain your own freedom, while denying it to your enemies — this is the sign of the man who is merely a spokesman for an organized interest, not an advocate of a principle. Lilburne was an advocate of a principle.

What Jeff Riggenbach is saying in his writing is that the heroism and self-sacrifice in the individual is worthy of MUCH admiration, especially when that individual stays consistently true to their highest principles.

But what you seem to be objecting to what Riggenbach states here:

But does it matter? Not really. What counts in history, including intellectual history, is results, not intentions.

This is not a repudiation of what Jeff Riggenbach personally might most admire in a person’s character. What this is IMO, is a reluctant admission, that History does not often remember or reward or acknowledge Great Character. What History’s Memory consists of, are the end-results, as sad a reality as that might be to me or you or to Jeff Riggenbach.

And if History so remembers and so records, so do we all similarly mostly end up remembering over time, over subsequent generations, and on most memorial occasions. Unsettling yes, but it happens because History is our teacher, a teacher with an imperfect archive and imperfect memory.

Sure, when ‘great character’ (George Washington) combines with ‘success’ then History remembers and acknowledges it. In such cases, History may even embellish its own Memory of such personages and their feats.

The indolent individual who succeeds by a fluke, cannot be compared to the conscientious individual who fails by a fluke.

Indeed, that is so true, in our hearts, at least.

There is no comparison with “the conscientious individual who fails by a fluke”.

That is also most often true, at least from History’s point of view, because that “conscientious individual who fails by a fluke” doesn’t even seem to exist —— while that lucky “indolent individual who succeeds by a fluke” often predominates in History’s Story.

Sad, but true.

Your “conscientious individual who fails by a fluke” is often not even recorded by the cold ‘objective’ writing hand of History.

He (or she), your “conscientious individual who fails by a fluke” is similar to the Unknown Soldier who, while like someone on occasion we may through time mistily grieve and ‘remember’, usually falls anonymously in History as in battle, cheek pressed against the damp forest floor or hot open field, calling out to loved ones back home and to fallen comrades, having done the duty asked by those back home.

Such ‘conscientious individuals’ may sleep not only in their Graves Without Crosses but may also so slumber in History’s Unmarked Graves.